Watching The Step-by-Step Process in Action - Your Weekly Guide from SewingArtistry

Published: Fri, 02/19/21

Basic

February 19, 2021

So we had a wonderful monthly Zoom with Claire for those who have purchased from the SewingArtistry Resource Library and we had some very good questions. I asked one of the participants, Vicki, if we could use her pictures and questions about fitting.

What we're doing here is working on the fitting in some of the final stages. This has taken us some time to get to this stage but it's well worth it and sharing the process can inspire and ????????

As background, she has made the sleeves, and has placed the armhole position on the bodice front perfectly. Notice that there is a seam allowance here and the actual seam is in white and this is actually the perfect placement for the sleeve.

With the sleeves off, we can see a few problems that need to be solved - and the primary ones are the gap mid-way in the armhole. As well, there's a little fullness under the bust, but the bust fits really well. The shoulders hang well too. so we have a little touch up to do here.

So these shots show exactly where we have some issues:

The same gap at the mid-armhole area
A series of wrinkles pointing to the bust on one side, but not so much on the other side.

And here's our cure. This wasn't that hard, because the fabric was begging to be taken in at the mid-armhole area, and then a dart below was also begging to come in. We liked the curved dart as it has a little more style than a straight line, although she could do that later if she likes. Also with this curved like, she can insert a pocket in the lower part of the dart. More than anything you can see how suddenly we have fit the pattern to her and yet made it flattering by not making it skin tight.

These photos show something else that has been fixed as well. Notice above how the garment seems to be tilting forward. Once we took up that extra fabric in front (under the bust), the tilt is gone. This is one excellent way to manipulate a tilt that can make the garment look like it's hanging straight. Now when she takes this off, the pattern may not look straight at all, but that doesn't matter cause it's all about hanging correctly on her.

Another thing that has been cured, is that if you notice the before photos above and compare them to the after (or with the pinned in darts) below, you'll notice that there looked like a part of the armhole that was hanging a little too forward in the before (the cure for this is simply add fabric in there to keep the sleeve hanging correctly). However once we took the top of the "princess seam" dart, boom the armhole is cut beautifully.

The Back

We haven't forgotten the back, but the front is making great progress, as a matter of fact, the front is almost done. So we can turn ourselves to the back. When Vicki stands in the "T" position, everything looks great, but when she's in her normal standing position, relaxed arms at the side, there are some issues. Since Vicki will not be walking down the street or standing in line with her arms at a "T" this needs to be fixed.

Basically we have an issue with the back bodice armhole encroaching over into the space that belongs to the sleeve. As a result we're getting those creases that are aiming toward the underarm. This shows there's too much fabric in the back armhole through the back.

This gets into fitting the back, and sometimes what we have to remember is that the sleeve head is part of fitting across the back. But the sleeve fits the arm and the bodice fits the back. If the sleeve encroaches over into the bodice's fitting area or the bodice encroaches over into the sleeve's fitting area, we get bad wrinkles.

The cure here is to cut out part of the back, but still maintain an good armhole curve at the bottom. If you notice closely you can see where Vicki has cut this out with her stitching line. The amount that we take out of the back will be the same amount that we add into the sleeve head. We will take about 1" - 1½" out of each side of the armhole, so we will need to add 1" - 1½" in the sleeve head. This is simple cause we will add it right in the middle of the sleeve piece so we will have a beautiful sleeve head - you know that crisp, puffy that screams tailored, professional look and it makes for a beautiful crisp hang on the shoulders. Vicki most likely won't need that entire width all the way to her wrist, so we will taper the sleeve once we like how the sleeve sets into the front and back.

Here are some guidelines that we used to do the fitting:

We shaped the garment to Vicki's shape which is kind of a cross between a rectangle and an apple.
We started at the shoulders and make sure that they hit at the property place
Don't be afraid of darts even in knits. They can lend a totally flattering look that will be scrumptious.
We didn't want too much accentuation of her waist, but we did want the illusion of a waist, hence the shaping just under the bust at side and silhouette and straight from there down, keeping her shape looking trim, but shaped a little.
We did not fit skin tight, however we did fit close in the bust, to give a nice flattering accentuation there.
We're fitting the sleeve to the arm area and the bodice to the body area - no encroaching allowed here, while keeping to the silhouette that is flattering and has shape to it.

I know you all will want to see this finished, but I wanted to share with you a little about how fitting steps are going, and with one step at a time. We started at the top and have worked down, then working to the back and working from the top down, then adding the sleeves so that they sit at the proper place. Suddenly as you begin to work through all the elements of the bodice front, back and sleeves, you are set with a top that works for all occasions.

Then you're ready for variation city. This is the kind of top that means you never have to purchase another knit top pattern again. Looking through the pattern book, you can see a pattern you want to make, and working with your core, fitted pattern, make that pattern to look like the one in the book. Even more freeing is looking through magazines or online catalogues or clothing sites, or even the latest garment that Camilla or Kate is wearing to get ideas about what might be a fun garment to wear. The possibilities are endless.

Here are the three resources separately so you can choose which one you want to use.

Inspiration - click here for more info - SALE $27.50

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And here's the original package:

Inspiration, Studio Design and Time Management. They all three key in really well with each other, and they are on a 21% discount for the first of 2021!

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Enjoy!