A self-drafted dress

This week I started and finished the dress I drafted. I made a few changes to the pattern, based on the muslin and comments and am quite happy with the result.

Let’s start with some pictures of the dress as is and some of how I’ll wear this.

My intention from the start was to wear it with a belt.

A combination for the coming season. The weather here is not for sleeveless dresses.

And finally some pictures from the inside. I used a lining fabric with some stretch. It’s basically my sloper pattern with a straigh skirt. The facing for the back is a separate layer over the lining fabric, a method I use often.

The construction of the dress is the same as I showed last year for a sleeveless top. In this dress I added a zipper in the left side seam, to make it easier to get it over my head.

Rotating darts out, creating a smooth curve

For the skirt of my dress I wanted an A-line. This means that the dart is rotated so that  the side seam will be wider. The picture below shows the bottom part of my sloper. When the dart is cut and the dotted line below you can fold the dart lines together, creating the A-line shape.

There is one disadvantage though when you have a large difference in your hip/waist measurements. The dart on the sloper is wide, which makes for a rather steep angle when you fold the dart out. Making it to a nice curve will shorten the waistline quite a bit.

The solution is using two darts. On top is the original sloper as above, below the same part of the sloper, but the darts are changed in two smaller darts.

After the darts are rotated out, the curve of the one with two darts is much smoother. Below I’ve added a red line indicating the one-dart version.

Removing or adding darts is always a design decision and (for me at least) there’s no right or wrong. There will be other ways to do it but this is how I do it.

The dress is coming along nicely. hope to show results soon.

Dress muslin

The muslin of the upper part of the dress was easily made. I only cut seam allowances to the shoulder, side and center back seam. Then I marked with carbon tracing paper and stitched it together.
The result was definitely in the right direction, but a few changes were necessary.
I cut this on the bias, as I intend to do on with the fashion fabric too.

The back: I did not sew  the back darts and therefor took some extra space from center back and removed a bit of the side seam. It’s too wide and the back armhole is gaping a bit.

The back with a bit more taken from the side seam and just a little bit taken from the armhole, tapering to nothing in the back neck.

The front doesn’t look bad, no gaping at the armhole, cowl depth is fine. It could be a little less wide at the side seams too.
I haven’t made a dress from this sloper with a waist seam. Seeing these pictures and the line marking the waist, I think my waistline is too low. I’d like to hear your opion on that.

This is the front after the side seams are taken in a bit. Could be a bit less?

Before and after of the armhole. The armhole on the sloper is fine for a garment with sleeves. You need a bit more room for movement of your arms. On a sleeveless dress this is not an issue and I took out about 1 cm.


Any thoughts on improving the fit are welcome and appreciated.

Linen dress

If you’ve seen this post before without text: I clicked the wrong button and uploaded the post accidentally that only contained pictures.

This fabric spoke to me (loudly!) when I was at a fabric market this spring. I passed the stall once, but when I passed it a second time I could  not resist and bought it. It’s a 100% linen fabric, which I love to wear in summer. I lined it with a viscose (rayon) good quality lining and it’s ever so comfortable.

The pattern is self drafted based on the sloper from the Suzy Furrer class and boat neck instructions from her class as well. As instructed I used the lower point for rotating the darts (for those interested/having experience with her method). Next time I would reposition the bust dart again and have it at the higher point. In this rather busy print it’s not that obvious, but I think it’s a bit low.

This photo reminds me of the fact that I still have to sew the lining to the slit in the back (and no, I’m not that addicted to my phone , it’s my remote for my camera)

The shoulder dart is kept for shape and has to remain in the facing too. As I do usually I made the facing a top layer of the lining and did not make a separate lining pattern. I just sew the seams of the lining giving a bit more space, this way there won’t be any stress on the garment. It sounds strange, but the lining is slightly larger in circumference than the actual dress.

Top finished

The top I drafted is made up in fashion fabric. A remnant piece that I found at the fabric market last year. Did not know the contents but as it was a “Sigrid” fabric (as one of my friends immediately said when I showed the picture in our Whatsapp group) I had to buy it.

It was not complicated to draft and an easy make too. Only the point of the v-neckline requires some thought and I might do it a little different next time. There certainly will be a next time as I like the neckline a lot. The pleat is not something I will repeat too often, but it’s a nice detail.

This was the original inspiration garment.

PS: thanks to those who commented on keeping a diary of my allotment plans a few posts ago. I’m experimenting with OneNote and an (old-fashioned?) paper notebook. It crossed my mind to start a blog about it too, but I’m such a beginner. Plus the time it takes. Might change my mind.

Perhaps I’ll do a closing picture occassionally like this, my tomato seedlings and part of the plot (after some work has been done).

Drafting (again)

When a pattern you draft does not give the result you want, you may get discouraged and think “why draft, I’ll use and change commercial patterns”. That’s what happens to me, until I realize that I have lots of fitting problems then too or when a garment comes along that I want to copy urgently. That’s what happened when I saw this thread on PatternReview discussing this top (which costs $ 400! I’ll never spend that much on a top):

Quite simple looking, yet elegant. Very much a summer top, but also wearable under a jacket. Couldn’t help myself and tried to draft it. This is my muslin, based on my sloper drafted in Suzy Furrer’s Craftsy class.

In her class on neckline variations Suzy Furrer shows how to draft a funnel neckline and an opera neckline but both in variations that stand away from the neck. I could use the information to draft this neckline hugging version.

My observations:

• funnel neckline close to the neck
• curved v-neck
• 1 to 2 inched seam below lowest point of v-neckline, opening into a small pleat
• seam in the back neckline
• center back seam
• no darts

For my version I chose to have a bust dart: removing all darts in the waist dart is too much on my figure and I think that being full busted that is just fitting better. I did not use a seam in the back neckline.

Hope the next drawings are clear in how I got to this pattern. I use inches in this description as I’m quite used to doing those now, having followed so many of Suzy Furrer’s classes. I use an inch ruler too when I do these markings.

The starting point: sloper draft of the front, shoulder and armhole dart closed and the space “dumped” into the bust dart. (alternative could be a blouse/shirt pattern with not too much ease).

I went 1/4 inch in for the shoulder seam
(for those having done this sloper too: this is the 1/4 inch you remove from the moulage to get extra space around the neckline. I started using this point but it was too wide, so I went back to the original moulage point)

From that shoulder point 1 1/4 inch up, perpendicular to the center front

Draw the curve, ending around the middle of the shoulder seam.

Decide where you want the v-neckline to end and draw a curved line to that point.

I decided to have the center seam 1/2 inch below the bust line. If the pleat would start too high, it would open up which at bust level, not so nice probably. The pleat is 1 inch deep (you could make it less or more, it’s just what I thought would be about right), so the amount of fabric for the pleat is 2 inches. The front can be cut on the fold. As I’m used to I marked the darts as “not using them”.

As last step I removed 3/4 inch from the shoulder width.

The back: starting point the sloper again.

Basically this is the same change: 1/4 inch into the neckline, 1 1/4 inch up, draft the curve and the neckline.

Remove 3/4 inch from the shoulder width and center the back dart again (I prefer to keep this dart too for better fit).

The final pattern pieces. The orange dotted line is the line for facings. For the back I will remove the dart from the facing by folding it away. Or I could change my mind and make separate facings for neckline and armhole. First to decide which fabric to use for the top.

NB: I folded out a little bit (about 1/2 inch) from the curved neckline to make sure the neckline doesn’t gape. This is more necessary for fuller busted women if I remember it right.

Hope this helps some of you interested in drafting in general or this top specifically. It’s my interpretation of doing this. If you do this I do advice to make a muslin as I’m not a teacher and can’t guarantee this works for you too.

Drafting a dress–5, sleeve comparison

As mentioned in my post of yesterday I’m doing a separate post on the sleeve draft. It’s a bit of a nerdy post probably. I write it for those of you who are interested in pattern drafting but also for myself, to remind myself of the differences now I’ve taken the time to do three drafts based on different systems for the same garment.

The result of the different drafts (focus on the sleevecap). First the Suzy Furrer draft. Ease is added before drafting giving as guideline 1/2 inch for dresses and blouses, 1 1/4 inch for jackets and coats. The total circumference of the armhole on the front and back + ease is a measurement on which the “square size” is based. The measurements for the square size are given in the book (or in the course materials from the Craftsy course). It’s the dotted line in the drawing. Based on this square the rest of the sleeve is drafted.

Second the Helen Joseph-Armstrong draft. The guideline for ease is different and given as 1 1/2 inch for sizes 10 and above, 11/8 inch for sizes below 8. An armhole measurement formula is used for the draft and mentioned is that further changes might be necessary, based on form, posture etc. In my draft I used the formula, which gives a little ease. The cap height is important but no guideline is given which the height should be. I took 6 inches, which was the measurment I found in one of the charts for a size 14. The draft starts with the triangle between top and biceps line. I thought this was the easiest draft to follow.

And third the Danckaerts system (It’s drafted with the front on the left side of the paper, but for comparison I’ve mirrored the image). This is a metric system and as such easier for me to use. It’s more more mathematical and instruction tells you that ease of at least 4 cm (about 1.5 inch) is necessary. Not too difficult as I’ve learned the method in a course, but instructions like 8/10 of armhole circumference + or – 1 cm are not the easiest if you do it for the first time. This sleeve is longer than the others, as the sleeve length is measured from the dot I’ve drawn on the dotted lines. Therefor it gives more space for the cap and the roundness at the top. In the drafts from SF and HJA the total length of the sleeve is the measured length. The Danckaerts sleeve has the extra space on the top.

Comparing SF and HJA draft.
On top is the SF draft. Notice the different straight of grain line. When I saw SF do this in the Craftsy class it was the first time I’ve seen it. Mostly the straight of grain is the center line. The HJA draft has a bit more room in the cap, which was more comfortable in my mock-up sleeves.

Difference between HJA draft and Danckaerts system.
There’s more room in the back of the cap, I’ve tried this before and it did not work for me. I know I need the curve like the other drafts. The front is similiar though.

 

Different position of the elbow dart (SF and HJA). SF uses the measured distance and HJA instruction is take half of the sleeve length. A very distinct difference. In my sleeves the elbow dart of the SF sleeve seemed a little too high. Which is strange as it was the length measured. The HJA dart is wider (1/2 inch to 1 inch). The curve was more clear.

This will be all my posting about drafting this dress. I’m still on the fence whether to continue or not. The fabric is lovely and I do have enough to cut a different front pattern. Any thoughts for an alternative front welcome! I will probably be sewing a lingerie set in the meantime.