I'm immediately thinking of two-piece sleeves, like you get on coats and jackets, and wondering if those do some of the same job as your darts, but in a different way? The shaping doesn't look obvious when you look at the flat pieces, but having made a two-part sleeve for my overcoat, I know as soon as I sewed the pieces together they had obvious shape and form - they would no longer sit flat, were obviously handed, and were generally exuding sleeve-y personality even before I did any gathering / easing at the top. I'm also thinking of what I learned from Fit For Real People, the pattern-modifying book I use for making full-bust adjustments - because that often involves adding extra darts, they suggest a bunch of ways to move the darts to somewhere less visible, like effectively shifting them off into a seam somewhere else. (Raglan seams being particularly magic for this - they look simple, but can be doing a whole lot.)
For my own stuff, I've only been doing some preliminaries for now, but it's the time of year when Aussie pattern companies have offers on for EOFY, and that includes the one I've been buying a lot of stretch-fabric patterns from, Waves and Wild - I've bought a pattern for some joggers, which I think will have some quite general-purpose use. It's for fabrics with smaller amounts of stretch, like as low as 10%, and that means some people have used it for office-wear in something like a heavy ponte knit... But first I'm going to try using the double-sided merino / poly / elastane I got super-cheap a while ago, to make some comfy winter trousers for around the house, and if those work I should be able to use the same pattern to make my partner some close-fitting merino joggers, for wear while cycling, and then we'll see what else.
Also I saw a post elsewhere that put me on to this pattern, the Riley Crossover Bra: https://www.radpatterns.com/product/riley-crossover-bra/ I honestly had thought I had my bra issues sorted, with the Superstar Bra pattern, but a) that seems to have been a contributor to damaging my shoulder and b) it's hard to get those bras on *while* I've got a damaged shoulder. Riley's gimmick is including instructions for making it front-fastening, so you put it on like a waistcoat, and I'm trying a test version of this in random leftover athletic stretch fabric. If that works... I'm wondering if a version in the thick merino/nylon leggings fabric I bought would fly? Because a winter bra made of merino sounds frankly excellent, if I can pull it off.
At some point I probably need to work out what to do with all the things I've sewn that don't quite fit so I don't wear them, or were never quite completed because they weren't going to fit... I do very little clothes shopping but I still have piles of surplus clothes, and in this case they're unlabelled and weird sizes and deeply unlikely to fit anyone else either. I've had periodic clear-outs, usually occasioned by moving country, but could probably do with finding a more positive / useful approach that I can use before it gets to that...
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-06-26 10:48 pm (UTC)For my own stuff, I've only been doing some preliminaries for now, but it's the time of year when Aussie pattern companies have offers on for EOFY, and that includes the one I've been buying a lot of stretch-fabric patterns from, Waves and Wild - I've bought a pattern for some joggers, which I think will have some quite general-purpose use. It's for fabrics with smaller amounts of stretch, like as low as 10%, and that means some people have used it for office-wear in something like a heavy ponte knit... But first I'm going to try using the double-sided merino / poly / elastane I got super-cheap a while ago, to make some comfy winter trousers for around the house, and if those work I should be able to use the same pattern to make my partner some close-fitting merino joggers, for wear while cycling, and then we'll see what else.
Also I saw a post elsewhere that put me on to this pattern, the Riley Crossover Bra: https://www.radpatterns.com/product/riley-crossover-bra/ I honestly had thought I had my bra issues sorted, with the Superstar Bra pattern, but a) that seems to have been a contributor to damaging my shoulder and b) it's hard to get those bras on *while* I've got a damaged shoulder. Riley's gimmick is including instructions for making it front-fastening, so you put it on like a waistcoat, and I'm trying a test version of this in random leftover athletic stretch fabric. If that works... I'm wondering if a version in the thick merino/nylon leggings fabric I bought would fly? Because a winter bra made of merino sounds frankly excellent, if I can pull it off.
At some point I probably need to work out what to do with all the things I've sewn that don't quite fit so I don't wear them, or were never quite completed because they weren't going to fit... I do very little clothes shopping but I still have piles of surplus clothes, and in this case they're unlabelled and weird sizes and deeply unlikely to fit anyone else either. I've had periodic clear-outs, usually occasioned by moving country, but could probably do with finding a more positive / useful approach that I can use before it gets to that...