Artist Wardrobe

2/2/2018

I've spent the last few weeks slowly working on a wardrobe for my Butterfly Narae, who will be an artist in an upcoming series of photo stories. She was my third Narae (all three are different sculpts) and has never had anything special made just for her, and has been standing around in a borrowed white dress all the five years I've had her....

I started out by making her a nice outfit (a new style I'd never tried before) complete with knit leg warmers. Then I decided she needed something more casual to actually paint in. So I designed a shirt pattern for her, and did the first test shirt.....

Then I chose two more 'artsy' prints to make two more shirts from, and decided to make a complete outfit for each shirt. I had a very stretchy pair of secondhand workout leggings that had a 'patchy blue-jean' print, and made leggings out of that for two of the shirts, and plain black ones for the fourth. Colourful striped socks completed the ensembles....

When I made the shirts, I figured out a better way to make a nice hem along the curvy bottom edge, than the way it's done in my other shirt tutorials, so took photos for when I make a pattern tutorial for this size shirt.

Barbie

2/7/2018 08:56:49 am

I'd love to know how you handled the hem! I'm working on a JID shirt right now - just sewing up the side seams. Will need to hem soon! Looking forward to this new pattern!!!

Martha

2/7/2018 09:09:12 am

I'm not ready to do the tutorial yet, so will try explain in words only.

I waited to sew the underarm seams with this shirt. I clipped the curves along the bottom, folded back the hemline and basted it, on the bottom of all three parts (two front pieces, and back. Then I matched up the side and underarm seams and sewed and zig-zagged those. Pressed the side seams.

Then I top stitched all the way around on the right side, starting at the upper back neck, turning down one front about 1/4" from edge (to simulate a 'placket') then across the entire bottom edge, and then back up the other front edge and around to the back of the neck again. I then sewed a second seam along the bottom edge, about 1/8" from the first seam which was closer to the folded-back edge. Then I removed the basting thread.

I found this technique of folding back and basting the hemlines on the shirt front and back pieces before sewing the shirt together, much easier and neater than trying to hem those curves after the side seams were sewn together.

Barbie

2/7/2018 05:37:37 pm

Martha, you're a gem. Thank you!

I'd also like to thank you for your patterns. So generous of you to provide them. I've ordered my first two BJD dolls (Iplehouse BID Bono and JID Cordelia) and I've needed something to keep me busy while I wait! For the BID I've made your simple dress, 3 petticoats, a t-shirt and leggings. And get this: I didn't discover till recently that I'd had "fit to page" selected when I printed the PDFs!! Sheesh. They might still work though.

The shirt is the first project for Cordelia. I'm hand sewing entirely, and my top-stitching could definitely look better. Will have to break down and get my machine out. Somehow I messed up one of the pieces - so that one front panel is shorter at the side. I'll have to cut the whole shirt's length shorter I guess (curved version).

Thanks again!

Martha

2/7/2018 06:30:35 pm

You're very welcome!

The pdfs are meant to be printed on standard 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper, so if that's what you did, hopefully it will be fine.

I sometimes end up with side seams not being the same length too. It happens when you don't make consistent seam allowances. Which is one of the reasons I like to use 'templates' as opposed to a pattern, because then the tracing line becomes the stitching line, and things tend to work out better.

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