Hyacinthe homework September 26, 2018

A big welcome back to Hyacinthe!  A former student from Georgian College who also took my front fly zippers class at the Creativ Festival in Toronto is back in training!  Yesterday we had a wonderful day of learning and discovering new things together. 
Hyacinthe is an excellent sewer but fears the pattern draft which is a mystery to me because she understands it very well and can execute patterns fairly easily.  So this was a good refresher to remind her how very easy it is to draft patterns as long as one does not overthink the process and follows the method :)

So yesterday we created a pants draft for leggings with no side seams taking into account the stretch of the fabric which meant the draft needed to be 3 sizes smaller, checked previous pattern and findings were that they are to be re-drafted using new measurements.  We also created a boyfriend shirt pattern using the man's shirt base with shaping - a dressmaker dart at the front giving the necessary shape to keep the centre front straight making the shirt hang properly.  We also took into account the half shoulder width to shrink down the dropped shoulder so it hits the right spot and the sleeve cap is the right height minimizing any pull lines due to a shallow sleeve cap. 

At home please check the fit on the pants and if the crotch is too small then add 1 – 1.5 cm to the front at inseam in this particular case.  Another alteration for finished pants when the crotch is too small is to add a 2, 3 or 4 cm gusset in the shape of a triangle to the inseam of both legs then sew up the crotch curve, you will be amazed how easy and effective this is to make it work! 

For the coat sleeve alteration my recommendation is to remove the sleeves, make a paper pattern by tracing the sleeve open with the adjustment at the sleeve cap included; on the paper make the fold to remove the excess fabric and re-cut the sleeves from the paper pattern to remove all or most of the pull lines present when fitting. 

Homework is to sew a mock up of the leggings, sew a dress/shirt using the pattern made in class with the front dressmaker dart.  Keep drafting and sewing to practice. 

Next class will be spring of 2019.