Croquis

Cashmerette Stanton Hoodie Dress

~ Michelle ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been looking at the Cashmerette Stanton Hoodie dress. I think it would be a great dress for winter. Nice, comfortable, warm. What more could I want? But.

My only concern is it’s a very straight design, and I’m not. Yes, that’s a very straight dress.

So, I thought, I know what I’ll do. I’ll try it on my croquis. Sadly, the program I had for that is on a crashed computer.

Not to be deterred, I turned to an online photo editing tool. PicMonkey. I’ve used it in the past, and it worked well enough to ‘try on’ this dress.

Here’s my croquis wearing the line drawing of the dress. One thing about trying on clothes this way is it won’t account for any adjustments I make to the pattern. I won’t be using one size. I’ll be blending sizes together to get a better fit.

Here’s my croquis wearing the plum dress the model is wearing on the website.I’m still not sure about the shape for me, but it might be one of the most comfortable dresses I ever make. I definitely think it’s worth trying.

If you do want to make a Cashmerette pattern, one of the things they have that I think is great is their Size Calculator.

   You plug your measurements in, and it tells you what size or what sizes to make. For example, my pattern would consist of 3 different sizes and a Full bust Adjustment. That calculator does a lot of the work for me in telling me what sizes to use on the pattern.

Happy creating! 

 

What Was I Thinking?

~ Michelle ~ 6 Comments

Are you all excited for our tour kicking off tomorrow?The kick-off post is tomorrow, but we’ll have to wait until Monday to see one of the gorgeous makes our bloggers made. But let me tell you, there are some really gorgeous makes!

What Was I Thinking? 

In the mean time, let me share with you an experience I recently had.

I saw a gorgeous top, and loved it right away. It was on sale too, so how could I go wrong?Isn’t that fun?

The problem is, I forgot what my figure it like. I realized it again when I tried this on in person after I’d ordered it.

Then I remembered my Croquis, and wondered why didn’t I digitally try this on before I bought it.

Do you see how all those fun little details fall exactly where I don’t want attention! All on my hips. That is not the look I want.

That top is being returned, but I thought I’d keep looking, but this time try things on digitally.

The Bag Look
Yes, I dubbed this one the bag. I didn’t think this did anything for me at all, so I kept looking.

Better   I did think this one is better, however, there’s no wow factor for me. And I’m not sure about that pattern band at the bottom.

Even Better I think I liked this one the best. However, I think before I buy this one, I’ll go try in on in person.

See you tomorrow for our kick-off!

Happy creating!

How I Adjust Photos for my Croquis

~ Michelle ~ 2 Comments

Here’s a photo tutorial on just how I adjust my photos. Warning. This post is a little bit technical.

The first thing I do is find an image for something I like. Here’s one I found.

This is Vogue 9202. It’s best to find an image that is straight on so it will paste over the croquis, which is also facing straight on.

You can see from the above screen shot, I save the image. I save all my images as JPEGs, as I find that the easiest image to use.

Once saved, I open my Photoshop program (I’m sure there are other programs that can do the same thing, or look for an older version of the program – it doesn’t have to be the newest. Mine isn’t new.)

In the above photo, I’m selecting the Lasso Tool. You also want to select the Magnetic Lasso Tool next.

In this next photo, I’m part way around the dress with the Magnetic Lasso Tool (MLT).

That might be a little hard to see, so I’ll enlarge this one.

Those little dotted lines and squares show the part being saved, and what will be cut out of the photo. It only takes a minute or two to do all of this so far.

The next thing I do once I’ve gone around the entire image with the MLT is I go to Edit, and Cut. Below is what remains. An outline of the image. This is the background that is left over. The image itself has been cut out from it.

Select the Move Tool (just because it’s easier to use at this point).

Now, I go to File, select New and then Blank File. That’s going to be my new photo without the background – the one I can now use to paste or layer over other photos.

Here’s the new blank photo ready to have the dress pasted onto it.

With this blank photo, I go to Edit, and select Paste.

There. My dress is back. This looks pretty much the same as the first image I opened in Photoshop, but it will behave very differently! As well, I cut the back neck away from the dress.

If you’ve done this with me, you’ve done the work and now comes the fun!

I open my croquis now. It won’t close the other photos I have opened in the program.

You can still see the new dress photo without a background, and the original dress photo with only an outline left, and my croquis all at the bottom of the screen.

Now I simply click on the dress and drag it up over my croquis.

You can see it doesn’t fit yet. All you can see of my croquis is an elbow and wrist peeking out from behind the dress. That’s okay.

I click on the dress photo and a small box appears around it, which I can adjust in both height and width.

Above I’ve adjusted the top. You can see the box in the photo. The dress is still too big, so time to make another adjustment or two.

There. I’ve brought the bottom up to about the right length for me. Still too wide though.

Now to adjust the side. I try to adjust it so the width of the dress is covering my hips. They’re my widest part, so I want to see how this will look covering that part of me.

There. That gives me a really good indication of how this dress will look on me.

Just one more click outside the dress area, and I see the final results. The box is gone.

If there’s anything I still feel needs adjusting, I can simply click on the dress again, and that same box will show up allowing me to make adjustments. This new image can now be saved.

It’s not perfect. If you look closely, you’ll see the shoulders are too big on my croquis, however, the croquis proportions are right. I can see what this dress will look like on my figure – shorter than the image on the pattern cover, and wider too. At this point I can see if I like it or not, and decide if I’m going to try the pattern or if it’s a pass.

I hope this helped. Let me know if you try this, if you have Photoshop or another program that you use to do something similar.

Happy creating!

Making a Personal Croquis

~ Michelle ~ 16 Comments

Have you used a personal croquis? Last year I decided I was going to make one. This is one of my UFOs that I’m completing this year. If I’d had any idea of how much fun I would have, I’d never have put it off!

To me, a croquis is a basic drawing used to see how clothing will look on a body – in this case, on my body.

Adjusted Hourglass Figure

I think croquis are a great concept, except I don’t look like them, not even the hourglass ones. You almost never see a croquis with shorter legs! You definitely don’t see them with a little more padding than they need, or with curly hair! I found the image on the right online and played with it to give her shorter legs, more curves, and curly hair!

I have to say, I’ve been having fun with my curvy curly girl.

Digital Paper Dolls

Here she is trying on a couple of outfits.

Here she’s wearing the top from McCall’s 7538. The original is below for comparison.I’ve been wondering about this pattern because of the emphasis at the waist. There’s a fine line between defining a curvy girl’s waist and looking like Jessica Rabbit.

Here she is with the same pattern, but wearing one of the dress options.

I’m not loving this dress on her. It makes her hips look even wider.

However, this dress shape is from the same pattern. I can see right away this is a better shape for my curvy curly girl.

For all three of these clothing images, I copied the image from the web, played with it in Photoshop to remove the background, layered it over a photo of my girl, then adjusted the height and width to fit her figure. It sounds like a lot of work, but it only took a few minutes for each image. I found it rather fun. It really is like playing with digital paper dolls.

It was also very helpful in seeing how the dress design would look on my shape.

Beautiful Croquis

Gwen, a fellow blogger, goes beyond a simple croquis outline and does an illustration of herself in the garment she plans to make. I love it! Here’s an image from Calm Under Tension (used with permission).

Isn’t this fabulous? I marvel at Gwen’s drawings as much as I admire her makes. Gwen is a fellow lingerie-maker, so I know you’ll love her blog too.

Personal Croquis

Where did this whole desire to make my own croquis even get started? I received an email with this video. This is a great tutorial that takes you through the steps to create a personal croquis. It’s on the Threads website. The video goes through the whole process. I love seeing how something is done rather than reading how.

Making a croquis has been a goal of mine since this tutorial came out, so I finally did it. Here’s the beginning of mine.

In the video, the next step is to learn to draw your figure out, much like Gwen’s above, and draw the dress, or clothing on it. Here’s the final image from the Threads’ tutorial.

Yes, this is very much like what Gwen is doing. I may try it at some time, but I have to admit, I’m pretty happy playing with my digital paper doll and using the simple outline. It does exactly what I’m wanting as an outline.

Here’s my very basic croquis. She’s my measurements and my proportions, which I was quite surprised to find out were very close my curvy curly girl above. The curvy curly has a more exaggerated waist, and her legs are longer. I gave my croquis nicer curly hair, which resembles mine.

This last image gives me a really good indication of how that same McCall’s dress will look on me. I like it! Happy creating!