The act of drawing a dress on a croquis reminds me of playing with paper dolls when I was little. Which suddenly makes it a lot more appealing!
In general, I consider myself to be much better at manipulating than I am at creating things from thin air... but I suppose trying to copy a line drawing freehand isn't exactly high art, and I should be able to get the hang of it eventually. Right?
With that in mind, I tried to draw a little something on my croquis, loosely following this tutorial from the lovely Alana of Lazy Stitching. This is what I came up with:
I can immediately see the benefit of this activity. It's so much easier to visualize what the proportions of the garment will look like on my figure! (In this case, I feel much more confident that B5707 will look good on me.) Between the paper-doll-esque fun and the practical benefit (and the fact that this actually took very little time), I can see this becoming something I will actually take the time to do.
I'm very grateful for my little tablet, which was a gift from my fantastic brother a few years back. Until now I've used it exclusively for photo editing, but it definitely made doing this about 100x easier and would be well worth the price if you were interested in digital drawing!
Anyway, lest you think I'm just piddling around on the internet these days, I actually have a skirt nearing completion. Tomorrow I'll take some in-progress photos and show them to you. I fell into the habit of only showing finished objects last year, but I'm thinking this year a little more detail might be fun. (Even if it means actually owning up to project failures!) So, stay tuned!
Very cool. And I agree, it's a good pattern for you.
ReplyDelete@Seraphinalina - I'm glad you agree! It's moving up my "to make" list... right after the Lonsdale and the Bombshell (have to justify the fabric purchases and the little sew-along badges I've been falsely displaying for months now!)
ReplyDeleteyay for in-progress posts! I haven't made my croquis yet, though i'm keen to. I think it'll help to see what separates will go together as well. I'm just so miserable at drawing... I tried to sketch the line drawings for my next few projects in my journal and the results were pretty sad!
ReplyDeleteLovely pattern on you!! I can certainly see the benefits of a croquis and have seen so many pop around on the intrawebs I might give in and make my own.
ReplyDelete@Alice - I definitely think you should, and you're totally right about separates! I think the advantage to us non-artists (or, at least, non-draw-ers!) is that the croquis itself is a tracing, so it gives you something to continue to trace around even as you're "freehanding" the clothing. It's definitely a lot easier than I thought it would be!
ReplyDelete@Suzy - I'm really excited to see what you come up with!
Hey K: Further to our conversation in comments, FYI, if you're willing to branch out on brands, BraStop is having a really great online sale. You can get a set for 40 bucks i.e. 25 pounds. There's even an extra 10 per cent on sale items. They have Panache and Freya which would probably work well on you. They also have other brands you can check out. Chantelle isn't one of them but they have a lot of Curvy Kate and Flirtelle molded cup bras. If you buy more than 55 pounds shipping to Canada is free, which is almost unheard of. I've bought from this company. It's a good experience. I haven't seen better online prices on good, larger cup bras.
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome! I'm totally willing to branch out on brands, although it does make me nervous to buy without trying. But if shipping is free then I suppose the only risk is paying return shipping if it doesn't work out? Thanks for the heads up!
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