Couture Close-Ups with Charles Kleibacker: Designer Construction, 1978

the world of beautiful clothes Couture clothes is full of careful detail and construction in the current collection I have we have a great many of the garments held to the waist in front with tiny biases I'd like to show you how we have done those very neatly and how much of a simple bias you can do if you will have a bit of patience which is a word that we need to think about when we are doing careful clothes you can do all of that the first thing you need to do is to cut a true bias 3/4 of an inch wide now don't fold over a piece of fabric to get a true bias that is three quarters of an inch wide that will give you a true biased folding over the fabric but I would rather you would take a piece of fabric measure whatever width it is let's say it's 36 inches wide measure down 36 inches on the selvage and put a mark and join that mark with your edge up here or I don't care if you need a short bias say we take 10 inches along the cross grain 10 inches down the selvage mark that mark and join those with a ruler or whatever you have at hand on a dark piece of fabric I mark with chalk on a pale color I very lightly pencil and I'm doing all of this on the wrong side remember now to get this much length that I'm showing you here which we had around the dress on Virginia you'll never find a piece of fabric wide enough to do all of this this is joined but it's joined only one time so remember I have either penciled or chalked in a diagonally bias to get two pieces of the bias I mark out from that one line 3/4 of an inch because I find 3/4 of an inch is the narrowest you can cut these very skinny biases so I mark out 3/4 from that nine on one side three-quarters on another side and I have three parallel biased lines I cut those and I wind up with for this two 3/4 of an inch bias ribbons of course they will be the same color join those on grain and buy grain I mean straight grain or cross grain whichever it has whichever end you have ended up with but don't join on bias I'm going to ask you at the machine once you're stitching to stretch this like mad so you must have exactly the same stretch as though there was no seam so join it on grain press it carefully trim away as much as possible but not so much that you my travel away after you've done that joining fold the bias edge to edge where you are now 3/8 of an inch wide coming folding in from that 3/4 and at that time take a needle and thread and down approximately the center of that bias which is now 3/8 of an inch wide hand based and you can do stitches that are say a good eighth of an inch almost a quarter of an inch long and in this instance you can do a number of them when you're doing those stays I talked to you about at the neckline you have to do a stitch come up a stitch come up the same thing with if you would put in a zipper here you can do a number of them to save yourself time but notice please that I'm holding that very definitely edge to edge now say I have done six inches I would take my scissors cut that thread go over a couple of those threads and start again another six inches no knots anywhere in this please once at the machine I want all of this to give with you as you are stretching you need to hand based because this edge needs to be held very carefully very meticulously edge to edge and there is no way once you're at the machine stretching this like mad that you can hold that edge to edge if you have not hand baste it all right having hand basted the entire length of it go to the machine stitch in an eighth of an inch from the raw edge from the cut edge don't work from the fold edge work from the cut edge and as you are machine stitching stretch like mad my advice to you would be to start with a rather short one rather than all of this long one that I showed you on Virginia start with a short one to begin to get a bit of an expertise but stretch like mad as you are stitching at the machine we leave our machine set ten to twelve stitches to an inch to do all of the seaming on the fabrics that we are showing you if it were a heavier fabric perhaps I would do longer stitches but I think you are safe and leaving your machine set ten to twelve stitches to an inch and we do use a number eleven machine needle which we change often at the machine remember stretch like mad now up until now I think what we've talked to you about it's not difficult unquestionably it takes a bit of time your difficulty comes in turning one that is this long I hope you have a loop turner you can buy those in most notions stores for say a dollar and a quarter it is this long skinny piece of ten or whatever it is and on one end there is a very definite hook on the other there is a round open you can easily thread all of what I have shown you here onto the loop Turner the big thing is pulling it through I think we found a good of a bit of a good story although you may have your own idea but the girls in my workroom go to the machine they take the spool of thread off the bar they put the open of the loop on to the bar having threaded this through the bias and having gotten a very firm hook on it and then they use that as their leverage and I see the chair backing up as they pull if you try to turn all of this on the loop Turner as you're standing in thin air you'll never get anywhere you might have a hook on the wall that you could use but try taking the spool of thread off your bar at the machine and putting this on top of it and getting leverage to pull through and with a bit of patience and doing it a number of times I think you will arrive there is one other process that is very simple go to your ironing board because there is still a bit of stretch in this bias nail it with two pins on your ironing board on one end go as far as you can with the bias nail it on the other end take your iron with full of steam and go right on top of it don't put in this instance your iron on top of the bias but go right on top of it get it full of moisture and steam leave these two pins in pick these two up stretch it again put the two pins in let it dry and then you have true biases done in the skinniest lions Blanche are--we that if you have a dress with lingerie straps we've now taken all the bias out you're not constantly pulling them up if you're using it around the waistline the way we showed you the dress then I think it is a very neat finis to do a little not here we take our number size 10 needle crewel embroidery it is and our size a silk thread and we simply catch that little knot and that way you have a good finished edge closed today in the fashion picture are very often unlined and in that instance what do you do about a hem certainly if you wish you can use a hem hem although I find that with having no underlining and with these very fluid crepes such as this 4 ply silk crepe you really can't leave more than an inch hem if we're going to do a hem hem and in that instance I take my short needle which I have threaded up with a single size a silk thread and I hold back my hems I never do a hem right on the edge I never use seam binding I never use lace because if you fail the hem or sew the hem right on the edge from the wrong side of course I feel I'm going to be aware of a ridge on the right side so if I'm doing a hem hem in an unlined garment I hold back that hem by say a quarter of an inch I take my needle I pick up one thread on the hem side I'm sorry one thread on the garment side a longer thread on the hem side and I do a running stitch not a back stitch a running stitch and I leave that running stitch rather loose on the other hand with the unlined clothes I think you might do what I've done here a very neat hem by Machine and this is especially good if you're wearing a long dress that has a lot of volume to it where I feel you don't want to hem him so that if you're coming up a step or if you're dancing you don't have the danger of catching your heel in that hem hem if the hem has been cut away to nothing and of course I'm thinking of a garment that has been done on your Anatomy all right to do that hem neatly with a machine stitch or with actually with doing it with two machine stitches I always of course take my hem length on the person and I pin that hem length by eye and having once pinned all the way around on her and having arrived at the hem length I want I then take a needle in a thread and I give myself a thread tracing on where the hem length is that I took on the individual person now that is very easy to do just a tracing with a needle and thread taking the pins out as you approach them so you have a very definite guide as to where the her length is to be after I have traced all the way around I then go to the Machine and I turn up the fabric along that thread tracing knowing that that is the length I took on the anatomy I stitch right on the edge and you find what is more comfortable for you for this first one I think you might do it from the wrong side but right on the edge now after I do that first machine stitch on my thread tracing I go to the ironing board and I press it is very important that you press your first stitch to get out the machine King I come back and I trim right to that machine stitch and once again I do another machine stitch turning up the skinniest narrow as possible now here I feel you do need to think in terms of working from the right side the skinny is possible do that and when you come to a bias don't stretch the way I talk to you about long bias seams pull gently and after you've gone all the way around and this is one time when I would not rush that machine I hear the girls in my workroom going very very slowly so that we wind up completely finished in the most beautiful neat way you might be able to I think to see that on the wrong side we have to machine stitches on the right side we have one machine stitch and again that story that after the second machine stitch we went to the ironing board and pressed and then you have what we have here you you