Showing posts with label CreativeBug. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CreativeBug. Show all posts

Friday, July 16, 2021

Muslining a Self Drafted Dress

As I've mentioned a few times now, I've been sewing along with some members of my local Garment Guild this summer (via Zoom) as we work through 10 lessons on pattern drafting by Cal Patch on CreativeBug. 

This week's challenge was to take the dress draft from last week and muslin it, so that you could do any necessary adjustments and then rework the pattern. 

As suspected, I am going to have to make sure to trace off a separate back piece and make some tweaks there -- specifically to take a 1/2" swayback adjustment. In this class the front and back are drafted as one piece, with no bust darts included. If you have a larger bust you may have many more adjustments to make but I didn't have to worry about that. I do have to adjust the back though! 

One other small tweak is that I had to shorten the lower back darts by a fair amount -- I raised them 1.5" but could even raise them another 1/2" -- I have a shorter waist to hip and the original dart I'd drawn in had the points sitting way down on my butt. Now it's much better! 

The primary adjustment that I had to make with the actual muslin was in the shoulder area, however. I basted the muslin (made from an old sheet) together and added one sleeve. Then tried it on and realized that my shoulder slope was pretty significantly different from my first draft. The shoulder is drawn in by measurement and then you add in a recommended 1/4-1/2" point at the neckline to slope down to the outer edge, but that didn't work for me in reality. 

I ended up with a shoulder that had far too much fabric in it - I could pinch a good inch up as excess. Not only were both the shoulder seam and sleeve cap too high at the shoulder point, the shoulder seam sat slightly below my shoulder hinge as well. So I changed the shoulder line by marking a spot 1/2" lower at the shoulder edge and 1/4" down at the neck edge, and basting a slanted line between them, on the side without a sleeve attached. That allowed the shoulder line to sit flat, and lie right across the top of my shoulder.

Before

After

I also shaved a scant 1/4" out of the armscye, starting at the shoulder seam and blending back the original line by about halfway down. I also lowered the bottom of the armscye by a 1/4". I then removed almost an inch from the sleeve cap so that it was still only about an inch larger than my armscye. I basted that in carefully, and found that it was perfect. No excess fabric to pool at the shoulder, but enough movement in the sleeve to be able to reach and move my arm normally. I am going to add in a bit of width at the bicep for a little more comfort but overall I am very happy with this draft, and think that I'll retrace the pattern onto heavier paper so that I have a basic close-fitting sloper of sorts to compare with commercial patterns and to use as a basis for any designs I want to play with.

I really enjoyed this process and feel like I've learned a lot. As one of my fellow sewists in this project mentioned, this feels empowering. We're now more comfortable with adjusting patterns to fit ourselves, aside from the whole self-drafting excitement ;) 

Friday, July 9, 2021

Drafting a Dress Block

Following along with the pattern drafting series in CreativeBug means that I'm not really getting a lot of other sewing done! I've cut out three dresses from stash fabric that are now awaiting the sewing process, but in the meantime I've kept busy rewatching old seasons of the Great British Sewing Bee, and the lessons in the CreativeBug summer sewalong my guild is doing.

This week's lesson was pretty straightforward -- take a whole whack of measurements and draft out a basic dress block. This is based on your own measurements but also has a couple of standard issue elements like darts and armscye to add in. The next step is to sew up a muslin and do the fine tuning required. 

I found this quite straightforward. The lesson was easy to follow and the draft looks like a basic dress shape, that's for sure. In the class, it's drafted as front and back as one, with differing necklines drawn in. However, I usually prefer making my pattern as two pieces, front and back, since there are differing adjustments I like to make on each part for a better fit on my figure.

I'm not much of a muslin maker in my regular sewing life; I like to make as many flat pattern adjustments as I possibly can before starting on a project. So I think that I will also be doing the same here -- looking at the drafted pattern and evaluating if any of my usual adjustments need to be made around the dart length, bust point, back length etc. before starting my first muslin. Reduce any extra work in the muslin stage is my mantra. I'm hoping that because this is based on my own measurements to begin with that there won't be many changes to worry over. We will see...

My plan is to get my muslin sewn and tested, and adjustments made asap, so that I can sew up a sample dress testing out the theory that I can draft something wearable for myself. If so, I think I'll have a lot of fun with this over the next few months! Never mind the literal hundreds of dress patterns I own, I'll just make some of my own too. In all my spare time. 

I am enjoying the technical skills here and the very entry level style of pattern making that these classes offer. I do have the series of pattern drafting classes by Suzy Furrer on Craftsy as well, and perhaps after working my way through these Cal Patch classes I won't be so intimidated by the more complex work in the Suzy Furrer ones. It's always good to stretch the mind and learn something new, and I'm finding this sewalong is definitely delivering there. 


Tuesday, June 29, 2021

A Summer Sewalong Project

My local Garment Guild is one of my favourite groups of people :) We have a lot of fun and have kept our Guild going over the last year via Zoom meetings. We've had some great guests and speakers, and have kept in touch with each other. I really enjoy it. 

But of course we don't meet over the summer, so this summer I suggested a sewalong so that we could all keep sewing together while apart ;) 

Our library systems in this area subscribe to CreativeBug, so with our library cards we can all log in and follow along with tons of classes. Our summer sewalong follows all the pattern drafting courses run by Cal Patch -- there are 10 sessions which works out perfectly for us to do one a week until the end of the summer! 

This week we started with drafting our own Boxy Top. It's a great intro to the process for people who have never used measurements to draft out a simple pattern for yourself before. It's fairly straightforward, but there is a lot of potential in such a basic patterns, some of which are shared in the class -- colour blocking, dividing it into panels, adding pockets etc. I think this would be a fun project to experiment with and see what you could do with it. 

I drafted mine out but second guessed the arm depth and shortened it by about 3/8" since I am short between bust and shoulder. However, I should have trusted the numbers because my first sewn sample is a bit too grabby into my armpit area. I've added the 3/8" back onto the pattern and will try again. 

I used some linen from my stash (yay, using up big chunks of leftovers!) and left the hem raw since the selvage is a pretty line of shimmery thread. I am thinking about maybe embroidering a motif along the neckline to spark it up a little. 

The fit is great (except for the armhole boo boo, which is still wearable though not perfect) and I really liked the simple process. 

It was fun to see what others had done with this project, and now we are all looking forward to week two -- drafting a simple pair of wide leg pants. At least I hope it will be simple! Maybe I'll finally have a pair of pants that fits. I am hoping to learn more about basic pant drafting so that I'll understand patterns and alterations better. I hardly ever wear pants so haven't really made many, and those I've tried have been rather disastrous. Onward and upward. 

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Adrienne Blouse in Floral

It's always fun to set sewing challenges for my local Garment Guild. This month our challenge was to make something we found on CreativeBug -- many of our local library systems now have CreativeBug available to patrons, and I wanted our members to find out about all the goodness in this option! 

I've already made the Shirt No. 1 from 100 Acts of Sewing, thanks to CreativeBug, and so this time I thought I'd try out the very popular Adrienne Blouse by Friday Pattern Company. I've always liked it, but worried that the close fit of the body was not for me. But onwards I went, and gave it a whirl anyhow. 

As it turns out, I really love it :) I used a rayon knit from my stash; I love the print but have never been able to figure out what to do with it, as the lightweight nature of it and low stretch were always a problem to match up with a good pattern. So I gave it a go here. It is perfect! 

I traced off the size L, but as I was measuring the pattern pieces on my fabric I realized that the waist and hip were going to be far too small for my liking. Instead of just cutting a wider line at the side seams, I swung the bottom away from the fold by one inch, giving more of a swing line to the silhouette. I did the same front and back and I am glad I did, otherwise I wouldn't have fit into this. So beware, other pear-shaped sewists -- make sure you grade out at the hip! If I make it again I may also add a bit at the bust, but I like the width and fit of the neckline & shoulder, so don't want to increase the sizing there. 

I absolutely love the soft flowiness of the sleeve in this lightweight knit. It feels so great. I used regular 1/2" elastic in the sleeve cuffs, but happened to have some heavier, sturdier bra elastic in my stash that I used for the shoulder gathering. I think it worked just great -- nice and solid, it doesn't stretch out too much, and holds the gathers nicely. I did use the recommended 7" length at the shoulder, but in the sleeve ends I reduced the circumference to about 9.5" so that it fit snugly on my arm, and allows the fullness to sit well in the sleeve. 

Otherwise this really was a quick sew; I cut it out one night and sewed it up the next day in a couple of hours. I am a slow sewist so like to have lots of time to work on things, even 'easy' projects. I didn't hem the bottom because I don't think my machine will give a nice result on this thin knit, even with a double needle. I don't have a walking foot or the ability to change the presser foot pressure, and this knit stretches as I sew; I had to stop and readjust it constantly for the seams. But I think it looks great, and I love the feel of it. I think it will go with a few different skirt shapes, and let me get a decent amount of wear out of it. I'm glad I finally tried it!