Will That Work For Me?

After stretching my way through my entire fabric stash yesterday, I concluded that I didn't have a black knit that was going to make the kind of t-shirts I want to make. Besides a deep black color, I wanted a stable knit with crosswise stretch. So I went to Fabricland. And came home a 96% cotton, 4% lycra knit that has slight lengthwise stretch as well. Hopefully it'll work. I love cotton knits.

While the sales associate was cutting my fabric, she commented that when she was learning to sew the instructor had told the class that they were never to sew for themselves and only to sew for other people because it's too hard to sew for yourself. The idea was that each student would sew for someone else and someone would sew for them. Since she immigrated to Canada, perhaps that was a European concept at that time. I'm not sure but no matter where it originated, I disagree.

Even without help, it is possible to sew well fitted garments for yourself. It takes trial and error, a cushion full of pins and persistence but it can be done. If you are lucky enough to have a good instructor locally, that's a bonus but not all towns have local instructors and not all local instructors are good seamstresses. More important - in my opinion - is developing an attitude of constant awareness that notes and evaluates possibilities and asks will that work for me?

It was a random comment in an article that set me to exploring the narrow chest adjustment because I knew that the shape of my armhole was not correct and I knew that I wanted it to come down from the shoulder and closer to center front before curving under the armhole. That was the start of my armhole journey and for several weeks I've been making muslins using the same pattern and the same fabric to test one theory after another. It was time well invested. I've figured out what I wanted to know.

To start, I traced and sewed the pattern as is and checked that I was sewing the correct size before evaluating if each of my typical adjustments was truly needed or not. This can be a good approach to take when attempting to find an answer to a fitting issue because every adjustment made affects more than one area. For example, changing the angle of the front shoulder seam will affect the position of the bust point and the pull on the top of the sleeve cap.

One of the alterations confirmed is that I do need to make a petite adjustment above the armhole of roughly 1". I've been doing that for years but didn't realize how much the way in which I might make that adjustment could affect other things. Because it's easier, I've been making the adjustment on the narrowest part of the shoulder above the neckline. That appears to have been a mistake.

Above is the traced front of Vogue 1314. The dotted line is the angle of the armscye seam for my correct size. The two horizontal lines are the 1" petite adjustment. They are made right at the level of the notch because as you can see below, making the adjustment right there maintains the shape of the seamline coming down straight from the shoulder before curving under the armhole just as I was hoping.

Previously, I'd been exploring the narrow chest adjustment. If done correctly, this adjustment also makes a narrow shoulder adjustment. If done incorrectly by folding a dart toward the shoulder as I was exploring, the change scoops the bottom and moves the armscye seam slightly toward center but not enough to create the shape above with the petite adjustment made at the notch level. Because of the way it curved at the armhole, the narrow chest adjustment appeared to be the answer but wasn't really HOWEVER...

... what I learned from the adjustment is that a corresponding amount needs to be added to the side seams of the sleeve. For example, if a 3/4" narrow chest adjustment is made front and back than 3/4" is added to the front and back side seam of the sleeve which also increases bicep width. That was good to know because I typically need bicep width. Without this extra width, the sleeve will pull when set into the armhole distorting the shape while not hanging correctly.

A random comment in an article led me to consider the narrow chest adjustment. Learning how to make the adjustment taught me to add to the side seams of the sleeves. Making the adjustment above resulted in too tight of a sleeve. Looking at the changes to the armhole, I could see that I had lengthened that distance from sideseam to notches and when I slit the sleeve on the muslin up the center to see how much the fabric separated, I was able to determine how much to add to each side seam because the adjustment I made performs a similar function to the narrow chest adjustment. I connected the dots. The longer you sew, the more experience you have, the easier it is to work in this way.

Ideas for improving our sewing are everywhere. Some are adjustments. Some are techniques. Some are tips. One tip I picked up from - I believe - Marcy Tilton was to stitch the dart on a knit t-shirt with tissue paper underneath. It makes a HUGE difference. Useful tips can make all the difference with sewing.  Now-a-days, they are most often found on personal blogs or in discussion groups.

Another tip I learned years ago was about neckbands. I think it was in a DVD and I heard it, tried it, and adjusted it to work for me. With most ready-to-wear t-shirts, the neckband is applied with one shoulder seam sewn and then the second seam is stitched across the neckband which means you're stitching that seam at a curved point on the neckline. The two sides don't always look identical.

Because my t-shirts fit better with a center back seam and because the top of that seam intersects at a straight line, I leave the center back seam open, sew both shoulder seams, apply the neckband, and then sew the center back seam closed. It's neater and more accurate. Just because "they" say to do something a certain way or just because ready-to-wear does it that way, does not mean we have to do it that way. Better to do it the way that works for us.

Another thing I learned from reading about the narrow chest adjustment was the importance of truing the sleeve so that the grain line hangs straight from the shoulder to the hemline. The information I read indicated that this often requires taking some of the width off the back sleeve seam. Although it was for a different adjustment, that process solved an issue I've been having for several years with my sleeves - slight twisting. After thirty-eight years of sewing, it taught me the proper way to place a sleeve on grain. It came from Sandra Betzina's book Fast Fit. I have a huge respect for Sandra's abilities and consult her book and Pati Palmer's Fit For Real People all the time.

A while ago, I referred to a comment made on one of Peggy Sager's webcasts. She said to wrap the knit fabric around your body until it fits the way you want, mark where the fabric meets, measure the distance between, and sew that corresponding size. That's incredibly valuable information because the stretch in knit fabric is the variable that makes sewing with knits difficult. That's why all the muslins I have sewn to correct the shape of the armhole have been in the same fabric and that's why the difference in stretch between the muslin fabric and the fashion fabric I choose to use next will affect the fit of the garment. I need to know that and have a plan to work with stretch.

If the fabric has more stretch, I would need to go down a size. If the fabric has less stretch, I would need to go up a size. Going up a size is not so difficult when using a T & T pattern because you can simply sew the seam allowances smaller. If going down a size means using a smaller pattern size, that can work quite well too BUT... if going down a size means taking the side seam and the underarm seam in tighter, that affects all kinds of things - like the shape of the armhole that I've just spend considerable time working out. That awareness has me considering drafting T & T patterns for different degrees of stretch and/or drawing an armhole template much like my crotch template.

The image above is from a Threads article talking about how the length of a crotch seam can be the same on two women and yet have vastly different shapes. I read the same comment in a Threads article about the shape of the armhole. Information like this is a transferable ah ha.

In the Vogue 1003 pant fitting pattern is the comment Generally, the longer the crotch seam, the lower it will fall on your body. A few years ago I studied pant fitting with Pati Palmer and Marta Alto at which time I learned what they referred to as scooping out the crotch. If you have one of their pant patterns, there will be information on this adjustment on the pattern pieces and in the instructions.

This past weekend I watched two videos on pant fitting, one of which was adamantly opposed to scooping the crotch and said that any adjustments to back crotch length could be done at the waist. In the same video, there was a discussion of grainline and it was noted that the grainline on pants is perpendicular to crotch level which is parallel to the floor. Those two things are important to know. That the crotch level is parallel to the floor and that the grainline is perpendicular to the crotch level. All adjustments must keep those lines true.

The diagram above is from Pants For Real People by Palmer/Pletsch. Both the maker of the video and Pati Palmer are recognized sewing experts and yet they are giving conflicting advice. That will always happen and it's up to us individually to merge together what we know about our bodies, about sewing, and about pattern drafting to come up with the answer that works for us. Some of what works will come from taking workshops, some will come from reading articles and blogs, some will come from books, some will come from random comments in articles on unrelated subjects. All will need to be tried and tested. What's most important, is that we're aware.

I evaluated the information in the video against what I already knew to be true for my body and decided that as well respected as that instructor was, the advice was not appropriate for me. And that's not a random judgement. Several years ago, when I was exploring pant fitting, I fit my body using the Vogue fitting shell pattern and drew the level crotch lines on the muslin. When I tried the pants on, the line pulled downward in a V toward center. That's indicative of not enough crotch length.

Just as I discovered where to make the petite adjustment with my armhole, back then I discovered where to make the length adjustment to my back crotch because in order to maintain the grain, the crotch level needs to remain parallel to the floor. With my body, adding above is not going to do that. That length needs to be added below the crotch level. That's why my crotch is shaped just like the illustration above which I've referred to as scooping but perhaps it isn't referred to in that way at all. No matter, my derriere is lower than crotch level in the back and higher than crotch level in the front. I wrote a posting about that discovery a few years ago called High Front Low Back Oddity which is how it is labelled in Pants For Real People.  

Making and confirming discoveries is part of the sewing experience. Another comment made on the video was that the side seam is a random position, that there is no designated side to the body, and therefore no need to cut different sizes for the front and back of the garment (although it was also noted that a smaller front is slimming). That contradicted something I heard a few years ago but it was also advice I'd recently explored.

I have been cutting different sizes front and back for a few years which made buying patterns, tracing and cutting out, and merging seam lines quite complicated which had to have affected results. The more complicated things are, the more that happens. Prior to going to Calgary, I'd discovered that yes, I was a size fourteen through the shoulder and underarm but no, I did not need two different sizes through the hips, one bigger in the back and one smaller in the front. I could draw the side seam using a pivot and slide method from the 14 underarm to the 18 hip front and back and the garment fits with plenty of room. YEAH. I'll now try that idea on several other garments and see if the results are better - or not - than what I've been doing previously.

In this post, I've been talking about my discoveries. The point is to encourage you to always be aware, to question what you think is truth about the adjustments you're currently making, to determine if they need to be made and if so to consider how the adjustment is made and what else that might affect and if there is a better way, and to evaluate expert advice based on what you know about your own body and make your best choice from there. Try it and see. It's only fabric.

Tomorrow - my close to perfect t-shirt. LOVE it!

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - today is my youngest son's 19th birthday and we're going for lunch to celebrate. I am thrilled to have three children all of whom I both like and love and all of whom appear to both like and love me. It's absolutely wonderful.