FBA for Ottobre t-shirts

Life is chaotic at the moment, the new school season started and the sport season too. And although this means that during the daytime I can work reasonably undisturbed, it also means a totally new schedule after schooltimes, requiring a lot of planning. Unfortunately 3 times a week we can not manage to have dinner together. This last I feel as a loss, it's such a great time as family together, to share news and talk about the little and more important things in life. But alas, training schedules are in the way.

But luckily I do manage to sew a bit in the evenings, although not very complicated patterns at the moment. I'm doing a lot of t-shirts from the Ottobre patterns, but with alterations.

I liked the fit of the first Ottobre t-shirt I made, but do not want all my tops with a gathered neckline, so I combined the shirt of two patterns.














I took the first as a start, with the long sleeves and ungathered neckline.

Then I drafted the neckline of the second pattern into the front of the first pattern, as I like the neckline of the second one better (first measured the width on the pattern that was used for gathering).

After measuring the width of the pattern, I found that it would be very tight, as there was 6 cm short at high bust level. And I don't like my t-shirts very tight, so I made a FBA as described in Sandra Betzina's book "Fast Fit". She describes this method on this site.
To prevent the pattern to be too wide above the bust, I have drawn the original armhole in the pattern and adjusted the shoulder seamline. (Pattern is without seam allowances).

The end result of this adaption.

If I find time to hem my tee's, I'll post pictures.

Burda top, FBA

The Burda top I'm making (03-2007-103) was designed for a B-cup. On Pattern Review I read that it needed alteration if you had a larger cup, which did not surprise me. I have a D-cup, so I changed the pattern. As pictures say more than words, and I like to share this information with you, here is what I did. For the pivot and slide method I used the book Fitting Finess from Nancy Zieman, which I find a very helpful book.

1. Add length to the upper part of the pattern, making a 90 degree line to the straight of grain line, cut the pattern and add the extra length (I used 4cm).
The amount needed I measured by comparing the pattern piece to my actual length from shoulder to under my breast.
Don't forget to make this change to the back pattern part and the front band.

This lengthening of the pattern is needed to make sure that the band goes below the breast, and not ends up on your breast.



2. Mark the amount to widen the top in the front, in my case I thought 2 cm would be enough (which of course makes a total of 4 cm extra width in the end).

3. Pivot from top to the marked point. Draw a new line from pivot point to marked point.





















4. The marked point to widen the top is used as second pivot point. Pivot the pattern to the seam line. Mark the line.

The pattern is now changed, armhole and sideseam have not changed, but extra width is added.