Stewart Girl's Dress pt. 3

I have made some progress with the pattern. I still believe the greater challenge is coming up with a mass construction technique. No matter how I twist my brain around the style, it still requires hand manipulation of the gathers. So per Kathleen's suggestion, here is what the pattern would look like. I realized after I took the pictures that I had left off the seam allowances for the dart - must add that before sewing up the samples. This is a quick and dirty pattern, and I know it is not production ready. The style is going to work for girl sizes 8-16 and older. Younger sizes do not have (or need) darts in the skirt, although they can be added for a style detail.

This is a basic skirt block for a girl's size 10. A style line is drawn on the pattern where the gather detail is to be placed.








Lines are drawn from the dart point and the style line until they intersect. The skirt is slashed along those lines to the point of intersection. The dart is partially rotated closed. The original style had some fullness in the waist. The dart equivalent fullness only adds about a 1/2" to the waist front. I suspect the original style had more. The original style was probably for an older teenager rather than a young girl. Anyway, slash lines are drawn from the lower dart leg to the hip line (On a full length skirt, the slash lines would go to the hem. For ease, I am only working to the hip line).

Slash the skirt along the new slash lines to the hip and spread to the desired fullness. In this case, I spread for a 2:1 gather ratio. The finished pattern would look something like the one to the left. Like I said, I forget to add seam allowances to the dart opening. If you try this yourself, don't forget to add them.

Fabric samples will have to wait until later - too many pressing projects.

Comparing Butterick 6030 neckline measurement

I didn't realize I had so many boys' shirts in my stash! Each shirt has a slightly different construction technique. They range from casual to dressy. Some have a convertible collar with a facing and others have a traditional 2-piece collar. This is a great resource for me to figure out more of what is wrong with the Butterick pattern.

The first thing I did was take some key measurements off of the size 24M shirts. The button bands averaged 1.125" and I adjusted my new pattern accordingly. The second measurement was the necklines. Both 24M and 2T shirts measured 12 inches, which I think is right on target. Compare these numbers:

Actual neck measurement = 10.125"
Butterick neck measurement = 15" (4.875" of ease!)
My pattern measurement (1st attempt) = 14" (3.875" of ease)
Both RTW shirts neck = 12" (2" of ease, right on!)

To draft the neckline of the pattern small enough, I need to have a basic 24M block made up. I am not going to keep guessing -- it just wastes too much time. This is enough motivation for me to work on my basic blocks again (My New Year's Resolution!). I pulled them out yesterday and made some important decisions. I can officially announce I have a basic bodice block that I like. The next step is to figure out my grade rules and grade my basic block up to a 24M.

Figuring grade rules and grading my blocks will take me some time, so the shirt project will be put off for a little while. In the mean time, I may get back to my promised grading blogs. Hopefully, you won't get too bored by it. Grading is as dry and boring as a topic can get.