Please excuse the lengthy ramble in this post I wanted to document exactly what I did whilst making this shirt so I can recreate it again if needed - If you just want to see the finished product feel free to skip to the end now.
After so much time spent trying to play around with my own patterns I thought that it was time to try a store bought pattern again.
On one of my many recent trips to the fabric store I found a stunning piece of fabric - I'm not sure what it's made out of but its a gauzy type fabric with a turquoise and purple plaid pattern. It's not the type of fabric I would normally buy or wear but I couldn't resist it.
I was browsing in Savers (a thrift shop) a couple of weeks later and found bundles of 4 sewing patterns for $1.45. One of the bundles had New Look 6704 at the front.
A button up blouse with front and back yoke and princess seams. I immediately thought of the plaid fabric that was still sitting in my stash and figured that this would be a good pairing so splurged on the bundle (of course every other pattern in the bundle was an ugly 80s shapeless thing, but for $1.45 I'm not complaining).
My first step was to try and figure out what size to make. This is by far my biggest problem with bought patterns - I have no idea what size I am. So I got out my measuring tape and compared my measurements to the packet.
Hips - this is the easiest one:
My measurment - pattern measurement - size
hips: 41" 42" 18
hips: 41" 40" 16
So I'm halfway between a size 16 and 18
Waist - this one is harder - where is my waist? If I take it as the natural bend crease of my body I measure 35". That point however is a good 3" above my belly button - at my belly button my waist measurement is 40", and on the other side, 3" above my natural waist, just under my bust is 32".
My measurment - pattern measurement - size
Waist: 32.5" 32" 18
Waist: 35" 34" 20
Waist: 40" 37" 22
So going by my waist at my natural crease I'm assuming a size 20 in the waist.
Bust - Well is this the hardest one: I'm 38.5" full bust and 35.5" high bust.
From what I've read New Look patterns are drafted for a B cup, basically a 2" difference between full and upper bust measurements. For anyone over a B cup they say to use your upper bust measurement to determine your pattern size.
My measurment - pattern measurement - size
high bust : 35.5" 34" 12
high bust : 35.5" 36" 14
full bust: 38.5" 38" 16
full bust: 22" 42" 20
My high bust measurement put me between a size 12 and 14.
As a double check I measured across my back at the bust line and got 16.5". If I use that measurement doubled plus 2" for a standard B cup that gives me 35". This tells me that for the back pieces a size 12 or 14 is the way to go.
If I do a similar calculation for the front - I Measure 22" across my bust from side to side. The pattern specifies that for a size 20 the bust measurement is 42". If you assume the front is 2" longer than the back this would be 20" around the back and 22 around the front. So by this calculation I can assume that I need a size 20 in the front bust area.
Back Neck to Waist - The final measurement is back neck to waist:
My measurment - pattern measurement - size
back neck to waist: 14.25" 16" 10
So obviously my first alteration was to take out the length. I took out a full 2" at the lengthen shorten line.
So this gives me cutting lines from the underarm down, but what size should I cut across the shoulders. I think this is where I generally get into trouble. My sizes range from size 12 right through to 20. Based on my high bust area we're looking at a size 12 or 14, but I went ahead and compared the pattern pieces with my sloper and even the size 10 was a lot wider than my sloper in the shoulder region. Even taking into account the ease specified in the pattern I decided to go ahead and cut out size 10 in the shoulder region.
It says on the pattern that there should be approximately 14cm ease in the finished product. Now when I hold a tape measure up to myself and add 14 cm that seems like an awful lot, especially for a what looks to me to be a pretty fitted blouse. I decided however that I would cut the pattern out to the sizes specified and take it in as required, easier than trying to add in fabric later.
Once all this was determined I went ahead and traced off the pattern and marked in the following grading.
for the back pieces front pieces
shoulders - size 10 size 10
under the arms - size 12 size 14
bust level - size 12 size 20
waist - size 20 size 20
hips - size 20 size 20
I cut out the fabric, making sure to line up the horizontal lines but not worrying too much about the vertical ones. I figured I would probably have to play around quite a bit with the vertical seams, I just tried to make sure everything was symmetrical.
I started sewing everything up with my machine stitch length set to 5 so it would be easy to take out. The shirt went together quite easily.
When I tried on the shirt it looked pretty good, but was very loose. 14 cm ease is just too much for me.
Across the shoulders the fit was fairly good, however is was just a bit too wide across the back. I tried pinning out the excess in a center back seam but that pulled the whole shirt out of place so in the end I look 1/4" off the back arm scythe on the yoke, then 1/4" off each side of the center back panel.
The sides definitely flared too much so I took them in making the side seams sit straight down the sides of my body.
The final issue was the front princess seams - this area kicked out too much so the front did not sit nicely so I took those seams in a bit too.
After pinning out all the changes I went back to my pattern and marked up the modifications that I wanted to make. I then put the original pattern pieces over the new ones just to see what my size ended up....
center back side back front side front pieces
shoulders - size 8 8 10 10
under the arms - size 8 12 14 12
bust level - size 12 14 16 16
waist - size 16 16 16 20
hips - size 16 12 16 12
What a hodge Podge!
I then took the whole shirt apart and re-cut each piece to the new pattern and then basted it all together again, just to make sure.
As for the sleeves - I cut these to a size 10 but extended them out to the size 12 size at the back and to a size 13 at the front. These fitted in beautifully. The collar I cut to size 10 - I'm only just realising now that that is probably why the collar does not sit perfectly on the finished shirt - I didn't account for that extra 1/2" I took out of the back shoulders. The front facings were cut to size 10 with the same 2" length taken out.
Once I was happy It was time to sew it up properly. I wanted to do French seams throughout this top as the fabric does fray quite a bit so it was at this point I was glad that this material was reversible. I took the top apart back to the 6 main princess seams. Whilst the princess seams were still basted together I went back and sewed each seam at 3/8". I was then able to take out the basting stitches, trip the seam, turn it and sew the french seam at 1/4" - that means that I basically turned the piece inside out, but as I said, that's why I'm glad the material is reversible.
Each seam was then top-stitched (which means that I sewed every seam in this shirt at least 5 or 6 times - two basting, two seams for the french seam and a top stitch - no wonder this top took forever to make!)
I have to say I love the way the shirt looks from the back. I think I got the fitting of the back just right which is nice.
As you can see I cut both the front and back yoke pieces on the bias. The pattern specified for it to be cut cross grain, but in this fabric there wasn't a lot of difference in the cross grain pattern so I decided to go for bias. I love how this looks on the back, however I'm not so sure with the front. When you combine it with the front facings which are also on the bias, the pattern gets a little wild. Maybe I could have done some better pattern matching between the front yoke and the facing, but that was just way too much like hard work.
As for the front - well it's a little boxy, but I think a lot of that comes from my shape not the shirt. My lack of a waistline means everything is pretty boxy on me. I could have taken this shirt in a lot more under the bust, however with all the plaid then not matching I thought it looked a bit crazy.
As I said the collar sits just a little weird which is probably due to the extra length in it.
I didn't bother with buttons and button holes. I have an irrational hatred of buttons - doing them up is a pain. So instead I went with a star shaped dark purple snaps. I put in 7 of them as I did not want any gaping. I contemplated just sewing the two placards together since I can actually slip it on over my head without undoing any of the snaps, but decided to go with the snaps in the end.
Overall I'm pretty happy with it - and I do think it'll get a lot of wear this summer - it's both comfortable and cool! One problem though - without careful inspection I can barely tell which side is the right side and which is the wrong - It's almost reversible.
Nice job! The plaid placement on the front is spot on.
ReplyDeleteThanks - I have to say I really hate doing pattern placement, but I figured it was necessary here.
Delete