#pattern block

[bananna-threads]

UUUUUGGGGHHHH I am trying to make my own slopers, but struggling so much.. I am on my 11th bodice draft, 5th skirt draft (3rd sleeve, but not attached yet), and I CANNOT figure out how to fit this thing.

I feel like I just lack the right...intuition? Plus I made things doubly hard on myself by refusing to make paper patterns. My partner very kindly gifted me a short throw projector for Xmas, so I decided "hey, I'll teach myself how to pattern draft, and create digital patterns at the same time! Less paper waste!" Well, one set of bedsheets later from all my mock-ups, I hardly think I've succeeded in being less wasteful.

This is my latest draft, after trying to adjust for what I now know is called "swayback" (i.e. my spine curves at the end, causing my butt to stick out, and my waistline to be at a sort of angle). You can kind of see it in my second picture. See how my back waistline is higher than the front waistline?

This meant the center back length of my bodice had to be shorter than on the front and sides, and the back skirt had to be taller at the waist. I hope to go more in depth later, but I wanted to have it figured out before I start offering any advice.

Speaking of advice, I would love some help from someone more experienced at fitting clothing! At this point, I know it doesn't look quite right, but I've reached the limits of my skills, and don't even trust my eyes anymore. What counts as a fit-issue wrinkle, and what is just a...fabric-being-fabric wrinkle? I don't trust myself enough to tell the difference considering it took me 11 iterations to reach this point.

TLDR: What is wrong with my sloper and how do I fix it??? 😭

[kieraoonadiy]

Just a quick video, with a new series called Struggle Bussin'

It's where I as a creative hit a strugglebus moment, trying to figure something out. I take you on the struggle so you can see where I make mistakes, or hit snags, and I will come back and tell you how I fixed it.

These videos will also likely be much, much shorter than my usual videos, to highlight the struggle involved

[xoverit]

Tacoma, Washington. (October 2021)

[sewverse]

JUMPSUIT.

I had never had a jumpsuit before, not because I didn’t like them, I guess it wasn’t something that tickled me. And now I have TWO!

I obviously didn’t have a pattern, but that wasn’t going to stop me, so I read and watched videos about what measurements I needed and how to trace them on the paper. At first it looks quite difficult, but once you understand how to do it, it becomes logical.

It is a long process but it is really worth it and much better than any pattern you can buy, because it is made to measure, so it fits perfectly. And this is not even a pattern, it is a block, the previous step, so from this you can trace any type of trousers you can imagine. That’s why I want to keep it so I traced the jumpsuit on another piece of paper, using the trousers one as my template and adding the measurements for the top, which are my own conclusions.

From this point it was really easy but, because I hadn’t done it before and I wanted to make sure everything was done right, I decided to make a toile and, instead of using a cheap piece of cloth, I used a good piece of fabric and even changed my initial pattern for this design, because, you know, one can not stick to following one’s own rules...

But it turned out great and now I don’t have one, but TWO jumpsuits!

[xoverit]

Tacoma, Washington. (February 2021)

[xoverit]

Tacoma, Washington. (October 2021)

[xoverit]

Tacoma, Washington. (October 2021)

[chubbysewcialist]

https://chubbysewcialist.tumblr.com Here is the patternblock for the swing dress, and I’ve made the effort of actually centering the pattern on the fabric this time, which isn’t the easiest to do with velvet. By the next ‘great queueing’ for my blahg it will hopefully be sewn up, and I’ll know what I need to fix next, lol.

Its even odds whether I like wearing a big velvet tent even if it does come out well. However, between my experience with knits of varying stretch levels (this one is also 50% horizontal and 10% vertical like the other) and looking at photos on the Sly Fox Fabrics customer-group, its probable that this fabric would do better in a looser style. Save skater dresses for something that goes at least 50% horizontal. Wow that sentence looks weird.