Pattern Drafting Wonderland

Well, I've made a commitment. A commitment to work on my pattern drafting for at least the next six months. That doesn't mean I won't keep using Ottobre magazines nor Patrones.  It just mean I want to hone my skills and wear the sort of clothes or styles that are essentially me.

I'm tired of buying patterns, usually, they don't fit and I have to adjust anyway.  The sleeves in patterns are usually too short and so is the neck to waist measurement. So, I always have to adjust anyway.  My, I'm making my body shape sound like I'm a monkey!

I use a pattern drafting system called SitamAB. A number of years ago I did some study in pattern drafting.  Getting back to it is hard.  I tend to use a mix of this system and knowledge from traditional pattern drafting.  It's going to take me a while to get the hang of things again.

I have been wanting to make a shirt for a while.  I guess I was inspired again by the final episode of The Great British Sewing Bee. In this episode contestants made a men's fitted shirt. I obviously wanted a women's fitted shirt with a sleeve placket done in the same way as this episode, and french cuffs on the sleeves to accommodate cuff links.

Cuff links on a women's shirt? You'd want cuff links to if you had bought these vintage cuff links:

So, I really liked the way a placket is done on a men's shirt.  I'd never done this before.  Good old Google found me the perfect set of instructions at http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/25307/how-to-make-a-precision-placket/page/all  the first placket took a while, but, oh, the second sleeve placket came together so, so much more easily.

Here's the first placket:

Eat your heart out The Great British Sewing Bee, actually thank you, for being an inspiration.

Google, Google you are a sewists dream come true, we are able to ask questions and get answers to our many questions; we are able to tap into other people's experiences.  What a grand time to be sewing.

Here is my toile, yes, I know it's not in calico.  My first one was, and I was about to do it in calico again after I'd made some adjustments; but, in the corner of my room lurked a piece of cotton twill I'd destashed and decided "what the heck, if I mucked it up, too bad and if it worked - bonus!"

So, here's the toile, I do need to make some minor adjustments to the pattern, but I am happy with it:

Now to make another...

What have you been challenging yourself with?

Happy sewing.

Sandra

Stretch fabric cardigan

My overlocker and I are spending some quality time with each other lately.

I've been sorting through my ever expanding stash.  Sadly some fabrics have moved onto other homes, others are with me.  I am trying really hard not to add to my stash at the moment.

Whilst sorting I came across a boucle orange fabric, just one meter, 150 cm wide, would there be enough to make a cardigan?  With much fiddling - yes.  Luckily it is a busy fabric, because the bottom band is piece, upon piece of fabric sewn together.

The pattern used was Seamworks, Wembly Cardigan 3024.

https://www.seamwork.com/

An hour and a half sewing time! May have taken less time had I been able to see the eye of the needle to rethread the overlocker, and had a needle not drop out of the machine!

Such a fantastic, quick project, done entirely on the overlocker (serger), would highly recommend this. The fit on this companies patterns are true.

Happy sewing everyone

Sandra

I did make another cardigan in black to go with my Ottobre dress.