This week was a very busy one as it was my final week! Although I am excited to finish I am feeling a mix of emotions as I am sad  to finish.

At the beginning of this week I did a practice run of print on to my material. This was the big test to see what materials would keep and which ones would react badly to the heat press. All of the materials that I used either melted or reacted in a bad way as shown in my book. But the two materials that I wanted to use where perfect at a certain temperature which I had to test multiple of times, but in the end found the right technique and temperature. 

I then went a brought the rest of the meterage that I need and started to make my pattern pieces. Making the pattern I found was difficult as I have never made my own pattern before. First of all I started with and mens slim shirt and I enlarged the whole piece using the slash and cut method and I then dropped the arm whole as I wanted my garment to be oversized. 

Once I had completed the pattern cutting I printed on to my fabric. This was challenging because of the material I brought I couldn’t put it through the heat press roller I had to do it on the heat press machine which was section by section and making sure it had lines up properly. The first piece was done but unfortunately the print had come out not as expected and it was faint and lumpy in some areas. I tired to repeat this again but the same problem occurred. In the end I stuck with the print, which grew on me and it gave the garment pieces some character and as my project is to do with skin and not all skin is perfect I then thought it actually matched my project theme. 

After printing all of the pattern piece the next step was cutting out the lining and the wadding. I had brought a dark grey cotton for the lining and a think wadding so the jacket looked thick and oversized. Once this was done I then thought about have the jacket reversible which was harder than I thought so I didn’t not carry through with this on the jacket.

Once I had sewn the body together I then joined the piping on to the outside of the jacket for the red elastic to be threaded through [sample of this in my jacket] I then attached the one arm, then thread the elastic through which was extremely difficult. 

I then had left over material which I used to make a pair of cycling short which was extremely easy. To do this I copied around the shape of a pair of leggings I had to make the base pattern piece which I then adapted to the models size and made them shorter to be shorts. Once this had been complete it was just a case of sewing them together. To make these better I could have overlooked the inside and hemmed the edges but overall I was happy with the look.

Overall with the making of my garments I feel they looked very successful and pleasing to the eye. Thought out the making of the jacket I came across a few issues which I would do differently next time one being when sewing the sleeve on use an industrial machine as a home sewing machine was very taxing. I feel if I had done it on an industrial machine the edges would have been straighter and the finishing look would have overall been better. Another issue was putting the red elastic through the piping if I was to do this differently I would sew on side of the piping down then hold it in the when sewing the other side. I used a safety pin which kept on come undone half way through threading it through the jacket and i would then have to start again and again so to save time I would do the method I explained above.