Pattern manipulation resources?

If the T-shirt project is teaching me anything it’s that my “who reads the manual, let’s start pushing buttons” approach to life only makes for moderate success in pattern drafting.

While I firmly believe that one of the best ways to learn about anything is to screw it up a lot, I’m frustrated that I’m not being able to produce what’s in my head because my pattern manipulation skills need to be sharpened.  My #4 t-shirt turned out okay (I’ll blog it tomorrow or the next day), but I’m annoyed with my #5 t-shirt because other than my shoddy messing around with gathering, it turned out great.  Perhaps my early success with the CAbi knockoff made me a little too reckless.

I have the 2000 edition of Patternmaking for Fashion Design on reserve at the library, but in the meantime, does anyone know of any good resources for pattern manipulation?

Frankenpatterning for better shorts

When I was pregnant with the boys, I didn’t have a choice not to wear maternity pants.  I started sewing when I was pregnant with Noah because of the lack of maternity clothes in non-soul-killing colors and prints, and I couldn’t fit pants yet when I was pregnant with Sam.  I remember wearing this particular pair of Old Navy maternity jeans and feeling, well, fat with all of the extra fabric hanging off of my legs in the back and I remember vowing to figure out how to fit pants Scarlett O’Hara as God is my witness style.

So after the first trimester sleepiness has gradually worn off and after we’ve all started to get better from the summer colds we’ve managed to get, I was going to figure out some shorts to get me through the remainder of this summer.

I initially muslined a pair of Kwik Sew 3324 shorts, but they didn’t pan out.  They were way way too big for where I’m at, and the panel had no shaping at the side seams where I really need it.  It occurred to me to pull out my Burda 3-2011-131 shorts that I outgrew in June and see how I could make them work for where I’m at now since the fit was good on those.  Already made garments count as muslins too!

According to what was going on, I needed to add at the side seams about 3/4″, and then I’d need a rib knit panel tall 3.5″ at CF and about 2.5″ at CB (I just measured in both places to where I wanted the top of the pants to hit).

I took out Burdastyle 6-2010-129 and grabbed the panel, just cutting it down to what I needed and gambling that I could just sew it to the top of the shorts without any need for alteration.  This panel has a little bit of shaping at the side seams, so I figured that it would work better for me over the straight-sided side seams of the Kwik Sew.  I sewed a quick muslin just in case and it worked like a charm.  On #1, the linen version, the panel + elastic enclosed inside for more support needed to be a little more snug between the loose weave factor of linen and the stretch-out factor that just happens in knits on your bottom half over the course of the day.  They’re still way crazy comfortable and cool, and the extra space in the waist will probably serve me well when I’m still trying to wear these next month.

I used a heavy linen chambray I picked up at Denver Fabrics a couple weeks ago on a trip with my good non-sewing friend.  Mentioning that I could no longer stand sitting around the house in workout shorts, she wasn’t letting me leave without some quality fabric for shorts, and this fits the bill nicely.  I added some denim-style topstitching because you all know I’m a sucker for contrasting thread.

I also grabbed a lightweight denim for another pair.  It has a similar cross dyed texture as the denim and it has more drape and flow than most denims, which was perfect not only for the shorts but for the season.  It definitely wrinkles more than most denims as you can see, but I care not.  I resisted the temptation to buy more yardage only because come fall this fabric will not work for actual jeans and I can’t stash denim.  It’s the first thing to go in the stash.  I become too obsessed with it.

Allow me to be smug about the back fit.  It feels simultaneously vain and triumphant to know that I won’t have to have yards of fabric flapping in the wind behind me this pregnancy.

I made the panel a little smaller at the side seams, and used a little less elastic, stretching to fit, making this pair much better fitting.  I also added side vents in this pair via one of the Power Sewing videos (thanks Lisa for the b-day gift of the subscription!).

Mostly, this was a great project to help my sewing mojo working.  I feel like the world is my oyster 9 months out of the year in the creativity department, but summer I’m a mondo pile of blah.  And being pregnant has not helped.  Heat fries my brain, but the promise of fall and jeans (can you tell I’m excited about them?) and shirts with actual sleeves and the hope of being able to sew knit dresses I won’t suffocate in keeps me going.

Do you have a season when you’re out to lunch creatively speaking?

Off to get caught up on t-shirts for the project!  I finished one and about to get started on another which will get me caught up and back on track.

Unintentional back cowl

(or why I don’t sew big 4 patterns)

I finally get back into the sewing room, looking for a nice easy knit top to help ease my hot weather angst and to help me feel productive.

I have a nice summery knit I picked up in Santa Fe when my husband and I were there celebrating our anniversary (sans kids) last month.  It’s some sort of cotton blend from Santa Fe Fabrics (go there if you’re there–the sales staff is friendly and very helpful…their prices and quality are similar to Emma One Sock).  It had pretty similar stretch in all directions, so I decided to play with the grain, cutting the yoke on the crossgrain, the back on grain, and the fronts on the bias.  Should have been a perfect storm of good things, right?

I pulled out Butterick 5429, a now OOP wardrobe pattern with a fun cut-on sleeve with a front neckline twist.

I don’t have much to complain about in the way of directions–they yield a fine top.  I suppose from the drawing here you can see that the twist leaves a rather large “loop” open to the world.  Really it’s more of a gaping 2″ hole, so I unstitched my topstitching on the loop and stitched up the CF seam until I reached the twist after I had finished all of the other raw edges.  Annoying, but it was not unexpected and it’s an easy fix.

It’s a little annoying that I can’t wear 90% of my necklaces because the height of the neckline twist is right where my necklaces sit.  Annoying because I’m a necklace wearer, but this is a cosmetic problem.

My issue with this pattern is that it’s enormous.  It doesn’t bother me so much that I had to take in the sides a little bit (I exaggerate again–according to Butterick’s sizing charts, there’s 5″ of bust ease on an 8 and something like 9″ of waist ease for this “close fitting” top), but the neckline is so absurdly wide–hence the unintentional back cowl.

If I were to wear the shoulders where they actually lie on the top, they are 1.5″ too wide on either side.  3″? on an 8?  This is wackadoodle.

And this is my frustration with big 4 patterns.  Some of them are sized perfectly fine, and others might as well be muu-muus made by a tent maker.  When I sew a 32 in Burda/Ottobre/or Jalie, I get a 32.  Period.  No guessing.  It’s not falling off my shoulders and creating back cowls because of a too wide neckline**, it’s a 32, and it’s going to fit.  So what if I have to spend a little time in crazy tracing land getting my eyes a little crossed.  If the end result is something that is constructed well, has great details, and above all FITS, I will happily trace away.

It makes me rethink my resolution to purchase what otherwise looks like a very pretty Butterick 5796.

My full review is here.  I promise it’s not too vengeful.  I gave it a “OK but did not work for me” rating.  It’s wearable, but not comfortable in the way I’ve grown accustomed to wearing.

**The knit that I’m using is fairly lightweight here.  On beefier, heavier knits I would guess that the weight of the faux cowl would be distributed across the shoulders and the shoulder seams fall would off the edge of the shoulder instead of creating a back cowl.  This was the first fitting challenge that I had to overcome when I started garment sewing.  I initially thought it was a problem with CB and for a while I was darting out the neck at CB or cutting down CB and making a seam there and narrowing it down the whole seam.  Both of those narrowed the neckline for sure, but came with their own problems like “poofy neck”.  It was a revolution to me when I discovered I could just cut a smaller size in the neck and shoulders and not have that problem.  It’s taken me years to understand that Burda’s drafting is consistent enough in the neck and shoulders to be trusted.  Whatever company you use the most–spend time figuring them out and stick to your findings–you will have a lot fewer wadders, I promise!