Fixing armhole for sleeve

These are the pictures of the changes i made in my bodice to accommodate the sleeve, i will comment on the result in the next post. i have also realized that the sleeve doesn't have to be perfect before i can start working on my dart manipulation, i think i will soon start with dart manipulation.

Draping a sleeve

    I started trying to drape a sleeve. There were a few things i thought i must fix in the bodice before draping a sleeve, i thought i must increase the size of the armhole to provide ease for the sleeve cap.

also i thought i need to lower the neckline and probably increase the shoulder seem

Well i didn't do any of  that, i just thought i should see what will happen if i just fit the sleeve without doing any of the above, and well it didn't turnout good.here are the pictures.

This is how the sleeve looks off, I know, it doesn't look right at all.

This is it with the arm slightly forward, it looks quiet normal but of course it's not

When I pull the arm back to its appropriate position on the side it pulls the bodice as you can see and creates this puckering

With the arm up it pulls the bodice completely up

This is it with the arm pulled back, it pulled the bodice back

when I bring the arm back to the front, it seams as if  everything is fine. 

  Well am going to fix all of that, and also i had a really difficult time draping the sleeve because i couldn't lift her arm, so i decided to buy a barbie fashionista (ball jointed barbie), my second try will definitely be on her.

How to sew barbie pattern 2

Pin dart on seam line and another pin on the side, the dart is so small I don't know how accurate it's going to turn out.

 Sew dart
 My first stitching didn't go so well there    was looping underneath, so I removed it   and sew again. Of course if this was human size cloth it will be much easier to pin and sew.











I like to leave extra thread at the tip and legs of the dart to tie double knot and then cut, repeat at the end of the dart.

this is after cutting off the extra thread















All darts done, now press dart down as shown below

Pin shoulder seam, the back seam is bigger, if this where my pattern I will true, but may be that's how it's meant to be.
Use two pins just in case , and move the pin on the seam out as u sew, don't let the needle strike it.

Side seam sewn












Double knot and cut thread

then press seam open

The sleeve seam to be too big for the armhole, unless of course its a gathered one.

So i tried to hand baste, but i thought there might be too much puckering so i machine baste.

Attach armhole and hem sleeve, I also  baste the sleeve in before sewing with machine.

This was the best I could, as you can see there is some wrinkling
In the first sleeve I sew with sleeve below, in the second I tried to sew with the sleeve on top, it didn't work out so well, i had to rip out the seam and do it again,
I guess I should have allowed a bit of gathering at the middle
Sleeve ironed

Clip the neck curve and press, then sew
Sewing the neck curve was quiet difficult, next time I will use a bigger seam allowance, this was 2/8 of an inch, I usually use 1/2 an inch
Sew side seam and sleeve

I pinned the center back and viola
Well the bodice and sleeve are too big but it was a nice experience now when I sew my sloper I would not make some of the mistakes I made here.

Draping basic slopper

i was on youtube today and i thought i should share these videos with you. It teaches how to block a fabric

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0ELzVLUKqw) , drape it on a mannequin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayd15gpcNT8) , and then transfer it to pattern paper (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq3jt8q-ECE). These videos are from two different users, both these users have other interesting videos like basics of sewing.

How to sew barbie pattern

Pattern 2
I pinned the pattern to fabric (wrong side out) and used a soft pencil (3B above) to draw the outline on the fabric

Pinning straight down on my yoga mat

Cutting away the seam allowance

I had some difficulties cutting off the allowance from  my straight pinned patten bcoz I wasn't free to move the pattern piece around, maybe straight pinning isn't such a good idea but it keeps the pattern in place as I draw the outline, am always scared when pieces keep moving around bcoz its a small doll, any slight change in measurement can really disturb the whole thing.
       And now for the part I hate the most is transferring the markings on the other side, I wish there is an easier of doing this, I do have a tracing paper, I used it once when I was making a pinafore dress ( jumper dress ). Am not sure how well it's going to work out for doll clothes, am going to have to think about how am going to lay down the pattern pieces. My tracing wheel has a serrated teeth, I don't know if it's such a good idea for such small pattern pieces but I will try.

So I decided to try the tracing paper, am going to use the orange one, hope it works

It worked! thank God

May be next time I only need to trace the seamline and not the allowance since am going to cut on it anyway.
I didnt realize that i needed 2 sleeves until now, now i have to cut another one aaaaggggggh! I think cutting is the most difficult part of sewing.

So I decided to pin the other sleeve and use it as a pattern piece

Everything cut out and ready to sew

Draft or Drape the sleeve?

i have been thinking of how I would draft a sleeve for my barbie.
I have already tried drafting it on paper but that didn't work out so well, in fact all of my attempt at drafting for Barbie wasn't successful ( I use patternmaking for fashion design by Helen Joseph Armstrong ) , draping was much better and easier I think.
Another thing I found very difficult was finding any good tutorial  for sewing doll clothes, most of the ones I find are meant for sewing Barbie clothes for kids, in which there are no darts or anything complicated and since my real passion is to make clothes for real people I need to make everything as perfect as possible.
          I found this tutorial on about.com and am going to try it. From my previous pictures of the bodice I have made you can see that I need to lower my arm hole before any sleeve can fit in there.

this is the picture from about.com

Barbie pattern 2

After looking through the patterns am not very excited to try all of them. I have decided to start with pattern 2, when I held it against my Barbie's body I realized that it might be too big for her but am still going to sew it as it is.

i wonder how the dart is meant to be sewn, it looks so small