Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Updated: KS 3115 Exercise Top (See Yesterday's Post)

This is one of the many reasons that I love you blogger friends: You read my insanely long posts about reasonably trivial sewing projects and provide feedback.

I revisited the top pattern today, all set to do what I suggested in my last post. FYI, doesn't matter how short one's dart is, closing a 2.5 inch wide dart, of various lengths, yields a 6 inch span at the hem. Ridiculous. Plus, it makes the armsyce look weird and truncated - like a right angle sort of -  which, when I trued for correction yields - guess what? - the same armscye curve as the modified one used the first time. My proposed fix seems destined to fail. I can see it, even if I can't articulate my reasoning well.

Three of you suggested that I probably need to go down a size. That seems crazy to me, but it's sometimes the way. I just redrew the size small armscye (recreating it with a french curve cuz, natch, I cut into the actual pattern first time around, stupid girl) as it appears that what I need is a higher armhole - not a longer one. (My own armscye is pretty high, and that's probably why I can wear all of those high-winged bras without issue, despite my shortness and short-waistedness.)

It occurs to me today that I graded from a small shoulder to a medium bust in the weirdest way. I didn't draw the armhole in size small and move to a medium side seam. I cut a small at the shoulder and graded to a medium along the front armscye curve. Effectively I lowered the armhole while neglecting to remove fabric as assertively as I should have, where I should have.

There you go. Can't say that my new size small - which if I recreated it correctly is exactly the same as the unmodified original - will solve the problem of 2 plus inches of extra fabric. But I did take off a reasonable amount of side seam at the underarm (like, 2 inches per side over front and back pieces) and raised the curve by about 1/2 an inch. Furthermore, I reverted the front and back armholes to a true size small, rather than something half way between a small and medium.

Hilarious, that I've managed to turn a simple shell into a complicated thing. But not surprising.

13 comments:

  1. So, the question is - does it fit better now? You can't leave us hanging in suspense.

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    1. K: I don't know! Haven't cut and sewn the next top. That's for the weekend. But I will share!

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    2. Oops, sorry! Didn't realize it was still in the works... It was like reading a novel and not knowing what happened in the end. ;)

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  2. Sometimes the simplest things offer up the most challenge. (Hey, is that a fortune cookie??). :)

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  3. So this is a knit pattern, right? What about rotating the dart to the side seam, but doing some gentle gathers besides the bewbs instead of a dart? I've done that for some of Anne's tops, and it's really not noticible during wear!

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    1. That's actually a genius idea. If this version of the pattern results in the same problem, that's how I'm going to try to fix it on the fly.

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  4. Argh! The suspense is killing me!

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  5. I think the simplest things often turn into complex by the need to change them and not having many choices as to where to change them. 5 Sorbettos and it still needs tweaking. I totally get it.

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    1. You're so right. It's the lack of alteration seams that makes things so tricky.

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  6. If you haven't done it already it might be worth the effort to draft an armscye block, basically a bodice block with an armscye that fits well, and use it as the armscye template for everything. You would probably need a few different ones for different styles and fabrics. When I self-drafted my bodice block the armsyce came out crappy but looked exactly like the diagrams in the drafting book. So I took a pattern I'd previously debugged in terms of armscye/sleeve fit and overlayed that one on my draft. Fits beautifully for fitted wovens. You probably need just a few different shapes. But drawing the right armscye on the pattern won't solve the dart issue.

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    1. I haven't and it would be totally worth the effort. I'm going to make that a priority over the next while. I don't generally have armsyce issues, unless I'm working with a woven, and then I solve the issue with bodice alterations. Mind you, on that last suit I made, the armscye was a problem. So I have to give this some more thought. Thanks for the idea!

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