Previously, I used an old piece of flannel to drape a bodice sloper onto my dressform, hehehe, nice try, it was, I liked it because it turned out pretty well, or so I thought. So I've drafted up all my basic slopers, all of them. Then, more recently because my patternmaking study and hands on practice went so well in developing my understanding that I decided to take the plunge and try my hand at digital pattern drafting in CorelDraw 9 and then use Adobe Photoshop CS2 to create printable files from my CorelDraw pattern.
Well, I had a bit of a pause in my progress from then because I've had to work on a writing assignment but last night I hurried up (at 11pm) and put together my print out jpeg files (that is divided my digital patternmaking exercise into printable size documents, printed them and then taped them together) and put the front and back bodice patterns together. Trued them up, perfect of course except some adjustment to the armscye curves, but I was expecting to have to do as much. Any way though, when I compared them to my manual, original, non-digitally drafted patterns I realized there was a problem.
Okay, so I took my print quality paper (this white stuff is not as soft as the packaging paper) and sized it up against the dressform and discovered something very valuable... the benefit of 'fitting' a paper pattern to the dress form lies in the paper's inability to stretch.
This was an 'ah ha' moment for me.
Originally I was a bit frustrated with how the armscye on my original bodice sloper that I'd sewn from the first paper pattern draft, seemed to not hang comfortabley on the dressform and the reason I think, is that the height level of the front and back shoulders on the pattern draft ended up being just a bit shorter then they were supposed to be and at a slightly wrong angle as well.
The reason this happened was because the fabric that I used to drape on my dress form must have stretched a bit while I was draping it. So now I realize that a draped pattern must be tried, sewn, fitted than compared to a "fitted" non-stretchy digital paper pattern and not just given the "Okay" when the first fabric sloper seems to sit well.
What a relief to find that out. So I'm going to hurry up and fix that later on today hopefully, before my client sends some work my way. I want my work to be perfect, totally perfect. So what I'm going to do, is make the adjustments to the digital pattern, make a set of print outs, put it together, cut it out of some fabric, sew it together and check it again. I can't wait to see if the armscye issue will be corrected, I'm thinking it will be and I'll be happier with the fit. I think I'm going to find a better piece of fabric to work with though, one with a tighter weave this time around. And next time I want to post some pictures too. My brother gave me his iPhone and the camera on it is better than the one on my cell phone (yeahhhh).
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