Burda 8544 (and a swayback alteration I didn't end up doing)

One of my few recent finished projects is this nightgown.

I'd considered doing a form of swayback alteration, which would have shifted the back neckline down, lowering the shoulder-neck point and requiring the shoulder seam to be redrawn. The new cutting line would have been as marked here:

The idea is to remove the extra length at CB by taking it out all the way up at the top of the pattern piece. (Incidentally, I'm not sure my issue is really a swayback so much as a high round hip that can't easily be fit by patterns without princess or waist seams.) In any case, I pin-fit this and found it seemed unnecessary; I think the cut, in my size and this fabric, is roomy enough in the hips that it isn't an issue.
The fabric is a navy jersey of some sort, and the lace is one of the last ones I bought from ELingeriA in Germany before it closed. Here it is in more detail, but less accurate color:

The fabric is meant to be cut away underneath, but I didn't do that here. The lace pattern shows up better against this dark fabric. I also made the long sleeves the usual tapered shape, instead of adding the circular flounce as intended by the pattern.

This pattern is long out of print, but it seems the main details should be easy enough to imitate. It's essentially a loose, lengthened T-shirt with the lace applied across the front, covering the bust darts. The back is plain, which ordinarily might bother me, but I think in this case it's just as well not to put any potentially fragile lace there.

An overwrought overlapped V neckband, and how it could have been avoided

One thing I liked about the Kwik Sew 304 top I made the other week was the overlapped V neckband.

But wait, you say, isn't that just a regular V neckband with a seam down CF? Well, it is, it turns out, if you look at the Vintage Patterns Wikia's picture of the envelope front linked above, and I suspect if you try to follow the intent of the instructions (which are not the clearest).

The funny thing is, my envelope shows a definite overlapped neckline. I wonder if the illustration was changed to match the instructions? I suspect it was — my envelope style, with its mention of Sew-Knit-n-Stretch instead of Kwik Sew at the bottom, is probably the older of the two.

Anyway, I tried to make a compromise between the instructions and the result that is shown on my envelope. For whatever it's worth, I documented the process, but this is certainly not the simplest way to do it. Skip to the end for that.

First, the band is attached most of the way around the neckline. This pattern marks CF, shoulder seams, and CB on the neckband piece. The proper right side of neckband is stitched on all the way to the corner (most patterns would mark this with a dot). The left side is left free for a bit more than the width of the neckband.

To see how this will work: the proper right side of the neckband -- here seen at viewer's left -- will be on top, meaning that where it's being folded under here will be where you want to stitch it to the neckline. 

This particular pattern happens to have you cut some extra length past CF in the neckband; I would guess many others would give no more than the seam allowance.

This is where we want the stitching line on the neckband to match the one on the neckline. If anything, slant it a bit short at the folded edge, to tighten it up -- but not too much, or it will pull at the neckline.

You may as well clip the neckband to the dot now. 

If you're concerned about fraying or stretching, you may want to have staystitched the V before beginning; many patterns will tell you to do this. I don't think it's that crucial on a firm knit like this, especially if one handles it as little as possible after the clipping.

The stitching line on the band matched up to the stitching line on the opening, with the other end of the neckband held out of the way. This is slightly awkward. Stitch from the corner (so you just meet up with the end of the previous stitching — at the dot, if the pattern has one) to the folded edge of the neckband.

Then the left neckband goes flat on top, and you stitch again over the just-previous stitching, through left neckband, right neckband, and neck opening. Also be sure this stitching closes up any remaining hole between the left neckband and the neckline.

It should look like this from the outside. The remaining end of the left neckband is not yet stitched down, so as you can see in the right of the photo, that side of the band looks a little loose.

 

Now the proper left neckband is stitched, roughly perpendicular to the band, down along the first stitching that was done to attach the right neckband to the neckline. This stitching is analogous to the one was chalk-marked on the right end of the neckband, and again, the neckband can be shorted slightly toward its folded edge.

As this pattern had some excess length in the neckband, that can now be trimmed off. (I actually cut the pattern piece a bit short on one end, for lack of fabric.) Again, I would guess many other patterns will just give you the seam allowance, and that step would then be unnecessary.

Now that I've gone and said all that... I drew out the steps far more than necessary. Instead, you could just [reinforce and] clip the neck opening, lay out the neckband with the overlap as it should sit when finished, and attach it not all that differently from how you'd attach a round neckband — you'd just have to start and end at CF. This method would make it much easier to use a serger as well. The only disadvantage I can see is not being able to adjust the tightness of the neckband along its folded edge, but I think that's just as well done in the pattern in the first place.

As for what this says about older Kwik Sew patterns: I feel that as far as instruction quality and overall polish, Kwik Sew really hit its stride sometime in the mid-to-late 80s. By then, their patterns had cutting layouts, very professional-looking flats and construction diagrams, and completely reliable (if not necessarily glamorous) illustrations. Even so, I would say many of their older patterns are really unique and worth seeking out. Their swimwear, knitwear, and lingerie in particular were more varied than the other American brands'. The company still exists — since 2011, as part of Butterick/McCall's/Vogue — but I feel that it's really drifted away from that niche in the past few years. You can see many other vintage Kwik Sews on the Vintage Patterns Wikia.

McCall's cardigan and one more tricot project

Here's the McCall's cardigan I've been meaning to photograph.
It's 6996 which, judging from Patternreview, wasn't as massively popular as another cardigan-with-peplum pattern they put out, but still got a good many reviews. I plan to add one, real soon now. These have both been over-flashed and the real color is closer to what you see in the mirror, but I guess the advantage is the heathered pattern shows up.

I'm pretty happy with the pattern. My only complaint is I might like the collar to be gathered and stayed on the sides as well as at CB, at least if it'd help keep the shoulder seams where they belong (though I'm not certain it would). They tend to slide outward; it isn't absolutely terrible, but when it happens, it can give more of an extended or drop-shoulder look than the pattern would've intended, judging from the sleeve cap height. I like the peplum more than I expected, but it won't go with everything, so it does need some careful planning to wear.

Oh, and the coverstitch worked very well on this fabric, though you can't really see it at all in the photos (which is kind of the point).

I've got maybe half a yard of the fabric left but I'm not sure what, if anything, I'll do with that.

As for the pink tricot, I had quite a bit left and decided I could use another half-slip with just a bit more length. Turns out one of my knee-length skirts sits lower on the waist than I remembered. So this one's 20". I used the last bit of lace I had left over, cut in half so I could get it all the way around the hem. That means it was serged on RS together, rather than applied to the outside, to hide the cut edge.

This time the elastic's serged on, flipped inside, and sewn on with a much narrower three-step zigzag. I like the look of this better than the wide three-step zigzag I used last time. A narrow coverstitch would've looked even more like RTW, but I lacked the motivation to rethread the machine. Anyway, I highly recommend Kwik-Sew 2467 or Beautiful Lingerie, both of which will tell you how to cut and make these. They don't need to take more than an hour or so, once you're used to them.

Copying a T-shirt

No doubt there's all sorts of advice on copying RTW out there. You can do a much more precise job of it if you want, and this can be well worth it for a very detailed garment. I'm copying a simple T-shirt, though, and I think a quick method can be good enough. (This post probably doesn't give enough detail for someone with little or no patternmaking experience; in that case I think it might be better to start with a less quick-and-dirty method anyway, so you can be more confident you've got an accurate copy. YMMV.)

First, you need some sort of paper. I'm using a roll of newsprint, but if you don't have a lightbox, you might want tracing paper instead. This is helpful for making the pattern symmetric later on.

Second, you want a hard, flat surface (ideally a cutting mat) that can stand being poked.

I rolled out my paper, then put my T-shirt on top, trying to get the torso as smooth and flat as possible, without being stretched.

This top turned out to be even simpler than I thought: the front and back were probably meant to be identical, except at the neckline.  So I tried to get the folds to be along the shoulder and side seams, and lined up the hems as best I could.

Next to the seam gauge, there's a needlepoint tracing wheel on there — very useful for tracing seams through to the paper underneath. You can use pinpricks instead, although it takes a lot longer. I don't like regular tracing wheels and tracing paper for this; they move the fabric.

The top was fairly skewed, so I couldn't line up the armscye seams all that well, and the back hemline was a bit shorter than the front (this can be done for a full bust, but I'm not sure it was intentional here). This happens in knitwear. Even woven RTW isn't perfect, but I think in knits it's worse. It could be a combination of inaccurate cutting, skewed fabric (if you knit, you can even get this in hand knits if the yarn twist is wonky), and any sort of asymmetric stretching that happened as the garment was worn. Just do the best you can.

If it won't stay put for whatever reason, you can put weights on, but I find cotton knits on matte paper don't cause much trouble. I free-handed around the side and shoulder seams, 3/8" from the folded edge, and around the hem, 3/4" away. Then I used the needlepoint tracing wheel to do the same with the armscye seams, feeling through the fabric to get the back armscye seams as well. The same thing was done with the front neckline.

(This photo was seriously washed out; I've tried to adjust it to make something, anything, visible. Sleeves are up top.)

The sleeves were done separately, but in a similar manner. These ones happened to be symmetric, fitting the symmetric armholes. I ordinarily consider this a no-no, but this top does seem to fit pretty well, so I'll give it a pass. Makes it easier to copy, anyway. There, I made sure the hems were lined up and the underarm seams on the fold, then did the same thing — freehand around the folded edges and hems, and traced the armscye seam with the tracing wheel. You may notice that with the sleeve flattened out, the armscye is a little longer than it was when the torso was flattened out. This is fine, as long as nothing's seriously stretched; it means there's a little bit of ease in the sleeve cap (which is a whole other debate I won't get into now). It's a good idea to trace both, so that you can average out any discrepancies.

By folding the torso piece in half, you can find out how asymmetric your pattern is. This one will line up OK along the side seam, and close along the shoulder seams, but one shoulder is noticeably wider than the other. The armholes were way off compared to everything else. The same comparison can be made by trying to match the right and left sleeve tracings.

After that, you basically want to trace this off, interpolating as best you can, to get a symmetric pattern. A lightbox or tracing paper will help here.

So here's the pattern.

I will have to copy off a front or back, and I'm going to recheck the shape of the armhole — the sleeve cap looks like it might be just a bit too long for the armscye, which might not be concave enough. But overall, the pattern looks more or less as I would have expected.

For knits, it's also a very good idea to measure the stretch percentage of the original fabric (how far a crosswise fold will stretch — say, from 4" to 5" is 125%, or 25% stretch. The pattern will fit similarly if you use a similar fabric, but could end up seeming quite a bit smaller or larger otherwise. Noting down the fiber content helps too, since different fibers have different recovery.