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Hello! It’s Annika. Today, I’m going to
show you how to turn one dress into two.
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[music plays]
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Today I'm going to film myself whilst I try and replicate a dress.
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This dress, in fact.
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I really, really like the style of this dress,
and after I posted pictures of me wearing
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it on the interwebs, a bunch of you asked
me to make a tutorial for a similar style of dress.
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But I really had no idea how I would make
this kind of dress from scratch, so I thought
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then I set about first trying to “reverse
engineer” the thing.
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And so this video morphed into a video where
I show you some methods and tips and tricks
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for copying how you would go about replicating
or "reverse engineering" your own dress. Or
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- I guess this could also work for a shirts,
if you don't wear dresses?
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Anyway, let’s get started!
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So, let’s talk about fabrics. The first
thing that you want to do is to find a fabric
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type that’s really similar to the one used
in the item you’re duplicating.
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The fabric in this pink dress is a light knit
with a small amount of stretch to it.
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I’m going to need to use fabric which is
similar.
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This fruit-printed fabric is pretty much the
same, plus it’s really cute,
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so I’m going to use this.
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Then, I scrutinized the insides of the dress,
and I figured out how many individual different
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pieces of fabric the dress was made out of.
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So, I got my dress and some paper to make
a pattern on – I’m using wrapping paper.
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And… whoops. These two things have the same
exact pattern, so that’s going to be nice
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and confusing for the camera.
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I folded the dress in half, with the collar
flipped out of the way to expose this full
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bodice piece. I'm copying the front part of
the dress first.
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Then, I trace around the bodice. When I get
to these parts that are connected to other
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bits of fabric, I use these pins to stab through
the fabric on the seamline, and into the pattern
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paper below. This will make small, faint marks
onto the paper, and let me trace the proper
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shape of this seam.
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So, to recap, I’ve just traced half of this
front of the dress onto paper. This middle
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triangle section uses a separate piece of
fabric to the main bodice, so I’ll be copying that later.
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Then, I add half an inch of seam allowance
to every side of the pattern, except for here,
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because this is where the pattern will lie
on the fold.
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Then I cut this pattern piece out, and I do
the exact same thing for the back.
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Then I add a half-inch seam allowance, on
all the edges except for the one that’ll
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sit on the fabric fold. So notice here, that
where the dress was folded, that’s where
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I’m then going to put “cut on fold”,
and where I will be placing the pattern on
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the fold of the fabric. And I also make a
little note that the stretch of the fabric
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needs to run this way – across the bodice,
just like in the original dress.
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Now the skirt is just a gathered rectangle,
so instead of wasting paper making a pattern,
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I’m just going to take the length of the
skirt, adding 1 inch for seam allowance at
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both the top and bottom. And then I take the
width, multiplying by 2 to get the entire
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front and back of the skirt, and then adding
a good 20 inches to allow for it to be all
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ruffled and gathered.
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Then I turn the dress inside out and I copy
this triangle – with an added seam allowance
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of half an inch all the way around.
And lastly, I copy the collar, which I lay
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on top of my pattern paper like this. I traced
around the collar, and added a seam allowance
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to the outside edge. I added an extra inch
of seam allowance because these collar edges
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are going to be sewn to something else twice
– so it requires two lots of a ½ inch seam
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allowance. And I’m going to need 4 of these
pieces.
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So, these are all the pattern pieces for the
top of the dress (and for the skirt, I’ll
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just need to cut out a rectangle) – so,
let’s go and cut out some fabric!
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So I use the pattern pieces to cut out the
front piece,
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the back piece,
two of these triangle bits,
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a rectangle that’s 11 by 60 inches,
and four collar pieces, and for this I use
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a different, white cotton fabric.
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Then the first sewing step is to place the
back and front bodice together, right sides
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together, and I sew them together here.
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Then I place the triangle pieces right sides
together, and sew them together across here.
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Note that I’m using a zigzag stitch for
all of this, because the material I'm using
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is stretchy. You need to use the right stitch
for your material.
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I’m then going to flip the triangle around
and sew it together with the wrong-sides touching.
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Then I gathered the long edge of the rectangle
skirt piece.
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I did this by sewing long basting stitches
along the top edge, then grabbing the top
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stitch, gently pulling on it, and pushing
the gathers along.
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I adjusted the ruffles so that the length
of the piece would match the circumference
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of the bottom of the top.
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So basically, if I can fold it in two and
it matches the top, plus about 1 inch hanging
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over, we’re good to go.
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So then I flip this skirt bit over, and I’m
going to sew it to the top right-sides together,
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with the skirt upside-down on the top, like
this.
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I’m just going to pin the two together…
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And it needs to get sewn on, all the way around.
Where the two ends meet up, they’ll also
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need to be sewn together like this.
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Yay, pretty!
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Now, back to the collar, I’m placing each
pair right-sides together, and sewing them
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together like this.
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I clipped off the corners and the edges here
to make the corners look neater, and then
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I turn both these collar-tube-pieces the right
way around. I use scissors to help me to get
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those corners nice and crisp.
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Then, I have a look at the original dress
to see exactly how the collar is attached,
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which is like this – it's actually sewn
onto the inside of the dress. The triangle
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also seems to get stitched into this at the
same time. So I insert the triangle where
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I want it to sit. Then, after I check out
the placement of the collar pieces on the
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front, I flip them over to the back of the
fabric, and I sew the three pieces together
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all of the way around the collar.
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I end up with this, and to finish this off
I sew these two ends together.
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To add cuffs, I cut out a rectangle of stretchy
fabric that’s just a bit smaller than the
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circumference of the sleeve opening.
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I sew this into a loop, then I fold it in
half lengthways, and I place it around the
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top of the sleeve, so that the raw edges are
all matching, and then I sew them together like this.
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And the last thing I do is to hem the bottom
of the dress, simply by folding the bottom
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edge up into the dress 1 inch and sewing across.
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And that’s how I copied this dress.
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So - let’s compare the two!
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[music plays]
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So that's it! That’s how I reverse-engineered
a pattern and made a copy of a dress!
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So they're basically the same - there's some
minor differences in that I sewed the triangle
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section a bit too far down, but because this
was the trickiest part of this project, I
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really didn't want to redo it, and I think
it looks fine so I'm going to leave it as-is.
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The back of the collar could also look a bit
neater, but that's something I can improve
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on next time.
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[Now go forth and duplicate your own favourite
dresses, in all different fabrics!]
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I hope this video was helpful -- if you try
it out then don't forget to tag me on instagram
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so I can see your results - just tag it with
#diyannika. Give this video a thumbs up if
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you enjoyed it and I'll see you all next time.
Bye!