NARNIA

For this project NTU collaborated with Newstead Abbey and I made a dress for their 'Narnia at Newstead' Exhibition.

For this project I made a robe to fit a 5 year old for the 'Narnia at Newstead' Exhibition. I dyed my calico with dylon machine dye. I had never used this technique and, although it's time consuming, it is straight forward. However, you can't tailor the colour to exactly what you want, which isn't ideal for some projects. For this project the 'tulip red' dye worked very well and came out as bright and striking as I wanted it to be. I would use this dyeing technique again if I found the needed colour, but mixing your own dyes gives provides more opportunity.

I finished the garment by overlocking and using the industrial overlockers was very efficient. This was my first time sewing princess seams and I had some difficulty pinning them together. The solution to this was to snip into the seam allowance, allowing the fabric to sit niceley when pinned together. I liked how the princess seams looked in the end so, I would definitely like to use them in another design.

To decorate the robe, I painted this detail around the hem of the dress and around the neckline. This detail was taken from wallpaper in the room where the dress would be kept in Newstead Abbey. This helped tie in the garment with the environment. I really enjoy painting so it was fun to incorporate it into the making of the garment. Next time I would draw the outline of the shape in a colour that is more similar to the paint so that it can't be seen after painting.

With my next garment I would like to focus on getting the facings right. I put facings in the arm holes on this dress, however, next time I would make them wider and I would stitch them down at the seam. This way the facings wouldn't come out of the dress. Here, I did press them down, but because they were too small and not secured they did sometimes come out of the dress. Overall, I was happy with the outcome and the dress was easy to slip on and off for the children at the exhibition due to the thick calico tie.