CIMENT PLEATERS _

Pleaters. What springs to mind? Old ladies skirts, frumpy garments? I suppose that's from walking into charity shops and seeing bulk pleated shirts with a hideously ugly pattern that has put me off, but I think I've been converted. 
Ciment pleaters. The only pleaters left in Britain, they created garments for the queen amongst other people!  Amazing.
30? 40? So many samples placed across the table, these weren't your conventional pleats. 'Any paper fold you can create, however intricate it may be, and you can replicate it and slot it into one another, you can make a pleat from'. I was genuinely amazed at the wonderful array of beautiful pleats, the structure and form the produced.  The whole way through I was relating the designs back to my own work, thinking about the texture and how that represented what I was researching. The use of a pleated fabric in a garment would totally transform it, adding texture and structure that a normal fabric could never achieve. 
The process to make the pleated fabric was simple. Some of the accordion pleats were created by machine, but the more intricate pleats were created by hand. A piece of material is put between a pattern (a large piece of cardboard folded with the pleated design). Weights are put at either end, and then the material is forced into the folds as the cardboard is pushed down. It is then steamed to hold the pleats. I never believed something so wonderful could be created so easily. 

SHIRT_ pattern cutting and making

Considering I am a 'fashion' student, I hadn't done a considerable amount of actually making garments. I had always wanted to, but I was a bit hap hazard and messy, so I always got annoyed and gave up at the first hurdle, so experience was lacking.
To be honest, I was nervous about making a shirt- they've thrown us in at the deep end! What's happened to the samples and weeks of planning I was used to from previous years? Maybe mixing things up was for the best, adds a bit of excitement. 
The theme that the shirt had to follow was it had to be sporty and have a minimum of 4 changes to that of a conventional shirt. I went with my personal style and designed a boxy cropped shirt with a stand up collar- sporty enough for me. I'm good at designing and (not to sound big headed) ideas come to me in vast amounts, so this was the easy part. However modifying the pattern of a basic shirt block was a different story. I needed constant reassurance that I was doing it right, as all parts needed to match up. I got in a massive muddle and ended up having to re do the bottom part of the shirt. The pattern pieces didn't match up, but I guess it was good I corrected it then, not when I was half way through making. Very frustrating. 
It was valuable to learn as I now feel (vaguely) confident enough to produce my own patterns and make interesting garments. The pattern master, however scary it looks, was rather easy to use and I really benefited using it to make sure all the pattern pieces lined up (I couldn't have been that good at using it then!) 

Making the shirt didn't come much easier to me. Once cutting the material out, I had to figure out what bit goes where. Easy I thought! How wrong could I have been when I was modifying the hem where I had stitched the front panels on the wrong side. Apart from that, things ran quite smoothly (except I chopped half my insert seam off on the overlocker, I wasn't impressed). Of course I had to get used the the fiery speed at which my chosen machine runs, but once I had the foot pressure just right I was rearing to go. As I am quite insecure, I liked to ask if what I had pinned or stitched together was correct, or eagerly asked what the next step was. But that's just me. 
I'm always in a rush, and from previous experience, this doesn't bode well when trying to make something. I took it slow and carefully put my shirt together, making sure it was at a quality I was happy with. Of course the were elements to which I could have improved,  but effectively it was my first toile so amendments could be made when evaluating the shirt. I made amended pattern pieces after pointing out what needed to be improved- the size of the collar, the length, the width of insert seams. Producing these pattern pieces was a really good was of evaluating the shirt and seeing how small changes can make a vast difference in the appearance and proportions of the shirt.
I was proud of it and what I had achieved. I managed to calm myself down, which was a massive help. Not too much frustration or anger is key. Easier said than done.