Custom-made bed fashions such as comforters, comforter covers, pillow shams and dust ruffles can be ruffled or tailored to suit the decor. Chintzes, polished cottons and sateens are good choices for most bed coverings. Sheets are another practical fabric choice; their width makes seaming unnecessary on comforters and covers. Permanent press fabrics with soil-resistant finishes [...]

Patches are a great way t0 get into recycling and reusing fabrics in fresh and inspiring ways. You can make patches to use up your old scraps or remnants of fabric rather than just throwing them away; you can also use them to liven up or repair worn clothing, accessories or furnishings. Parches also make [...]

Coordinating napkins are the finishing touch to your tabletop fashions. Standard finished napkins are 14" or 17" (33.5 or 43 cm) square. Before cutting the fabric, square the ends, using a carpenter's square. For fringed napkins, square the ends by pulling a thread. Napkin hems can be decorative. Experiment with some of the decorative stitches [...]

Trimmed place mats have banding stitched to one side. Purchase finished trim or cut trim from fabric. Cutting Directions Cut the place mat 1" (2.5 cm) larger than desired finished size (page 104). Press W' (1.3 cm) seam allowance to right side of place mat on all edges. Cut trimming long enough to go around [...]

All of the foregoing patterns were designed for a balanced effect, that is, half a pattern to be cut on a fold of fabric. When opened out, the darts will be exactly the same on either side of the center front or back. This is a formal or symmetrical balance (Fig. 18a). It is the [...]

Darts need not always be straight lines. They may be curved for interest. For instance, a French underarm dart looks quite pretty when it is a curved rather than a straight line (Fig. 16). 1. On the cut-out sloper with the cut-out dart, locate the position of the new dart. Mark the point A. 2. [...]

1. Trace the bodice-front sloper. Cut out the tracing and the dart. 2. Lightly draw an arc as a guideline for positioning the dart tucks (Fig. 56a). Make it a distance from the neckline equal to the length you desire for the dart tucks. They may be of equal length or graduated. 3. Draw the [...]

Here is still another method for dividing the control into multiple darts using the sloper dart control in its original position. 1. Trace the sleeve sloper. Cut out the tracing and the dart. 2. Locate the position of the new darts on each side of the elbow dart and Y2 inch away from it. Make [...]

Do you recall the exercises that utilized the bulging block as a method of eliminating the waistline dart so that we had an uninterrupted area in which to design? Here is another device that serves the same purpose. Using the flat pattern shift the dart control out of the way. Do your designing. Shift it [...]

Another common division of dart control is between waistline and shoulder darts. 1. On the cut-out bodice-front sloper with the cut-out dart, locate the position of the new shoulder dart. When there is a dart on the back shoulder, it is a fine point in design to match the location of the two. Place the [...]