Pattern #1347 - distressing the hems

This will be the last blog about these costumes.  There are several others that can be easily found if you type "#1347" into the search box.

Two of these costumes have ragged hems. On the pattern they are simply straight cut lines so they need to be artfully cut to look either like the edge of an animal skin or the edge of fabric that has been worn and torn.

When movie and theatrical costumes are made to look worn this is called "distressing" and there is a really good explanation of this with many tips on the LOTR - Allycatsratch website.  Check it out.

Remember this photo of the fabric swatches I took to show Simplicity my fabrics before beginning to work on the patterns?  I felt the white suede cloth was much too white. It is a 100% polyester and I knew it wouldn't really take dye, so I made a strong dye bath of brown and taupe, left the fabric in for a long time and was able to tone down the bright white to an off white. That, in a way, is part of distressing.

Now, here is this costume before doing anything to the hems.  All the sewing is finished. 


You can see the edges of the bib section of the top have been left raw, but I want them to look MORE raw.


And, at this point, all the edges of the skirt are straight and squared off.

---

To start, I start taking lots of tiny cuts with the ends of my scissors.  I like to pull at the fabric at the same time I'm cutting to get it to tear a little.  As with any kind of cutting it is best to cut away little bits at a time.  More can always be cut off, but it is much harder to put back on ... ha ha.

The top is finished. Now the skirt needs to be dealt with. All the edges of the skirt, except for the waistband need to be treated.

Again, make lots of tiny cuts, trying to keep them as irregular as possible.  And I find that harder than it seems it should be.  It is so easy to end up with a bunch of perfectly even zig zags and that looks really, really artificial and stupid.

Fingernails are great tools to encourage fraying.  But, seriously, read the distressing article mentioned above.  If you really want to get into this, you can use things like cheese graters, dye and mud to get very realistic effects.

The edges of the skirt under the flap should be cut to look like an animal hide.

The remains of my work.

The hem of this dress also needs to be distressed.  This dress should look like the wearer has been running through the woods for days and days, so staining the hem with dye, paint or mud would be a nice touch after the cutting is complete.

For this hem, I first cut some large irregular shapes, then went back and cut lots and lots of tiny jagged and hanging bits.

These are the two photos I took for my reference before sending everything to New York, but I must have cut the skirt's front panel after taking this photo because I know I didn't leave it straight and square like that.


I really would love to see what some of you folks do with this pattern.  You can send me photos, if you first send me a message to the contact page.


Cheers, Andrea