Sunday, October 3, 2010

More Work On The Bodysuit and Pattern

As the title of this post suggests, I found some time this weekend to crank out another top half of the body suit.

There are numerous improvements and changes made this time around, as there have been with each iteration. The greatest news of all is that each time I make one of these, I learn a little more. Either I come up with a new technique to handle a certain problem, or I realize an error I made in a previous iteration.

The other day I cut a brand new paper pattern that sort of incorporated bits and pieces from both of the store bought patterns I've been working with lately. What I really like about the Kwik-Sew pattern is the way it handles the under arm part on the torso. But I prefer the seam lines from my original pattern.

Here's a picture of the finished product. As with many of these pictures, there really isn't a whole lot to glean from it, other than it is complete.



But this second picture is something I'm pretty proud of, though I'm not sure it's clear. What I tried to do with this pattern is move the side seams toward the back zipper by about two inches. It worked like a charm. Notice that the seam from the sleeve does NOT match up with the side seam. This is on purpose. One of the tricks I learned from the Kwik-Sew pattern was what I needed to do in order to move that side seam back a couple inches. So I did it. The instructions for the Kwik-Sew suit also were very different than the first pattern I was using, and it did things in a different order. It turns out, as with combinatorial mathematics, order matters. Attaching the sleeves is not much easier, and much more precise. And I'm getting much better results. Things are lining up better, making for an overall better final product.

I'm also finding that my technique for pinning the fabric together is really working like a charm. By putting the pins in perpendicular to the seam line, I am pretty much eliminating the slippage problems I was having in the past.

I'm still pretty stumped about how to handle the collar, but I've got some idea.

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