Cleo ☾ internships in 2021

Today I worked on the fastening for the Crystal Chain Skirt - four poppers and a hook and eye stitched by hand. 

Yesterday and this morning - I cut out the stickers for Clio’s collaboration with dating app Tinder. Satisfying but long task! Love the stickers. 

For the last two weeks of my internship with Clio Peppiatt, I’ve been working on two toiles: Her circle bag and the skirt. It was really interesting deriving the skirt from an old Vogue pattern and then beginning ruching samples to experiment with the skirts structure and surface. I also created the pattern for the circle bag - using measurements from the flat drawing I made on Illustrator. This was an interesting process having all of the elements (sketch, flat, toile) together and witnessing how they all lead into the next stage. 

Today I had to slip stitch the remaining part of the seam left open, once I had pulled through the lining of the bag. I had never tried this before so to was really interesting and useful to see what this stitch could do! Afterwards I retraced the bag patterns. The next piece Clio is creating is an embroidered Cape - which is really beautiful. I had to research some patterns so I could then begin working on the toile next week. 

(Almost) finished bag toile! Just need to slip stitch the hole I left to turn out the bag. It’s so cute.

Firstly figuring out the handle pattern then once fronts and backs of bag were sewn - where to pin and also place the single handle.  

From the tech drawing, I created a pattern for the bag and cut out the pieces for the first toile (out of calico) which was fun.

Created using Adobe Illustrator !

Today I’m working on the tech pack for one bag design. It was really interesting seeing and hearing about Clio’s process with making the tech packs - she usually uses Adobe Photoshop - and then sends them off to the factories in Vietnam and India that she works with. Usually they have a toile and tech pack to go off when creating the bag.  Also the bags are so cute! I'm actually in love. 

- Proud of these samples as I think they showcased the technique quite well and definitely has improved my sewing and ruching skills. 

After ruching samples I presented to Clio, we then spoke about testing out a longer sample as she was thinking that the ruching would be directly in the seam of the skirt, rather than appliqué - so I experimented on a longer piece of fabric cut out in the actual curved pattern piece. The ruching will be navigating a curved seam, so was difficult to maintain this clear shape as the fabric bunched up quite a lot. 

Ruching samples! <3

Now going to be experimenting with ruching technique for front seams of the skirt. Need to create a few samples first to play around with scale and size of ruching. 

Second toile ~ first experiments done!

Continuing working on skirt toile, adding the waistband, using ribbon and hook-and-eye fastening. Really neatens up the skirt adding the grosgrain ribbon around the edge. Pleased with result!

Since I am cutting on the bias, it is useful to use a zig-zag stitch as this allows more flexibility at the seams - pictured are some practices before I started on the toile - testing wide stitch lengths - to super short. 

- Deciding which panels to cut in green and beige for second toile !