Design It Yourself Tee shirt

Well, I finally got my tee shirt drafted and muslin sewn!

I actually went ahead and hemmed it, since it turned out surprisingly wearable.  It's nice to have a tee shirt that actually holds the girls in...

I have to say that I had a few issues with the way that it was drafted in the book.  This is clearly meant for the less than B cup, hasn't breastfed babies or been affected by gravity set.  I do not fall into this category, so I had to make a few modifications.  The first thing that I had issues with is that the front and back pattern pieces are the same.  I don't know about you, but my front is a bit different then my back.  I'm just sayin'.  My other major issue was the assumption that my bust point and my armpit are at the same level on my body.  Let me just say that my bust point hasn't been within waving distance of my armpit EVER.  Not even as a perky teen.  No never.  I decided to work around these little problems by drafting the pattern with my high bust (which is basically the measurement around the chest at the level of the armpit anyway), and then doing an FBA to accommodate the girls.

Here is the front/back as drafted with my high bust measurement.

Here is how the front looks after my FBA.  I didn't want to end up with a honking large side dart, since I think darts on tee shirts are odd, so I did a Y-dart FBA.  There is a great tutorial for this on Debbie Cook's website, but I can't link it currently, as she's reorganizing her site right now, so everything is down.  You can find a good explanation of it in P/P FFRP.  There is still a dart there, just not as big.

When I put the shirt together, I decided to try gathering the area of the dart instead of actually sewing it.  I'm not sure I love the way it turned out, but I think I did the gathering too low, so it's making me just a little bit saggy looking and I still like the idea, so I may try it again with higher, tighter gathers.

I have enjoyed this drafting journey.  I really feel like I understand a little bit better how patterns go together.  That said, this took forever!!  And all I have to show for it is a boring tee shirt that I could have just made with my Jalie pattern in 30 minutes or so.  I like to have a variety of styles, and I just can't see drafting a new pattern every time something tickles my fancy.  I also am so NOT creative.  So, here I am - a pattern girl.