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 ;) 

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. 

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. 

Weekend Review: Cal Patch's Design-It-Yourself Clothes

Design-It-Yourself Clothes  / Cal Patch
NY: PotterCraft, c2009
158 p.

This book is a fabulous intro to pattern drafting and making your own patterns and clothes. That is exactly what it is -- there are no patterns in this book, but instead there are five items with variations for a total of 15 possible makes. The trick is to take her instructions, your measurements, and the desired look of a garment and build your own. 

The first 30 pages are a necessary introduction to the concept, and a lengthy, thorough look at measurements -- which ones you'll need and how to take them. This is more extensive than the basic measurements that sewists are familiar with and use in our work with existing patterns. These measurements are the core of what you'll use to create the patterns she shares in the second part of the book.

Part Two has the five core patterns and three variations for each: A-Line Skirt, T-Shirt, Button Down Blouse, Dress, and Pants. Each one starts with the basic pattern; there are instructions on the block and then how to use your measurements to create a pattern unique to you. Then there are two variations, and they are pretty big variations, so that the item looks like another piece, ie: Button Down to Jacket. You have to be a confident and I think at least an intermediate sewist to follow along and feel comfortable manipulating patterns in the ways shown here. If you're not already familiar with patterns I think you might feel a bit lost. Still, the instructions are thorough and the illustrations are simple but clear. 

Basic dress on left; Phoebe skirt and Betsy Jacket (my fave item) on right

Part Three gives some more elaborate changes to the patterns from the previous section, one for each, and encouraging the reader to experiment. This section involves significant changes like adding flare or yokes & pockets. It really does give you the idea that once you've become comfortable with making changes like this, designs are innumerable.

There is also a tiny bit of info included on fitting, grading patterns, and a few basic techniques. However, this book isn't really about the sewing as much as the pattern creation, so the process of sewing isn't much more than a paragraph for each project. But as the expectation is that readers who are making patterns will be experienced sewists, I didn't find this much of a drawback. 

There is also a brief, two page bit at the end on using readymade clothing and rubbing off patterns, which can add to your own collection of patterns. 

Overall I thought this was an interesting book with lots of inspiration and information, and one that could start you on a pattern drafting journey. The designs are fairly simple, so they aren't going to put you off your first go at pattern making. The only thing about this book that raised my eyebrows a bit was the claim that before this book, a reader was "hard pressed to find self-teaching tools" that weren't dry or outdated. I've found plenty of excellent, fun guides before this one, so I'm not sure where the person who wrote that blurb was looking. Otherwise, this is a great book to search out if you're interested in beginning drafting your own patterns and need a bit of guidance. 

The author, Cal Patch, also has online classes on this topic on CreativeBug. You can get a free trial or a low-cost deal often on CreativeBug if you'd like to check it out. If you don't have a subscription to CreativeBug yourself, check out your local library -- some libraries do subscribe to CreativeBug for their users, so you might be able to access her classes with your library card.