For your weekend reading pleasure, yet another better late than never archives entry. Below are the entries published on this site for this week over the past four years. Hope you’re having a great weekend.
June 19 through June 25, 2005
Welt-Reece machine operations
Marking & Cutting
Welt and paper jig
Re-framing industrial methods
Welt pocket construction
June 19 through June 25, 2006
Latest is greatest?
Plant organization
Plant organization pt. 2
Pleating
How I Got Started
Camping
Line sheets revisited
June 19 through June 25, 2007
Price fixing
Pop quiz #462
Roundup: The birds and bees
Pop quiz #462 pt.2
News from you 6/22/2007
Are designers, designers? Dedicated to the incompetent
June 19 through June 25, 2008
Studying for the California garment exam
News From You 6/19/2008
Sustainable packaging
Vanity sizing: generational edition pt.2
How do you cut notches?
Designing uniforms
Hi, Kathleen. I just wanted to let you know that the Re-framing Industrial Methods article (under the 2005 entries above) seems to have gone missing. Hope you’re having a good weekend.
Thanks Lisa! Fixed now, I don’t know how I managed to louse that up because I actually checked!. If you’re ever stymied by getting this error page in the future, you can solve it one of two ways.
1. There were some import problems when the site migrated to WP. The problem is usually that the URL needs an underscore ( _ ) where a hyphen appears in the title. For example, “Re-framing industrial methods” url was …/archive/reframing…but should be …/archive/re_framing… I’ve been meaning to repair all these with htaccess and was already to go but did something really dumb that day that took the whole site offline.
2. Second way to fix this, at least from weekly archives entry is to go to an entry before or after and then click from there, forward or backward. I realize you know this but mention for others who might not be very familiar with blogs.
This is a couple of random comments based on the clothes that have passed through my hands this evening doing my nightly eBay chores.
One of the pants I posted had a definitely curved waistline. The front of the waistband dipped by at least an inch. Based on my own observation, this follows the way the human body is built. However, I spent my entire career as a pattern maker fighting with production men who wanted me to make a straight across waist so that the operaters could turn it down straight over the elastic (cheap sportswear). I always maintained that a curved waist could be turned under, just not as quickly, which of course was their point. I am curious to hear any comments, especially from Kathleen.
The other pant was a very regular print, and made by a very nice label. I am sure this pant was at least $75 new. And the very regular print was not matched, not even at center front. I would have thought it should have been at that price point. At least a horizontal match. Some years ago I had a blouse from a similar label with a print not nearly so well defined that was matched at the center front not only horizentally, but vertically as well, so that with the blouse buttoned, the print was uninterrupted. Now that is quality.
A curved waist can be turned under, with caveats. In part it depends on how loose or tight the weave is, will it give? Second, you have to cut the waist band allowance wider at its outer edge, in much the same way you would the hem of a tapered pant leg (but still, the pant leg turn is straight). My litmus test generally is, if cut in paper or cardboard (or sheet metal even) is there enough length to the underturned waist band to match the area onto which it is sewn? Usually there isn’t because the pant is flaring out to the hip. Personally, I prefer curved waists, they fit better than straight ones meaning a separate waistband has to be cut but this isn’t tenable in commodity or even casual/moderately priced sportswear.
Think knits, light weight poly, crinkle rayon fabric for the most part. In plus sizes. I tended to their Sunny Lady label. I generally tried to hold my ground on the basis of fit, because the waist curve in plus sizes is even more pronounced than in misses. And we generally compromised on a separate waistband. Or I would take part of the curve out of the waist and grit my teeth over the fit. I was of course careful to check the measurement of the top of the waistband to the line where it would meet the waist. But that did not truly put the fullness where the operator needed it, at the front of the curve. What saved me was the soft fabric. A fold or two in a multistitched waistband really didn’t show; I stitched enough of them myself to master the technique.