Adventures in block drafting – version 7

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I’ve spent a few years working on self drafting sewing patterns, but after going through pregnancy and postpartum my block (which was not perfect before) was just clearly out of whack and needed a redo. I started using the instructions in Helen Joseph Armstrong’s excellent textbook Patternmaking For Fashion Design but I was pretty frustrated at the bust limitations. Many ready to wear clothes and sewing patterns are drafted for a B or C cup and follow a bit of an esoteric “perfect” ideal figure, and this just doesn’t jive with my shape.

I found dresspatternmaking.com during a fit of frustrated googling and was really enamored with the method that focused on fitting the bust correctly as part of the drafting rather than drafting and then doing a full bust adjustment. My mother and I got together and had a great learning experience taking measurements on each other and then returning to our respective studios to make mock ups. This was back in.. oh.. January (2025) I suppose, perhaps February, and I’m now on version seven of my mock ups (!!).

For me a fundamental issue I have always had was with armscye (armhole) fit, particularly this feeling of constriction and cutting in when I’d have my arms forward. I initially attributed this to incorrectly drafted armscye but after some sleuthing and help from the internet, it turned out to be a back ease issue. Once I had that epiphany things fell into place pretty quickly and I think/hope it will only take a few more mockups to finalize the block.
Here’s a photo of version 7 of the bodice back

The primary change in this version was to remove excess ease that was occurring in the lower back but without removing ease from the waist. I followed similar instructions to what you’ll see for doing a narrow back adjustment but applied it to the lower back instead. It was tricky to remove ease without totally distorting the side seam, and I’ve had to compromise a bit and err on the side of leaving a bit ease in.

I’m looking forward to the next mock-up to test the fit.

Well hey there, stranger

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I had 100% forgotten this blog existed. I have another blog, 2catsandacoffee, and I sat down tonight intending to get back into that account and maybe draft a post. But, WordPress is being a bit iffy on that, and in the process I rediscovered THIS blog. My first blog, ever, started back in 2010.

Looking at my old posts is like seeing a long lost friend. It’s amazing to see the very first sewing projects I ever attempted, and realize that passion of mine really didn’t develop overnight – it came in waves, fits and starts as I figured out what the heck I was doing.

I am not certain what I will do now with this blog, perhaps it’ll be another 10 years before I post again. I’ve felt uneasy about other social media platforms and returning to a blog feels a bit like rewinding the clock to a safer time.

Until next time 🙂

Swirl Dress from Gertie Sews Jiffy Dresses

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First up for my ambitious garment plans for 2021 is the Swirl Dress from Gertie Sews Jiffy Dresses in this lovely stitched purple woven fabric from Z Fabrics.

A close up picture of purple woven fabric laid on top of a page from Gertie Sews Jiffy Dresses illustrating the Swirl Dress.

I cut the size 10 with an FBA and a swayback adjustment. I used the FBA method Gertie describes in the book, of slashing the muslin across the bust and let the fabric relax into the size it needs to be, using another piece of muslin to patch behind, and then measuring the extra space. I liked this particularly because it allowed me to immediately see the difference that the FBA would make. Once I determine how much extra space I needed in the FBA, I used this tutorial from Helen’s Closet Patterns on how to do an FBA on a dartless bodice. Somewhere along the way I lost my place and forgot to close the waist dart back up, which I did not noticed until I got all the way to attaching the bodice to the skirt – whoops. I considered pinching out the dart then but then decided the easier and safer way to solve the issue was to throw some gather stitches along the front of the bodice and ease it onto the skirt. This worked a treat and actually looks intentional since the neckline features gathers. I’m proud of the save but I will be fixing this on my master pattern adjustments so I don’t have to do it next time.

Top down photo of purple woven fabric demonstrating how the bodice was gathered to match the skirt.

Other adjustments I will make next time:

  • Lower the armscye about 1/2-3/4 inch to make it little more comfortable.
  • Adjust swayback. Interestingly, I overdid it again on the swayback, not enough to destroy the fit but just enough to make me roll my eyes at myself. Getting an accurate swayback adjustment is definitely turning out to be a bit of an art, especially on this dress where the back wraps over itself instead of having a defined zipper or seam. This is one area where I feel having a custom dress form would be helpful so that I could pin the pattern to it and more easily how everything falls, versus the way I do it now which is a little bit of guesswork and then trying to look over my shoulder, take pictures etc.
  • Remove 4 inches from the skirt pattern piece to match the amount of hemming done

2021 Goals

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  1. Lose 20 lbs
  2. Walk at least 3x week (ideally every day!)
  3. Sew at least 1 garment per month
  4. Sell something I’ve either sewn or knitted
  5. Knit a sweater
  6. Get a nice pair of high heels
  7. Successfully execute a 50’s style hair-do

Charm Pattern’s Night&Day Dress into Peplum Top

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Hot on the heels of the Stanwyck dress, I wanted to tackle the Night & Day dress. I had seen a photo on Pinterest of a dress made from coffee cup printed fabric and immediately wanted to make a ‘Coffee All Night & Day” dress 😉

I found this amazing coffee cup printed fabric on Etsy from Spindle Fabrics, which has since gone out of stock. From my experience with the Stanwyck dress, I knew I would need to do a swayback adjustment, though I went slightly overboard.

The real point of failure came with the skirt. I had intended to self-draft a 3/4 circle skirt, but somewhere along the way lost my mind with the measurements and accidentally created a teeny micro skirt that was not at all suitable. I decided to run with it and turn this into a peplum top!

I learned some great lessons about quilting cotton along the way. First, that it’s not a great fabric to use for lining. For the Elisalex Lemon Dress and now this top, I used quilting cotton for the main fabric and lining, and the result is quite a stiff garment. However, for the hem on the peplum it worked out really beautifully – I only used one layer of the main fabric (no lining), and did a double folded hem. The stiffness of the folded over fabric at the hem gave it a really lovely body without needing extra interfacing or any other intervention.

I’m feeling like I’m at a point to explore some higher quality fabrics that quilting cotton, but I can’t resist the fun patterns that it comes in! A good compromise I’ve started using is to just leave the garment unlined, to allow it a little more flow. Next time I use this pattern I will scale back on the swayback adjustment and shorten the front of the bodice a bit.

Charm Pattern’s Stanwyck Dress

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My next project was the Stanwyck dress from Charm Patterns. The Stanwyck skirt is a stand-alone skirt pattern, and through the Patreon there is a pattern extension for a bodice to make it into a dress.

I bought a ton of green buffalo plaid from Joann’s along with hunter green lining fabric, and set about making the muslin. The Stanwyck bodice was a bit challenging for me from a fit perspective, I had to do a number of muslins for the bodice before I felt satisfied with the fit. Ultimately I need to shorten the front darts and do a swayback adjustment. The pencil skirt was much easier to fit, I only needed to grade between sizes and do some considerable hemming.

Once I started laying out the pieces, I had a sudden change of heart about the skirt and decided to cut the full circle instead, since I had SO much of the plaid fabric. I struggled a bit with the flannel, the weight of the circle skirt was a really huge strain on the bodice, and I do feel that the fabric stretched a bit. I am not sure if I’d use flannel again like this- it was a bit of a pain in the ass and it picks up cat hair and dirt like crazy. If for some reason I do, I would want to underline it to give it extra strength.

Unfortunately for this dress I realized much too late in the process that the flannel was having structural issues. I added some fusible interfacing around the waist and sewed in a waist stay, and that has helped, but I’m not sure of the longevity of the dress.

Additionally, the flannel was very drapey for the full chevron pockets which made them quite droopy. I ended up sewing the middle seam of the pocket to the skirt to give it more structure, and then added buttons for interest.

I did get great practice with handsewing, the bodice lining was sewn in by hand and the final skirt hemming was done by hand as well.

This project was a great introduction to a ton of new skills: pattern matching, manipulating darts, swayback adjustment, sewing with silky fabric, hand sewing. Next time I would be more thoughtful with fabric choice, shorten the bodice a little more, and refine the fit of the cap sleeve.

Final Elisalex Lemon Dress!

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After some more fiddling I finished the final muslin on Sep 25th:

And then the final dress came soon after and I had the chance to wear it apple picking before the weather turned cold:

I am so proud of it turned out, especially as my first dress! Looking back now, I would have given more ease in the bust and the way I handled the lining and zipper lacked finesse 😉

Overall a lovely project, I could see myself returning to that pattern at some point.

Elisalex sewalong: Not so final bodice fit

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I’m learning that I can only really accomplish one sewing thing per day. After successfully putting the pockets into the skirt (super cool!) I attempted to gather the skirt. I made a few critical errors:

  1. I did not have a bodice ready to pin the upper part of the skirt to.
  2. I tried a cool method of zig-zag stitching over a piece of dental floss to then pull the fabric around, but when I was pulling in the gathers I lost my dang mind, forget to hold the OTHER end of the floss, and so I just pulled the whole thing out.

Ultimately not a big deal and easy to fix, but was still frustrating since I have such limited time for sewing and I really, really would love to get this dress complete while it’s still warm out.

However! That setback with the skirt got me thinking more and more about the overall dress, and thinking again about the bodice fit. When I cut the side-front pieces using a 1/4″ FBA, the bodice zipped up and technically did fit, but it was pretty tight.
I decided to recut the side-front pieces with a larger FBA – about 1/2″ on each breast so adding 1″ overall compared to the vanilla pattern – and DANG. Dangity ding dang dang it is amazing how much of a difference it made. Knowing that the dress is lined I think I need to do just a smidge more on the FBA, but I am so glad I took the time to try it out.

As anxious as I am to get the real dress put together, I want to do what will hopefully be the actual final muslin. Next steps:

  1. Recut the side-front and center-front pieces based on a .75″ FBA
  2. Cut a muslin lining for the bodice
  3. Assemble all pieces including the lining

Elisalex sewalong: final bodice fit + skirt drafting

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This morning with a refreshed attitude I decided it was better in the long run to install the zipper into the FBA’d version of the bodice just to be sure things fit.

Elisalex bodice with FBA, and a very dirty mirror!

It’s wild to have something made of non-stretch fabric that fits so exactly, though that is the entire point of home sewing!

After confirming the fit, I moved on to drafting the skirt. As mentioned in the previous post I decided to draft a three panel gathered skirt.

Frustratingly, for the back panels I neglected to add the seam allowance for the hem.

Although irritating, I was pretty sure when drafting the skirt length that I was overestimating quite a bit, so it will all need to be hemmed by a few inches anyway.

Next up is pockets, then attaching the skirt to the bodice!

Elisalex sew along: muslin fit #2

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Following the first muslin fit, I ripped the seams down and cut the pieces to the next size down. I decided not to do the FBA this time just out of curiosity.

The result was a bodice that absolutely fit closer in the back and shoulders (as opposed to the first one which had clear gaping issues), but was definitely a bit too snug – pretty much exactly the 1/2″ too snug that I suspected!

The next step was making the FBA for this size, and cutting fresh muslin pieces. I stopped short of installing the zipper on the new bodice… perhaps foolishly, but I am so confident that the fit will be correct that I decided to shift my focus today onto the skirt. A few notable things I learned this time though, thanks to the sewalong blog posts:

  • Start pinning at the waistline
  • When pinning, focus on where the fabric will actually be sewn (the 5/8″ line), not on lining up the raw edges exactly
  • By careful lengthening the center front bodice piece after FBA… I think I over-lengthened previously which caused some somewhat horrific results once eased in. This time around everything was much smoother

Onto the skirt: The original Elisalex has a tulip skirt. I may someday be brave enough to try that, but the quilt cotton I obtained for this dress just doesn’t have the right weight/structure to hold the shape. I’ve been going back and forth about whether to do a gathered skirt or a circle skirt, and I ended up deciding on the gathered skirt — though in the future I do want to try this bodice with a circle skirt. The considerations I took into account:

  • Amount of main fabric and lining fabric on hand
  • Needing to install the zipper across the bodice and skirt
  • Wanting to install easy side-seam pockets
  • The realization that my main fabric was NOT directional (hooray!)

I’ve draft a three panel gathered skirt: one front panel and two back panels. This way, I’ve got an easy seam in the back for the zipper and easy seams on the sides for pockets.

My hope is that maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to have a fully constructed muslin, and then over the next week work on constructing the final dress.