For the second dress we were given chiffon, which is known to be a difficult fabric to work with so i didn't want to do anything too complicated. I like the way chiffon looks when it has been gathered so i decided to just cut the chiffon into 2 big rectangular pieces to gather them and make a yoke for it to be attached to. Because chiffon would be very difficult to use to make a yoke, i decided to get an easier fabric to work with, i used a cotton and bought lining to go underneath, i found it difficult to line the fabric and especially on the neckline where it kept gathering, i made snips in it to loosen it but i think it was the tension on the machine that made it have a slight gather in the end.

I also didn't know how to completely make the raw edges of the yoke go into all the lining so that everything would be neat, also when attaching the chiffon bottom half, because the yoke was small it meant i couldn't put it inside of the lining and the cotton, so you could see the stitching on the outside which wasn't what i wanted.

After my first attempt of putting an invisible zip in my first skirt i attempted it again using the right foot on the machine and it worked out really well and was actually invisible. However once i put the skirt on the model and zipped it up, the zip broke i think it was because the skirt was small fitted so it was difficult to get the zip up and we tugged on it to hard.

Overall i think my second skirt worked out a lot better than the first because i understood the places i had gone wrong the first time.

http://www.sewbox.co.uk/blog/235/how-to-sew/a-beginners-guide-to-interfacing/

I wanted to learn more about interfacing and how it can be used and what fabrics its best for etc and found this blog which was useful on giving information about it.

For our second skirt we had to use interfacing, which was a difficult fabric to work with because you couldn't press it however i tried to use it to my advantage by making a peplum skirt and because interfacing stiffens fabric it meant the peplum worked well. The only problem i had with the peplum was that the fabric stared to fray and i thought with using interfacing it wouldn't.

David Koma uses Peplums in a lot of his work, i think from looking at his work inspired me to make a peplum to create a peplum i just made a semi circle on pattern paper and then cut round the fabric and cut a smaller whole in the centre so it would form a ruffle

The peplum i created, it started to fray on the edges which i thought wouldn't happen due to the interfacing but for some reason it did.

I used the basic skirt block because the first skirt i made i didn't use a pattern, but i took the pattern in because i wanted it to be more fitted and towards the bottom of the pattern instead of being an a- line skirt, i wanted it to be a pencil skirt, i put two darts on the front and 4 on the back to create the fitted effect.

I used elastic round the waist so that it would fit to the body, but because i had sewn the band where the elastic would go through quite small it was difficult to pull the elastic through, next time i would definitely make the band bigger.

It was really difficult to hem the velvet because it kept rolling up so the stitch wouldn't stay straight. Because it was the first pair of trousers i had ever made i wanted to stick with something simple, i used a trouser block to start the pattern but i realise now that i should have used a jersey block to begin with because the fabric was stretchy just like jersey is.

http://www.fashion-era.com/velvets/velvet_sewing_tips.htm i looked on this website to give me some tips on how to work with velvet

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The next garment we had to make were a pair of trousers, we chose the fabric crushed velvet, and from using it, i found it very difficult to work with because it was very stretchy.

Lady gaga wore a latex dress made by Atsuko Kudo, a designer known for making garments from latex and rubber materials, i wanted to look into there work because there pieces are extremely feel made from such a difficult fabric. They have a shop in London which would be really interesting to visit to see how they finish there garments, and how they are sewn.