We’ve had Vogue #2890 up at the workrooms a couple of times of the years, and it is always a crowd-pleaser IF you pay attention to what you are doing AND you don’t mind adapting the shape just a bit in the back of the corset and bodice. Read More →
If your students start knocking together little semi-sheer linen dresses to wear during the rest of class, you can be proud, you can also be amused, but best believe it is time to put in the air conditioners.Read More →
Debbie uses a dress form to deal with problematic knits.Read More →
Dress Design by Millhouse & Mansfield is a great mid-century post-war reference for your sewing library.Read More →
If you are draping a garment like coat or jacket, it is easy to over-fit it as you drape against the dress form. To keep the garment from being too tight and needing alteration right off the bat, pad the dress form with a heavy sweater, jacket, or coat. This will give you the extra volume you need to play around on the dress form and give you a better result without having to figure the ease geometrically after the garment is draped and you are correcting the pattern. As a side note, remember as you are fitting the sample on the person toRead More →
Vogue #2890 – an elegant Bellville Sassoon design. So Debbie Permoda was a student at Tchad for a while. She needed an evening gown to wear when she gave up her title as Mrs. Indiana and came to us with the chiffon confection that Bellville Sassoon has had in the Vogue pattern book for years. She wanted a striking red satin and chiffon dress that would hold up as both pageant wear and as a well-made evening gown. Let’s get started. First off, sorry about the darkness in some of the photos. Debbie was burning the midnight oil more than once on this project andRead More →
When you have some leftover scraps form the remnant bin and love the fabric but don’t know what to do with them, one of the best things to play with is draping something like this sleeveless cropped blouse. Verena used the front and back from the workroom’s slope size 10 and worked her way out from there. The front had to be pieced at the waistline to accommodate the odd-shaped scraps and the back had to be cut in a V, but it looks great. If you look at the neckline you can see a slight join where the black border wasn’t long enough toRead More →
Sana came to the States having worked under a designer before and wanting to know more. Over the course of the class, she draped this multi-sized grey floor length dress in georgette. And then once she was done, she got a model to go out for a late-Winter photoshoot: You can follow her on Instagram and watch her go go go!Read More →
Umang had started on a formal strapless gown and then got discouraged because she had to take a break and changed size. We don’t shame folks for that, but there is only so much you can vary in size with a fitted corseted strapless evening gown. So the poor little guy sat in the closet for weeks and weeks, just waiting… And then, after having met the sweetest guy, she all the sudden needed a wedding dress and started the work to get back to the size of the dress. The final day of her progress on it we (shakily) captured: We constructed theRead More →
Decima, she who conquered Province, called us up wondering if she could fly into Chicago to work on a draped black silk evening gown and beaded collar. We are never ever going to say no to something like that, so with the humility required when students want to fly across the country to work with you, we said: “Yes, absolutely yes.” Decima has already had a good deal of sewing under her belt, and the dress itself was pretty straightforward, so we dove right into it. As Tchad was showing her how to manipulate the draping so that it formed the right slack, it feltRead More →
Debbie pops in every now and then to fine tune this and that and use the space a little. This time it was for a laser-cut organize evening gown with a plunging neckline and contrasting belt:Read More →
Zoë needed a diversion from her lab wok at the University of Chicago, so she thought she’d work up four looks for a fashion show…Read More →
Lindsey came to us with a question…Read More →
Gathering fabric for the right effect is easier and looks better when you use a dress form or support.Read More →
Natalie’s first draping project – keep it simple for a more likely success.Read More →
Or, with the classical bent we have at Tchad, I suppose you could subtitle it:
She came, She Sewed, She Conquered*Read More →
Lisa wanted to move away from standard patterns and venture into the world of draping knits…Read More →
Cessane Johnston made this crushed silk show-stopper early on in Tchad LLC’s history.Read More →