No pix right now. It was too late last night.
I got a test bodice sewn last night. I'd altered the bodice front so that it would button, which meant adding a little bit of overlap, and cut down the neck so that it could be worn over a henley. This meant tweaking the bodice front and making facing patterns for front and back, since I wasn't putting the hood on it.
It came out pretty close. I realized as I was cutting that I had mismatched the seam allowances for the bodice front and front facing--one was 5/8 inch and one was 1/2 inch--but figured I could work with that. Apparently, though, my pattern drafting still has a long way to go because I ended up trimming 1/2 inch off of each side of the front facing to get it to fit. I need to add some of that back on to the other side of the facing or there won't be enough room to turn over and sew down the facing along the front opening.
I may lengthen the bodice slightly and take a tiny tuck under the bustline on each side of the front, for shape. Just a very small one, to make it look a little less square, though not enough to impede its pullover-ability.
I've also lost the sleeve pattern. Aargh! I looked everywhere for it last night but can't find it, and I'm afraid Dad might have thrown it out. Last year, this would have ruined the pattern for me, but this year, I think I can make a new one. I actually have a slightly crazy idea that involves copying the pattern diagram off of the instruction sheet, using the dimensions of the bodice pieces (which I still have) to figure out what size is represented on the diagram, and then using a grid to scale up and re-draw the sleeve. That's assuming that the diagram represents the pieces in correct proportions, of course. The sleeve has a shallow, wide, cap because the dress has dropped shoulders, and the cap is not symmetrical front to back. A little bit complex for a total-newbie sleeve drafter.
However, if that fails, there is always Leena's. Either way, I will have a new sleeve.
So, after much lunch-hour emailing, Amber Jean and I had some ideas. She actually had considered doing the same scale-up-the-pattern-diagram thing that I was/am considering, so that may get done anyway just for the sake of experimentation.
I also, though, printed off CraftStylish's Create A Custom Sleeve Pattern page, since it's based on a preexisting bodice pattern--in her case, a sloper, but in mine, the dress pattern--and is not creating a sleeve out of nothing. My original sleeve was not symmetrical so I'd have to do this twice and then splice the front and back together, but that doesn't seem bad.
I also went back and reread Kathleen Fasanella's Sleeve Ease is Bogus blog entry. I'm forever fighting with sleeve ease, and this pattern in particular will not tolerate sleeve gathering. But I can control that if I end up redrawing the sleeve, anyway.
Sew Store-Bought had a clever, in-a-pinch idea for replacing a badly-drafted commercial sleeve pattern, too. Normally, I would be skeptical of this, but 5187 has a plain, wide, sleeve with a dropped shoulder line that I suspect might lend itself very well to this method.
I got a test bodice sewn last night. I'd altered the bodice front so that it would button, which meant adding a little bit of overlap, and cut down the neck so that it could be worn over a henley. This meant tweaking the bodice front and making facing patterns for front and back, since I wasn't putting the hood on it.
It came out pretty close. I realized as I was cutting that I had mismatched the seam allowances for the bodice front and front facing--one was 5/8 inch and one was 1/2 inch--but figured I could work with that. Apparently, though, my pattern drafting still has a long way to go because I ended up trimming 1/2 inch off of each side of the front facing to get it to fit. I need to add some of that back on to the other side of the facing or there won't be enough room to turn over and sew down the facing along the front opening.
I may lengthen the bodice slightly and take a tiny tuck under the bustline on each side of the front, for shape. Just a very small one, to make it look a little less square, though not enough to impede its pullover-ability.
I've also lost the sleeve pattern. Aargh! I looked everywhere for it last night but can't find it, and I'm afraid Dad might have thrown it out. Last year, this would have ruined the pattern for me, but this year, I think I can make a new one. I actually have a slightly crazy idea that involves copying the pattern diagram off of the instruction sheet, using the dimensions of the bodice pieces (which I still have) to figure out what size is represented on the diagram, and then using a grid to scale up and re-draw the sleeve. That's assuming that the diagram represents the pieces in correct proportions, of course. The sleeve has a shallow, wide, cap because the dress has dropped shoulders, and the cap is not symmetrical front to back. A little bit complex for a total-newbie sleeve drafter.
However, if that fails, there is always Leena's. Either way, I will have a new sleeve.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
So, after much lunch-hour emailing, Amber Jean and I had some ideas. She actually had considered doing the same scale-up-the-pattern-diagram thing that I was/am considering, so that may get done anyway just for the sake of experimentation.
I also, though, printed off CraftStylish's Create A Custom Sleeve Pattern page, since it's based on a preexisting bodice pattern--in her case, a sloper, but in mine, the dress pattern--and is not creating a sleeve out of nothing. My original sleeve was not symmetrical so I'd have to do this twice and then splice the front and back together, but that doesn't seem bad.
I also went back and reread Kathleen Fasanella's Sleeve Ease is Bogus blog entry. I'm forever fighting with sleeve ease, and this pattern in particular will not tolerate sleeve gathering. But I can control that if I end up redrawing the sleeve, anyway.
Sew Store-Bought had a clever, in-a-pinch idea for replacing a badly-drafted commercial sleeve pattern, too. Normally, I would be skeptical of this, but 5187 has a plain, wide, sleeve with a dropped shoulder line that I suspect might lend itself very well to this method.
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