This is a tank dress

This is a terribly drawn set of illustrations, but I am so .....beside myself with irritation that I am just going to express it through 'art'.

You will need a sloper/bodice block. And some paper. And a pencil. Or a crayon.

This is not rocket science . If you have ever sewn anything, you already have the materials on hand.

Free slopers keep slipping off the internet, but you probably have a simple bodice pattern that looks a lot like this. No, I do not need a bust dart that big. I need a wider block.

The purple lines are the ones you're going to draw on your paper, around your bodice. The green line is the lower front neck. You can draw the one you like the best.

You will make some allowances for wearing ease (I mean, we're making a dress length tank top here, there's no real art to it) and you want to be able to pull it over your head, so add a couple of inches around your bust line/chest for width. Expand the neck opening, you probably have a pullover top that has a neckline you love. Use that for this part. 

Extend those lines down to the skirt length you are looking for. 

If you are bootylicious, add more. 

If you are not, do what you will.

This is my rough layout on two pieces of folded yardage, and those diagonal lines show where you're going to cut your bias facing strips for the armholes and neckline. 

You could also cut an all in one facing, as recently demo'd on Threads' website.

 I even gave you a pocket for the side seam. Add it where your hand wants to go (reach for pocket, measure how far that is from your armpit, mark on side seam).

And you're welcome. 

*author's message

Neat little awkwardly placed seam line, at no extra charge!

Next Dress McCalls 7155

McCalls Darted Dress (on Lanetz Living)

I confess, I'm not buying the pattern. I don't have to, because Janet has given us the b side in the photos

I can draft a pattern for me from my blocks using that basic diagram.

Don't worry, there's a wing in Lanetz Living named after me. I do not like to consider how many patterns I've bought; it's like romance novels. It's the enjoyment you get out of reading them.

Yeah. Really. And I'm insulating my home with the boxes.

But back to 7155. 

It's a pullover with "unmounted sleeves".  That term is new to me. It's not cut on the bias (at least the yardage requirements indicate so) and I won't need so much french dart in the front as I might need it in the back.  A tempting alteration I think I'll just skip for now.

I have a dress like this already, that I wore to bits and only have the bits left. It had a center back zip that I shifted to the side. It was the college go-to dress that convinced me that wearing a dress was easier than getting pants and shirts to match.

In the near future, I will be writing about my uncanny inability to get the top of a zipper not to bulge out like toad eyes. Too many examples to bear thinking about.

But the side zip insertion puts that bulgy thing in the armpit, out of view.

And makes dressing myself easier (that shoulder thing).

That topic comes up with this dress. Maybe cosplay isn't your thing, but I like it.

Hemming and the sleeve closure on the agenda for today after work.

Oh, yeah. Back to work.

Pants Pants Pants Sloper In Progress

I need to post a tutorial about making pants. And it will be free, because knowledge is power. Today I'm thinking about a pants sloper

Add a little ease, a little styling, pockets = pants!

I would take a pair of pants that fit well enough, put one leg inside the other and trace the crotch from them as accurately as possible (marking at waistband front and back).  Cut out that crotch shape  onto a big piece of fabric (old bedsheet, whatever you got to use/lose) as shown below. Mark the front and the back.

The resulting tube should be something you can sit down in without the elastic pulling down in the back and poofing up in the front. You may have to raise the waist to get to this. By the way, this is the hardest part of fitting pants. There will be darts in the front and back sections at the waist. 

You will need to make another leg to match this one, and sew up the crotch and repeat the process. It's not the most fun you've ever had, it helps to have help on this. 

It does beat the ptooey out of starting from scratch. 

I can't help but think that the fit starts at the crotch and works out to the outseam.  I can stand pants that are a little wonky at the sides but they have to fit in the seat and in the stomach or I just can't stand them.

Like so much in life, a work in progress. And now I need to put up or shut up...

Bra from bodice sloper

Okay, I'm actually still working on something else, probably not making this any time soon, but I will be revisiting this page many times.

How do you make a bra from a bodice sloper? 

Okay, back to pattern proofing. Is there any way to make this job less tedious?

And the tins are great for pins!

Online Linky Love on a hot Friday evening

Dammit, I am just too warm to edit and rewrite notes. My sewing machine is going back to the shop, because it did not get fixed, so nothing to see there.

So it's linky love Friday, with fitting fun from Threads and SewNews

First, there is pattern news.

The big news is McCalls is looking for vintage reprint ideas. Really.  Go to LauraMae's page on that link and start reading. I'll be here all week, but do that now.

Colette Patterns has a new dress pattern coming soon. I will have much to say about it when the veil is lifted next week.

Grainline has a new dress pattern out now, the Alder. It's a shirtwaist with gathers and without.

Neither one has sleeves. Which is good for summer. 

I will have a new pattern coming out in August. It's for culottes. Without sleeves.

Yes, I know how to make other things besides culottes, but this is more interesting to me than dresses.

I have this annoying tick. I'm staring out the window, sitting in a coffee shop, doing tech drawings and pattern piece breakdown of the hep jacket the woman over there is wearing. It's a fun mental exercise, but taking it further is....uh....stealing.

I want to do something NEW...

 http://moldesedicasmoda.blogspot.com/ does something like this (more of 'what do you do with a sloper/block?'). It's kind of a guilty pleasure for me; I also really enjoy http://pokroyka.ru/ which will take you to http://issuu.com

Which is my new "oh, is it time to get up to go to work in the morning now?" clickhole.

Just don't. It's really a bad idea. Intellectual property is not a bad idea (except if you take it past the life of the creator). It's almost all japanese crochet books anyway. And I don't even crochet.

Sew News has a PDF extra with Sarah Veblen on five patternmaker skills to master. Mostly about using rulers and smoothing out lines, but she does the usual great job with photography illustrating what she's talking about. A decent explanation of walking the pattern. 

My mother always said it was tacky to wear high heels with pants. I'm not a truly judgmental person, but this photo just makes me think that hemming these pants was not done on these models.

http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/4244/everyone-can-have-jeans-that-fit

Well, yes. It's not exhaustive, but it gives a good overview of how it works. I'd go find  Sarah Veblen's Complete Photo Guide to Fitting if you really want to dial down on the matter. Her photographs are really good; clear, concise, cogent. I think it's a keeper.

http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/25087/how-to-enlarge-a-pattern

I have my issues with how Threads approaches grading patterns, but I always find scaling up explanations deeply deeply funny. By the time you are done drawing all those lines, you will have a total webby mess on your hands. May I suggest using a grid?

A search on the internet that begins with "how to enlarge" is always entertaining, but this site, Art is Fun, gets to the point about halfway through. Forget the exact proportions of your framing grid; the source and the target just need to have squares. And it's a lot easier to do with a pattern piece to draw, vs a cartoon character or a bowl of fruit. When it gets less hot, I promise I'll put up a decent tutorial on this.

Let's end with a suggested alternation from the pants article:

adding width for my enormous calves?

Thinking about trousers: the FBumA Alteration

I keep seeing people talk about doing a sway back alteration on their pattern as they work for fit, but...I never see a 'big bum alteration'.

Could we call it a FBumA (playing on the full bust alteration formula)? It would have similar alteration issues (opening space between seams).

When you're adding to a pants pattern, the back piece is all you have to deal with. If it's a jeans alteration, the seam between the upper yoke and the main back piece IS the dart you're altering on. However, let's just stick to trouser style for the moment.

Assuming you started with a pants pattern that was perfect enough in the waist (A) and thighs, just needed more in the back, adding width (B) and a dart (red v-shape) above that width gives you more in the thigh and leg (C) than you wanted.

I'm not fond of slashing entire pieces by length to get what I want, so if I could avoid it, I would.

Version D is throwing off the grain line on the side seam and that's going to get weird in a hurry. 

So we go towards the back center line with E. 

 I have nipped off a little at the back waist and the side hip, because that is what I end up doing. I am bigger in the back than the front and I need all that width through the meaty part.  Essentially all I've added in the crotch is the equivalent of a gusset (which has been an alteration staple of my pants wardrobe for years) while adding who knows how many inches across the back. I could make the back crotch deeper as well, lengthening the center seam upwards to make the seam longer

(version F).

I confess I work the other way; identify the sizing from the butt and taking in the other parts. And I always have issues with how pants fit through the waist in the back. I am reconsideing this in light of reading about pattern adjustments; getting the fit right through the shoulders is trickier than getting the bust to fit.  But you'd buy a blouse pattern based on your chest measurement, which would tend to throw the rest of it off.

Perhaps the moral of this story is: you gotta make a muslin first.

Free Sloper Patterns Still Exist But They Keep Moving

Ah, the free sloper is a moving target. Since this post, Ralph Pink's freebies went away. Link at the end is dead.

However, the JJ is still on Burda, hiding.

Still on burdastyle.com/patterns, as  'flynow-top-pleated-culottes'.

No culottes, but the multisized, easy peasy sloper, from 32 to 46 inches.

No linky. You can find that all by yourself.

And Ralph, love the pants sloper! 

--erniek- sept 17, 2014

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It has come to my attention (my email from BurdaStyle for today) that the era of the free and easily acquired bodice sloper is over. Yes, the JJ multisized sloper is gone, replaced by single size models, mostly for $.

I am very fond of Ralph Pink, and today I am fonder. He seems to be the last bastion of the freebie, and quite the set there is. Womenswear has skirt, dress, bodice, trousers (all sized 10). Menswear is jacket, shirt, and something called an "Overgarment".

Okay, I had trouble figuring it out myself. And it's a little puzzling to open and print, but pretty much, you need Adobe Reader and WINzip (to decompress the files), both freeware that have links on the same dang page.

Yes, the womens are in size 10. Yes, you can get this to work for you, without enlarging it after you've learned Photoshop or Illustrator (I am pulling my hairs doing that in my other spare time).

This situation offends me (no snaps to Ralph Pink, who never offends me). Slopers should be free. You have to put so much work into them, the basic layout should be a freebie.

I'm going to get to work on this.

In the meantime

Ralph Pink Patterns

Fifth Avenue - Sew Chic

I love this photo. Too dark, but that's the color. Mysterious! All other photos will be overexposed to show what the thing really looks like.

I have been jonesin' for this pattern since I saw it when it came out.

I picked a copy up from Laura Nash in person at SewExpo in Puyallup a month ago. Pondered it for awhile, tried different layouts on the cutting board, then jumped in with both feet and some leg as well.

I've not made a Sew Chic pattern before, and the question on a fitted pattern is always: does the fit match the measurements given for the size I'm choosing?

So before I start cutting the lining (to test fit the bodice), I get the newest sloper I've made and contrast and compare.

Obviously, things do not match up exactly.  There's styling differences in shoulder and dart placement, as well as wearing ease. The sloper is FITTED. This dress will have a side zip and will need some wiggle room to get arms through sleeves over my head. Wearing ease must be added.

The edge of the ruler is where a 1/2" seam allowance would end on an exact fit. Allowing for wearing ease of an inch on each side seam (2inches total), I'm going to be a 12. I have  36" bust, pattern says 36" - I think I can move ahead with confidence.

And indeed I can. I make up the bodice in the lining fabric, because if I have any tweaks I need to make, I can do them with that and keep moving forward with the dress.

I am a scant A cup on a good day, so I won't need a FBA with this pattern (the 'cupping' at the center bust seam is my level of shallow) but you may.

There are a lot of sizes on a pattern piece.

I needed to mark the seam line for my size so I would not miss mine when they cross.

I know, this is where the train goes into the tunnel and suddenly we are almost done when it comes back out.

Notes about the pattern are at the end of this post.

left to right: skirt front, skirt back, bodice/collar/sleeves sewn together. All side seams left open.

I am at the top of my weight cycle, and will be getting smaller again, so I broke the pieces into sections for final construction. Sewed collar and bodice sections together, added sleeves, made up skirt front and skirt back pieces with the lining serged to them at the edges. 

This modular construction will come in handy to edit this dress later on.

Is there a camera setting that doesn't make things look really wrinkled? Cause it's not.

It is a lovely dress. It's possibly idiot proof.  The collar is wide and an untamed beast I may shrink. I added a second skirt drape in the back to appease my need for consistency. I took six inches off the hem and widened the skirt here. I left off the side poof; I'm wide enough. I need to add ornaments as in the original, but suddenly other large personal issues are taking precedence.

I will return to this dress. 

Laura, you are a genius!

It needs a hat. But not much else. it's a gorgeous thing.

On the down side, the instructions assume a level of sewing and construction expertise and leave out steps. How that bodice goes together is yours to figure out.  The pattern tells you to interface the bodice pieces to support the collar, and you will have to. I've left that afternoon out here. The sleeves have an enormous pouf at the top; I took out an inch  of head height and still have quite the crown at the top. The print quality of the instructions made it impossible to read the layout diagrams. Mark the pieces 'face up for fabric/face down for lining' as all the front bodice pieces are singular cuts. The lining is the reverse of the fashion fabric, so it needs to be backwards/inside out. Yes, I always forget. That's another afternoon I've left out.

I don't care. It's a great dress. I'm a box, and I think it's flattering, even in these crummy selfies. This is the mother of the bride dress for sure!

I need to narrow the skirt. I left a LOT of room on the sides. Trust the pattern measurements on the envelope; they are correct!

Hm. Needs a hat.