Summer Internship: Day 22

New project time!  I have made three sweaters so it is definitely time for a change!  My options were absolutely endless with what I could do.  Christopher suggested I do a t-shirt dress so I could work with an inset sleeve versus the raglan sleeve.  To put it in easier terms, an inset sleeve is almost rounded at the shoulder cap where inserted and the raglan sleeve (as you saw previously in my sweater examples) diagonals from the the collar and angles down toward the elbow area.  

Anyways!  Yesterday we made a little venture to JoAnn's to find some type of basic shirt pattern.  It is not always typical to find a basic t-shirt dress in the dress section of the pattern books so I looked within the shirt section.  I found a simple boat neck top pattern that I decided to use.

I then went and found a nice stretch knit to apply to my desired look.  With this one I wanted to go for a "little black dress" style so this is what I came up with in my sketch (fabric swatch is attached):

If you guys have not seen what comes out of a pattern packet when it is opened up, here is one sample...

There are usually a few of these sheets within a packet and each containing pieces you need to construct a garment.  There were five pieces I needed to cut to be able to make my dress (front piece, back piece, sleeve, front collar, back collar).  The dotted lines seen above are the sizes to follow.  When you need to adjust the sizing smaller or bigger, this is referred to as grading.  I did this with my pieces; patterns do not carry petite sizes!  It is a pretty simple task to do though!

When this was done, I got to cutting the pieces and was ready to extend the garment on pattern paper.

  
Now with using a shirt pattern to extend down into a dress is actually quite simple!  My desired length was 33 inches.  The body pieces were 23 inches long so I had to extend the piece 10 inches but incorporate additional seam allowance which was 2 more inches; in total being 35 inches.  Again, LOTS of math involved, but very simple math nonetheless.

I drew out the silhouette of the dress to curve over the hip and then hug back a couple inches above the knee.  And there you have it, a new pattern!  I am now ready to start cutting my pieces into the fabric!