Zero waste Shirt and Jacket for Alain

After Holly's tutorial I was inspired to start my Zero Waste shirt. These are the steps that I followed to make the shirt. It is a combination of all of Julia Lumsdens techniques, evolved into something of my own. 

STEP 1: Drape on mannequin to get pattern blocks. I drape because I find it easier to get a better fit and understand what I am designing. For this shirt I wanted my concrete elements to be:

1. Look like a shirt (I wanted to prove that something that was zero waste did not have to be lose and distorted).

2. Grain line down centre front

3. Be cohesive with Alain collection. 

STEP 2: Transferring to Pattern. After Holly's tutorial I decided to combine the jacket and shirt together in one pattern as fabric was very wide and I couldn't get the length of the jacket without combining it with other patterns. I pieced the draped blocks together like a puzzle to make the pattern. 

STEP 3: Transferring to card. I make pleat lines straighter and simplify shapes, merging areas with outlines from blocks. 

STEP FOUR: Toile time! Because I have changed so much of the shape, I need to toile before using the actual fabric. This is the toile for the shirt. I stupidly sewed the back to front i.e. pleats are supposed to be at the back. I also forgot about a button wrap so need to add this to the pattern and re- toile.