Winging It -- Kwik Sew 3617

I'm making slow, but steady progress on Kwik Sew 3617.  I decided to add contour darts to help with the pool of fabric at my backside.  I kept looking for clear directions on how to do the sway back adjustment, but I couldn't find any written and illustrated so that I could understand.  I also have some serious concerns about adding a horizontal seam across the back. If anyone has pictures of how the finished technique looks, please share.  **Update:   found the technique illustrated here. Silly me thought that the seam would be visible in the garment like adding a dart**

Back to the contour darts.  I took the path of least resistance.  I went through my patterns to see which had back darts.  I decided to go with New Look 6945.  I simply traced the darts from that pattern onto the new pattern. How's that for winging it?

Here's a recap of what I've done so far:

When I trace my top patterns, I usually trace the side cutting lines for small-XL.

Then I tissue fit.

It's painfully clear why RTW never fits me! Next I add cutting and sewing lines.

Now, after some slicing and dicing (no-dart FBA).  I end up with this:

After the FBA, I elected not to redraw the cutting and stitching lines.  To make things easier, I included a 1" seam allowance when I finished the FBA.

Time for the darts.  Since I was new to this, I ended up tracing all of them (and not too neatly).

I ended up going with the one for the largest size.  I also tried to increase it.

Here we go.  Not bad. Certainly not perfect but, not bad. 

My FBAs are getting better with each attempt. I just wish I could get the armhole shaping right. Anyhoo, Got my neckilnes ready for later use.

I'm hoping this will turn out well.

Resources

• 
  
  Tissue fitting:  Fit for Real People: Sew Great Clothes Using ANY Pattern (Sewing for Real People series)
  
  
  
• 
  
  No-dart FBA:  The Perfect Fit: The Classic Guide to Altering Patterns
  
  
  
• 
  
  Contour darts:  New Complete Guide to Sewing (Readers Digest)
  
  
  

A Little Progress

I've been busy today. I've been trying to figure out how to do an FBA on a top without a dart. Is anything simple when sewing? I'm not frustrated because of the work; I hate I ran out of time. Had to work for an hour and then spent a couple of hours in the kitchen. Dinner was tasty.


Anyhoo. I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but I'm proud of the attempt. Let's see first, I dug through the trash and found the large and extra large cutting lines. Score for Kwik Sew. Real paper made reattachment easy.

Humpty Dumpty is all put back together again.

Now, once I taped everything back up I brief agonized, and I do mean agonized over how to get from a medium to an extra large. Here's what I'm most proud of, I decided to tissue fit the pattern. Not only that, I traced the pattern onto sewable pattern paper. This may not sound like much to you, but this is big stuff for a girl who was baffled by understitching a few months ago.

I got lazy with some of the markings. Who needs the cutting lines for medium, large and extra large anyway?

I'm sure this will come back to haunt me, but I couldn't tape the pieces together smoothly. Here are the pins.

Let's see if I can draw the cutting line. I pined the 1/4" seam allowance.

Shoulder too.

Now comes the FBA. Here's a random line. Well, not really random, but kind of because I had to make up where I thought the dart should go. Of course there was no apex on the pattern. I made that up too.

Now from that line to this, I'm not really sure what happened. The one thing I do know is that I'm prioritizing a dress form over car repair. I just have no idea what I'm doing when I try to fit myself.

The above looks like the book, Fit For Real People, but I'm completely guessing with the measurements. I really did try to add an apex to the pattern and measure center front to center front, but it was all too much. When I sliced the pattern, I just pinned some random distance. I'll figure it out next weekend.