How to Draft a Shirt Pattern ... and Fix Fit Issues
In this blog, I'm going to share each step of making a basic shirt pattern and then I'm going to share all the little details of how to modify and tailor the whole thing my name is AST Corn let's get into this pattern includes a half inch seam allowance or about one and a quarter centimeter so no need to add any extras I'll be sixteen sharing both inches and centimeters so we've got the imperial metric covered in there.
we're only going to take out half the pattern because all the pieces can just be mirrored or mirrored and are exactly the same and my technique is roughly based on what is described in this book here I will share a link below in the description if you want to buy your own copy full disclosure could be an affiliate like.
I find pattern making is a lot like making a sculpture in that we start by just roughing out all the major parts without worrying about the little details we just need to get the basics shaped in place then we go in and edit and refine and get all the details until it looks the way we want it to be so for ourselves we make a first basic pattern and chances are it probably doesn't even fit that well the first time.
there we can alter adjust modify Push Pull Do that we need until we have to make it fit the way we want it in the process there will be measurements that are arbitrary and the reason is that it's easier to just more or less put it in place instead of wasting time trying to infinitely calculate things that are easier to do the fit after we have us.
basic sample made from which we can make refinements so there are basic foundation measurements we need but then from there it's more of an artistic effort to get it done so with that in mind, let's take our measurements and get to drafting foreign starting at the chest and I wrap a 65 tape measure.
all the way around and I want to make sure it goes over the bottom of my shoulder blades under my arms not too tight not too loose just snug mine is 37.5 next to the height of the armhole or as it's known professionally a sigh and I've kept the tape measure around and it's roughly the height of where the bottom of the armhole is so I place a finger here to find out.
I take the top of the tape measure and I start here at the point where the neck is the meaty part holds that there I stand nice and straight and it should be oh in my case it's around nine then the neck to waist measurement And the waist is essentially below the rib cage but above the hip bones the meaty part in between so I again put my tape measure around that spot I place a finger so I know where that is and then tape metric up here stand nice and straight and that's in my case 19 inches.
we also want a shirt length measurement and this really is up to you we start at the shoulder one more time and then just go down to where we want to be and for me, I think I'll go say 25 inches for the neck I want to go around the bottom and not too tight but not too loose or just snug so for me that's going to be around 15. next, we need a measurement called half back it's supposed to measure from the mid back to the shoulders kind of hard to do.
I've come to realize that it also works if I just measure from the center of my chest here to the outside so from the center here to the shoulder in my case I'm going to go with eight inches going into the sleeves and we're doing the full length first I like to take my arm and place it against my waist and I'm going to start right where the shoulder meets the arm on that bulge over there put my tape measure there and then just walk over down along.
the edge around the elbow and I measure right in this little corner here in the middle of that nub of the wrist and the actual hand so in my case about 24 inches and the reason for the curve is too much to accommodate the flexing of the arms you might as well measure my short sleeve while I'm here same starting point in my case I like my sleeves up to here so eight inches for me we will need our bicep measurement as well in my case about 10 and a half.
finally the wrist measurement and I'm doing it in the same place where I finished it my sleeve length is about six and a half I like to do each one measure a few times just to make sure i'm doing it right and if I find they vary from size to size I'll just measure take an average somewhere between the high and low our bodies are soft and smooth and there's really no pinpoint measurement of the body I also do short blogs on Instagram and Tick Tock.
okay let's move on to pen-to-paper writing time I start by drawing this T here with perfect 90-degree angles to each other and I'm going to label this intersection here with the numbers zero of zero I'm going to go down about one and a quarter inch Mark that there I'm going to label this number one and yeah, this is an arbitrary number and that distance is essentially the measurement of the nape curve which is going like this pretty hard to calculate so just using that, for now, to roughly represent what we needed to be and then we'll mark it off later.
I'm going to go ahead and pull that line perfectly perpendicular to our Center Line of number one we are going to reduce the PSI measurement that we have taken or the height of the armhole in my case I am going to lower the nine inches Mark that spot label it number two I am going to square that as well to starting again I'm going to measure from the neck to the waist measurement which for me was at 19 right there.
I'm going to label this number three one more time square that finally the longest measure down and that's the length we want our shirt plus about an inch seam allowance on the bottom so for me I'm going to go down to two six one inch seam allowance is so we can double the square that one across as well and finally label this four and that should give us all the horizontal lines that we are going to need going on to figure out the lines and curves that makeup.
the side of the pattern we are going to make the chest and we are going to take our full chest measurement we are going to divide it by 4 because we are only doing a quarter of the pattern here we go to add an extra half inch because we don't want this to be skin tight plus another half inch for seam allowance so those two half inches.
make a hole for that's a quarter of the chest measurement plus an inch for me that's 10 and 3 8 .and put a mark there I'm going to label this point 5 from that point here at five I'm going to square that all the way to the top to the zero line here we go and then I'm going to call this top corner here point number six I'm also going to go down from 5 all the way to that bottom line number four that was point number three if you remember the intersection on the other side I'm going to call that seven and then the intersection at the bottom here is going to be eight in.
At this point, we have a rectangle that represents a quarter of our final shirt we are going to do the next nape so that we are going to go out a fifth of our full neck measurement so the neck measurement is divided by five if I give it a little squeeze to my neck like this for the width but then do the same thing for the depth I realize there is more depth and there is width so a fifth coming out the opposite side a quarter of what you would expect then in my case.
I'm going to go out three inches I'm going to square it to zero line is something like this I'm going to label this lower corner here nine and then the top one I'm going to label 10 now we're going to draw in the curve of the nape and first I'm going to go down my seam allowance amount which is a half inch so that Mark right there and so from then on I'm just going to curve around meet my line at number one there we're going to tackle the armhole next but for that, we have to move to this two place here we are going to put a mark halfway between one and two which means we divide by two which in my case is four and a half right there and we are going to mark this as spot number 11.
starting at 11 I'm going to go out my mid-back measurement plus my half-inch seam allowance so for me I'm going to go out Eight and a half Mark that right there I'm going to label that number 12. Square that line from that spot right there on the number 12 I'm going to square to the top line from 0 to 6 and I'm going to square to the line from 2 to 5. We're going to label this bottom Point here of 13. and the top one 14.
Next, we're going to notice where the corner connects the slope of the shoulder with the curve of the armhole so we head back to that center line again and from one we're going to go down about three-quarters of an inch and this is again some arbitrary number that's going to take us more or less to the right place and then we can adjust later if your shoulders are more straight horizontal you may want to just go down half an inch if your shoulders slope quite.
a bit you may want to go down a whole inch you decide what is best for you as that spot right there I'm going to call this number 15 and then square it again every time I walk to that line 13 to 14 and I'm going to call this Point number 16 of the 16 I'm going to go out about a half inch put a spot there i'm going to mark that as point number 17. now I can connect point number 10 from the nape to here 17 which gives us this slope of our shoulders.
I can also draw on that curve from 17 to 12. and then curving down and around 2 5 and 17 to 12 it's just a smooth line barely a curve and then I want more of a teardrop shape from 12 to five teardrop of water we don't want tears if we look at our shirt from the middle of the arm to the shoulder it's kind of uphill and out and that half inch was an arbitrary amount but it helps us get that slight incline we also have to do the front neck hole and so we go from zero to a quarter of our neck measurement.
so that means divided by four so in my case under three and three quarters or 3.75 inches I'm going to label that spot 18 I squared that across over the width of the neckline from before and then squared that line down to the line that made nine and ten okay there we go from that seam allowance a half inch amount down from 10. I'm going to draw that curve on the Forward and meet the 18. and I want to make sure it goes right in here for a while and then curves and then the same thing here again I went ahead and made a duplicate of that first.
there because this is going to be my front pattern and this one is the original is going to be for my back pattern and I'm going to do some little tweaks and alterations to both this is the front copy and at Point, number 12 here I'm going to go in for a quarter inch is just a little here and then we're going to bring that curve in just a touch like that and then have it come back and join and meet at the bottom here for the back panel I'm going to go in the opposite direction quarter inch but up there and then make it shallower curve in the back and then make it meet the teardrop at the bottom waterdrop.
well if we look at our anatomy our shoulders
specifically are a little forward and inward a little bit so as a result of
that of course we want a little more fabric in the back to accommodate that and
then we need Less in the front for this that quarter inch is like you guessed
an arbitrary amount if you find Value in this kind of content or my blogs in general
consider supporting me on patreon or putting a couple of coins on my PayPal tip
table thanks.
ok moving on to sleeves also bonus on Patreon you have access to
my sewing group chat let's start with taking a moment to understand why the top
of one sleeve has this curved shape by looking at the pattern of the body this
curve is pretty intuitive we go under the armpit here and then straighten on
the front of the arm and then curve back pass over the ball of the shoulder and then it repeats down the back one
sleeve is just a cylinder cut at an angle at the top and then that cut at an
angle to the shoulder and well it's done Our Sleeve well if we wear this
cylinder.
then we open it up and
unravel it that's where this curvature shape proceeds to reveal itself with the
sleeve I once again start with that T I go back to my body pattern and take the
measurement from one to two and I want a third of that divided by three and back in my sleeve pattern of that T that
I measure down whatever that amount is so in my case it ends up being exactly
three inches and so at the top here I'm going to label this zero that new point
I'm going to label it one.
then I'm
going to go ahead and square that again this is what will eventually become the
height of the top of the sleeve curve like this and a good third, again an
arbitrary number if we want Our Sleeve to be a little more horizontal and point straighter then we want it to be
shallower curve and in that case, we're going to divide by a larger number like
say four maybe even five if we want the sleeve to point down a little bit more
than we need to be a deeper curve and in
that case divide by a smaller number like say two and a half or even two the
choice is yours based on your preference.
but dividing it by three gives us a
decent average somewhere in the middle also keep in mind the further straight it is the longer the
sleeve is going to be the more fabric there will be and the more you point the
sleeve down the less fabric there will be to go around and it will be thinner
so we are trying more or less to find a balance somewhere place there that makes sense to us we're
going to do the short sleeve first so from scratch I go down the length of my
short sleeve which was eight plus a half inch seam allowance here plus an inch
seam allowance on the bottom.
because we want to double fold for the hem there so for me that becomes
nine and a half up here but I'm going to go back up again because I want to
know where the ends of the sleeves are so I go back to the double fold or one inch
in my case back at eight-thirty I'm going to square both I'm going to call
this two and call this two and a half or 2.5 we want to figure out the width of
Our Sleeve and so we go back to our front panel and we measure essentially from
5 to 17 whichever be that number in my
case eight and a half I measure from point number one here 8.5 and I make a
mark right there.
I am going to call this point number three and then I can draw
a diagonal line from zero steps to 3. Now I am going to take the measurement from
zero to three which in my case is 9 inches I'm going to divide that number by
3. and so from Point number three here we're going to go that amount in so for
me I'm going to go in three inches Right there and that's essentially
where the curve is going to cross up and
down and down.
I'm going to call that point number four and then halfway between
0 and 4 I'm going to put Mark a little bit and then about halfway between three
and four I'm going to put another dial
with this between 0 and 4 I'm going to go up about oh say half an inch three-quarters of an inch somewhere in the middle there and then on the little mark
between four and three I'm just going to go down say oh about a quarter of inch these are very arbitrary amounts that I
came up with but essentially I want this curve to be larger at the top here and
then a little less at the bottom.
and then I want it to cross over
at Point Number four I'm just going to rough that into something like that
another maybe I want it to be straight
here and then the curve crosses over four curves and then meet here perfectly
straight again but of course, we need the length of this to match the original
curve you drew on the front piece not the adjusted one the original.
so I go out along that curve first on the
front piece and get a measurement so in my case it's nine o'clock and all about an
eighth of an inch and then I do the same thing with the sleeve piece and in
this case oh great exactly the same
amount but if they were different what I would do is tweak this line here so
let's say this was too long this line compared to that one I would make this
more of a shallow line like that just make it a little shallower not like curvy.
if let's say this line was
too short then I could make it a little bit mocurvierecause that's I ' going to add just one more touch now if it's enough of a discrepancy I would
actually move line number three either in or o a bit and then completely redraw this line if necessary until I
finally have this line matching the original curve of the shoulder again we're
just going to play around here it's not an exact science I just need them to be
the same.
that's going to use a little massage again this is where the art comes in as opposed to the math of
it all now I need to determine how big I want the sleeve opening to be so I
tIke my biceps measurement I dId before and then I add whatever extra slack I want all the way
around. I'm going to say two inches for mine. Then I divide that number in
half. which gives us the half sleeve of course and finally at the end of that I
add my seam allowance for one side.
again we're only doing the half I
mark that spot I'm going to call that point number five and then I can connect number
three up to five draw it here we go but of course, I want to reflect roughly the
same angle down to 2.5 because of course this rolls in so it essentially gives
me that kind of shape and there we go that's our short sleeve sorted for the
long sleeve which I copied over the short sleeve except down the hem at the bottom here from scratch.
I measure down my full sleeve length which for me is 24. Mark that I'm going
to call that point number six i'm going to square that then i'm going to take
whatever the measurement was and divide by
2 and put a mark there as well and this is roughly where the elbow is
going to be so in my case that's 12. I'm going to mark that as Point Number Seven
and I'm going to square that as well two to five that's our short sleeve length
and we're essentially going to drag that down to seven points I'm just going to
pull that down two here I'm going to mark this as number eight.
then I'm
going to draw a new line from 3 to 8. Draw that right there and this seven to
eight here that's essentially about where our elbow is halfway between next I
figure out how big I want the opening to be by my wrist and so I essentially take that measurement I
add the slack I want I divide it by two and then I add my seam allowance to
that so in my case they measured my wrist around 6.5 I want around 1.5 inches
of slack I give a total of eight
divided by 2 gives me four.
plus my seam allowance is 0.5 4.5 so draw it right
there I'm going to label this Stitch number nine and then finally I just
connect eight to nine let's go ahead and add that inch of a hem at the bottom square that one more
time make it reflect roughly the opposite direction mine ended up being pretty
much a straight line so i'm good to go but if you have any kind of square edges
and stuff here just smooth towards outside with a bit of a curve just round it.
out so it gets nice and
gentle and there we go that's our basic foreign pattern sleeve at this point
you can choose to want to continue working with half pattern pieces if that's
the case when it comes to making a
sample,, just fold your fabric and cut personally I like to
duplicate my pattern to the right side and then make my right arm smaller than
my left why good question I have written a full story on my website the link is
in the description of any way it works
the choice is yours ok let's cut our pattern pieces it's time to make a read.
so I'm cutting one of everything just using an
old sheet here with the sleeve I'm just going to fold away the seam allowance, for now, I don't need it for the foreign read first let's make sure we
press open each seam we do so we have a more accurate representation of the
final fit next we sew the sleeve into the armhole the trick I find when working
with odd shapes as sleeves is to make sure the needle is down raised the presser
foot then pull the bottom fabric to adjust as needed the same with the top bring
the pressure foot back down.
Beat and
repeat as many times as needed to make it work a little better finally, I
can run a seam down the sleeve to
the bottom of the shirt I'm also cutting about four or five inches in the front
here so this thing can really slide over my head okay not bad for a first draft
it fits which is well but several things are awkward needs to be fixed so let's get into all the
different edits we can do a lot of graphics are about to appear and ok fun fact.
I am a designer at my day job I have my own business and I have shared a link below, check it out. if the pattern is
too tight the Torso we can cut down the middle from top to bottom to the
middle between the neck and the armhole take it out as much as we need to fill
in the gap and then redraw the line along the shoulder at the top of the neck end to the top of the
sleeve opening if you have a little bit of progress. posture or just in general
you find the shirt doesn't hang nice and straight and it's hanging back a bit
and maybe sloping in the back.
ok, in that case, we add a wedge to the back panel
and do it by cutting along the middle from the bottom line we pivot from the top corner of the armhole Just
One Touch and then redraw and trim those lines, and the same goes if the shirt
is unbalanced hanging too far forward it's a little short in the front mid-back
line cut pivot redraw trim, likely, we're not getting the shoulder
slope correct and the way to diagnose this is, for example, let's say you're
finding.
that you're getting some sort of wrinkle lines happening in the upper
neck area here if that's the case, so
the slope is too much and we need to reduce the slope shoulder a bit so we just
take it out as much as we feel we need through the top of the armhole but as
much as we go up there we have to bring the curve into the bottom of the armhole up by the same amount now let's
say for example you're finding that you're getting some draw lines or pleats and
things that go over the shoulder in the back, in that case, we have the slope
also shallow.
we have a need to reduce
it a little bit Again for the shoulders bring it down and then lower it the
equivalent amount at the bottom of the armhole I also want this seam at the top
of the shoulder to follow the line of our top of the shoulder very nicely and
if we need to make adjustments here like
say the line is too far forward and we want to push it back a bit what we do is
just cut a wedge as much as we need out of the back and then glue it to the
front or vice versa if the line is too far back and we need to go a bit further we're cutting out
everything.
we need from the front in that wedge shape and add it in the back we
also want the neck hole to sit nicely butt against the base of our neck all the
way around and maybe we'll have we
increase or decrease the size of it and if that is the case we want to be consistent
in every way and make sure to follow along the slope of our shoulders maybe we
need to go up or down in the front or back at that case again we just shallow the curve we can
deepen the curve as needed we can also bring the neckline to the sides we can
bring it back.
if we want we also want the seam that runs between the body and
the sleeve to be right in the center of where the slope change happens so we
can bring that up a bit if we need to we can bring that up if we need to again
we want to make sure that we continue to keep the slope of our shoulder so
adjustments happen along that line maybe the sleeves are nice for the shoulder here but it's just too tight
around the torso in that case.
we take the body out and then increase the length
of that bottom raindrop got it right that time vice versa we can also bring it
in the torso if it's too loose and around the chest or maybe just the size of your armholes are too small or too big and in that case you can only
bring that bottom curve up or down, but keep in mind any adjustment in the
armhole changes that circumference which means then you have to change that top
curve of the sleeve again.
I
mentioned earlier in the blog moving on to the sleeves and if you're having
some folding happen on the front here by the sleeve or on the back of the
sleeve that's known as dragging and essentially what that means is we have to change the centerline of the sleeve we
have to adjust where the top of the curve is so if you're getting that drag in
the front that means we have to move the centerline forward as much as you need
and then redraw the line accordingly or
vice versa if you're getting that back drag we want to move the center line back a
bit and redraw the Curve finally.
we can play around with the sleeve shape
however we want we can have it as a straight line if we want Personally I
like I like a little more of a tight
sleeve shape so I taper my sleeve just below the armpit and then have it go
straight through the elbow for a while and then taper back down the forearm
again and finally finish otherwise like this maybe you wanted a little more billowy you like looseness then you can just
create more of a balloon shape play around with what you like or keep it as a
straight line option is yours for the short sleeve.
we can also adjust that
bottom line if we add a little bit of
a curve at the bottom it's going to sit a little bit more horizontally when we
use it if we just keep it straight it sits at a little bit of an angle and then
if we add a curve up well then it's really I'm going to sit along the sleeve
and it gives us that little short sleeve look we can also taper at the waist in
the Torso and I think the best thing to do is just make a gentle curve the far
end is at the point of the waist and then back out to the bottom of the shirt making these alterations.
I find
a lot has a ripple effect on how changing something here might change the fit
elsewhere and so I find myself starting with what I consider my biggest
problems first read how it goes read the new sample based on that do my next tweaks maybe tweak
the first one a bit more and so on until I get it so so actually this could be three four five six
iterations until I get it so also there's a bunch of links to check in the description I regularly make playlists
that you can stitch to I would send out a newsletter from time to time at this point we have a basic pattern that we
can now use to make t-shirts short sleeve t-shirts long sleeve t-shirts.
they
know but the real power is us now we have
a basic template for Tops that can now evolve into any type of top you desire
so for the next blog I'm going to make a copy of this template and show
how I turn it into a button-down shirt like this so thanks for reading wait for it will be a
few weeks or if you are reading it in the future exists to make a button-down shirt thanks to everyone who supports me on Patreon iIreally appreciate it
and a special shout out to these top tier supporters thanks if you have
questions uh unsure of things ask me
below in the comments and uh check out the many links I talked about throughout.
thanks
In this blog, I'm going to share each step of making a basic shirt pattern and then I'm going to share all the little details of how to modify and tailor the whole thing my name is AST Corn let's get into this pattern includes a half inch seam allowance or about one and a quarter centimeter so no need to add any extras I'll be sixteen sharing both inches and centimeters so we've got the imperial metric covered in there.
we're only going to take out half the pattern because all the pieces can just be mirrored or mirrored and are exactly the same and my technique is roughly based on what is described in this book here I will share a link below in the description if you want to buy your own copy full disclosure could be an affiliate like.
I find pattern making is a lot like making a sculpture in that we start by just roughing out all the major parts without worrying about the little details we just need to get the basics shaped in place then we go in and edit and refine and get all the details until it looks the way we want it to be so for ourselves we make a first basic pattern and chances are it probably doesn't even fit that well the first time.
there we can alter adjust modify Push Pull Do that we need until we have to make it fit the way we want it in the process there will be measurements that are arbitrary and the reason is that it's easier to just more or less put it in place instead of wasting time trying to infinitely calculate things that are easier to do the fit after we have us.
basic sample made from which we can make refinements so there are basic foundation measurements we need but then from there it's more of an artistic effort to get it done so with that in mind, let's take our measurements and get to drafting foreign starting at the chest and I wrap a 65 tape measure.
all the way around and I want to make sure it goes over the bottom of my shoulder blades under my arms not too tight not too loose just snug mine is 37.5 next to the height of the armhole or as it's known professionally a sigh and I've kept the tape measure around and it's roughly the height of where the bottom of the armhole is so I place a finger here to find out.
I take the top of the tape measure and I start here at the point where the neck is the meaty part holds that there I stand nice and straight and it should be oh in my case it's around nine then the neck to waist measurement And the waist is essentially below the rib cage but above the hip bones the meaty part in between so I again put my tape measure around that spot I place a finger so I know where that is and then tape metric up here stand nice and straight and that's in my case 19 inches.
we also want a shirt length measurement and this really is up to you we start at the shoulder one more time and then just go down to where we want to be and for me, I think I'll go say 25 inches for the neck I want to go around the bottom and not too tight but not too loose or just snug so for me that's going to be around 15. next, we need a measurement called half back it's supposed to measure from the mid back to the shoulders kind of hard to do.
I've come to realize that it also works if I just measure from the center of my chest here to the outside so from the center here to the shoulder in my case I'm going to go with eight inches going into the sleeves and we're doing the full length first I like to take my arm and place it against my waist and I'm going to start right where the shoulder meets the arm on that bulge over there put my tape measure there and then just walk over down along.
the edge around the elbow and I measure right in this little corner here in the middle of that nub of the wrist and the actual hand so in my case about 24 inches and the reason for the curve is too much to accommodate the flexing of the arms you might as well measure my short sleeve while I'm here same starting point in my case I like my sleeves up to here so eight inches for me we will need our bicep measurement as well in my case about 10 and a half.
finally the wrist measurement and I'm doing it in the same place where I finished it my sleeve length is about six and a half I like to do each one measure a few times just to make sure i'm doing it right and if I find they vary from size to size I'll just measure take an average somewhere between the high and low our bodies are soft and smooth and there's really no pinpoint measurement of the body I also do short blogs on Instagram and Tick Tock.
okay let's move on to pen-to-paper writing time I start by drawing this T here with perfect 90-degree angles to each other and I'm going to label this intersection here with the numbers zero of zero I'm going to go down about one and a quarter inch Mark that there I'm going to label this number one and yeah, this is an arbitrary number and that distance is essentially the measurement of the nape curve which is going like this pretty hard to calculate so just using that, for now, to roughly represent what we needed to be and then we'll mark it off later.
I'm going to go ahead and pull that line perfectly perpendicular to our Center Line of number one we are going to reduce the PSI measurement that we have taken or the height of the armhole in my case I am going to lower the nine inches Mark that spot label it number two I am going to square that as well to starting again I'm going to measure from the neck to the waist measurement which for me was at 19 right there.
I'm going to label this number three one more time square that finally the longest measure down and that's the length we want our shirt plus about an inch seam allowance on the bottom so for me I'm going to go down to two six one inch seam allowance is so we can double the square that one across as well and finally label this four and that should give us all the horizontal lines that we are going to need going on to figure out the lines and curves that makeup.
the side of the pattern we are going to make the chest and we are going to take our full chest measurement we are going to divide it by 4 because we are only doing a quarter of the pattern here we go to add an extra half inch because we don't want this to be skin tight plus another half inch for seam allowance so those two half inches.
make a hole for that's a quarter of the chest measurement plus an inch for me that's 10 and 3 8 .and put a mark there I'm going to label this point 5 from that point here at five I'm going to square that all the way to the top to the zero line here we go and then I'm going to call this top corner here point number six I'm also going to go down from 5 all the way to that bottom line number four that was point number three if you remember the intersection on the other side I'm going to call that seven and then the intersection at the bottom here is going to be eight in.
At this point, we have a rectangle that represents a quarter of our final shirt we are going to do the next nape so that we are going to go out a fifth of our full neck measurement so the neck measurement is divided by five if I give it a little squeeze to my neck like this for the width but then do the same thing for the depth I realize there is more depth and there is width so a fifth coming out the opposite side a quarter of what you would expect then in my case.
I'm going to go out three inches I'm going to square it to zero line is something like this I'm going to label this lower corner here nine and then the top one I'm going to label 10 now we're going to draw in the curve of the nape and first I'm going to go down my seam allowance amount which is a half inch so that Mark right there and so from then on I'm just going to curve around meet my line at number one there we're going to tackle the armhole next but for that, we have to move to this two place here we are going to put a mark halfway between one and two which means we divide by two which in my case is four and a half right there and we are going to mark this as spot number 11.
starting at 11 I'm going to go out my mid-back measurement plus my half-inch seam allowance so for me I'm going to go out Eight and a half Mark that right there I'm going to label that number 12. Square that line from that spot right there on the number 12 I'm going to square to the top line from 0 to 6 and I'm going to square to the line from 2 to 5. We're going to label this bottom Point here of 13. and the top one 14.
Next, we're going to notice where the corner connects the slope of the shoulder with the curve of the armhole so we head back to that center line again and from one we're going to go down about three-quarters of an inch and this is again some arbitrary number that's going to take us more or less to the right place and then we can adjust later if your shoulders are more straight horizontal you may want to just go down half an inch if your shoulders slope quite.
a bit you may want to go down a whole inch you decide what is best for you as that spot right there I'm going to call this number 15 and then square it again every time I walk to that line 13 to 14 and I'm going to call this Point number 16 of the 16 I'm going to go out about a half inch put a spot there i'm going to mark that as point number 17. now I can connect point number 10 from the nape to here 17 which gives us this slope of our shoulders.
I can also draw on that curve from 17 to 12. and then curving down and around 2 5 and 17 to 12 it's just a smooth line barely a curve and then I want more of a teardrop shape from 12 to five teardrop of water we don't want tears if we look at our shirt from the middle of the arm to the shoulder it's kind of uphill and out and that half inch was an arbitrary amount but it helps us get that slight incline we also have to do the front neck hole and so we go from zero to a quarter of our neck measurement.
so that means divided by four so in my case under three and three quarters or 3.75 inches I'm going to label that spot 18 I squared that across over the width of the neckline from before and then squared that line down to the line that made nine and ten okay there we go from that seam allowance a half inch amount down from 10. I'm going to draw that curve on the Forward and meet the 18. and I want to make sure it goes right in here for a while and then curves and then the same thing here again I went ahead and made a duplicate of that first.
there because this is going to be my front pattern and this one is the original is going to be for my back pattern and I'm going to do some little tweaks and alterations to both this is the front copy and at Point, number 12 here I'm going to go in for a quarter inch is just a little here and then we're going to bring that curve in just a touch like that and then have it come back and join and meet at the bottom here for the back panel I'm going to go in the opposite direction quarter inch but up there and then make it shallower curve in the back and then make it meet the teardrop at the bottom waterdrop.
well if we look at our anatomy our shoulders specifically are a little forward and inward a little bit so as a result of that of course we want a little more fabric in the back to accommodate that and then we need Less in the front for this that quarter inch is like you guessed an arbitrary amount if you find Value in this kind of content or my blogs in general consider supporting me on patreon or putting a couple of coins on my PayPal tip table thanks.
ok moving on to sleeves also bonus on Patreon you have access to my sewing group chat let's start with taking a moment to understand why the top of one sleeve has this curved shape by looking at the pattern of the body this curve is pretty intuitive we go under the armpit here and then straighten on the front of the arm and then curve back pass over the ball of the shoulder and then it repeats down the back one sleeve is just a cylinder cut at an angle at the top and then that cut at an angle to the shoulder and well it's done Our Sleeve well if we wear this cylinder.
then we open it up and unravel it that's where this curvature shape proceeds to reveal itself with the sleeve I once again start with that T I go back to my body pattern and take the measurement from one to two and I want a third of that divided by three and back in my sleeve pattern of that T that I measure down whatever that amount is so in my case it ends up being exactly three inches and so at the top here I'm going to label this zero that new point I'm going to label it one.
then I'm going to go ahead and square that again this is what will eventually become the height of the top of the sleeve curve like this and a good third, again an arbitrary number if we want Our Sleeve to be a little more horizontal and point straighter then we want it to be shallower curve and in that case, we're going to divide by a larger number like say four maybe even five if we want the sleeve to point down a little bit more than we need to be a deeper curve and in that case divide by a smaller number like say two and a half or even two the choice is yours based on your preference.
but dividing it by three gives us a decent average somewhere in the middle also keep in mind the further straight it is the longer the sleeve is going to be the more fabric there will be and the more you point the sleeve down the less fabric there will be to go around and it will be thinner so we are trying more or less to find a balance somewhere place there that makes sense to us we're going to do the short sleeve first so from scratch I go down the length of my short sleeve which was eight plus a half inch seam allowance here plus an inch seam allowance on the bottom.
because we want to double fold for the hem there so for me that becomes nine and a half up here but I'm going to go back up again because I want to know where the ends of the sleeves are so I go back to the double fold or one inch in my case back at eight-thirty I'm going to square both I'm going to call this two and call this two and a half or 2.5 we want to figure out the width of Our Sleeve and so we go back to our front panel and we measure essentially from 5 to 17 whichever be that number in my case eight and a half I measure from point number one here 8.5 and I make a mark right there.
I am going to call this point number three and then I can draw a diagonal line from zero steps to 3. Now I am going to take the measurement from zero to three which in my case is 9 inches I'm going to divide that number by 3. and so from Point number three here we're going to go that amount in so for me I'm going to go in three inches Right there and that's essentially where the curve is going to cross up and down and down.
I'm going to call that point number four and then halfway between 0 and 4 I'm going to put Mark a little bit and then about halfway between three and four I'm going to put another dial with this between 0 and 4 I'm going to go up about oh say half an inch three-quarters of an inch somewhere in the middle there and then on the little mark between four and three I'm just going to go down say oh about a quarter of inch these are very arbitrary amounts that I came up with but essentially I want this curve to be larger at the top here and then a little less at the bottom.
and then I want it to cross over at Point Number four I'm just going to rough that into something like that another maybe I want it to be straight here and then the curve crosses over four curves and then meet here perfectly straight again but of course, we need the length of this to match the original curve you drew on the front piece not the adjusted one the original.
so I go out along that curve first on the front piece and get a measurement so in my case it's nine o'clock and all about an eighth of an inch and then I do the same thing with the sleeve piece and in this case oh great exactly the same amount but if they were different what I would do is tweak this line here so let's say this was too long this line compared to that one I would make this more of a shallow line like that just make it a little shallower not like curvy.
if let's say this line was too short then I could make it a little bit mocurvierecause that's I ' going to add just one more touch now if it's enough of a discrepancy I would actually move line number three either in or o a bit and then completely redraw this line if necessary until I finally have this line matching the original curve of the shoulder again we're just going to play around here it's not an exact science I just need them to be the same.
that's going to use a little massage again this is where the art comes in as opposed to the math of it all now I need to determine how big I want the sleeve opening to be so I tIke my biceps measurement I dId before and then I add whatever extra slack I want all the way around. I'm going to say two inches for mine. Then I divide that number in half. which gives us the half sleeve of course and finally at the end of that I add my seam allowance for one side.
again we're only doing the half I mark that spot I'm going to call that point number five and then I can connect number three up to five draw it here we go but of course, I want to reflect roughly the same angle down to 2.5 because of course this rolls in so it essentially gives me that kind of shape and there we go that's our short sleeve sorted for the long sleeve which I copied over the short sleeve except down the hem at the bottom here from scratch.
I measure down my full sleeve length which for me is 24. Mark that I'm going to call that point number six i'm going to square that then i'm going to take whatever the measurement was and divide by 2 and put a mark there as well and this is roughly where the elbow is going to be so in my case that's 12. I'm going to mark that as Point Number Seven and I'm going to square that as well two to five that's our short sleeve length and we're essentially going to drag that down to seven points I'm just going to pull that down two here I'm going to mark this as number eight.
then I'm going to draw a new line from 3 to 8. Draw that right there and this seven to eight here that's essentially about where our elbow is halfway between next I figure out how big I want the opening to be by my wrist and so I essentially take that measurement I add the slack I want I divide it by two and then I add my seam allowance to that so in my case they measured my wrist around 6.5 I want around 1.5 inches of slack I give a total of eight divided by 2 gives me four.
plus my seam allowance is 0.5 4.5 so draw it right there I'm going to label this Stitch number nine and then finally I just connect eight to nine let's go ahead and add that inch of a hem at the bottom square that one more time make it reflect roughly the opposite direction mine ended up being pretty much a straight line so i'm good to go but if you have any kind of square edges and stuff here just smooth towards outside with a bit of a curve just round it.
out so it gets nice and gentle and there we go that's our basic foreign pattern sleeve at this point you can choose to want to continue working with half pattern pieces if that's the case when it comes to making a sample,, just fold your fabric and cut personally I like to duplicate my pattern to the right side and then make my right arm smaller than my left why good question I have written a full story on my website the link is in the description of any way it works the choice is yours ok let's cut our pattern pieces it's time to make a read.
so I'm cutting one of everything just using an old sheet here with the sleeve I'm just going to fold away the seam allowance, for now, I don't need it for the foreign read first let's make sure we press open each seam we do so we have a more accurate representation of the final fit next we sew the sleeve into the armhole the trick I find when working with odd shapes as sleeves is to make sure the needle is down raised the presser foot then pull the bottom fabric to adjust as needed the same with the top bring the pressure foot back down.
Beat and repeat as many times as needed to make it work a little better finally, I can run a seam down the sleeve to the bottom of the shirt I'm also cutting about four or five inches in the front here so this thing can really slide over my head okay not bad for a first draft it fits which is well but several things are awkward needs to be fixed so let's get into all the different edits we can do a lot of graphics are about to appear and ok fun fact.
I am a designer at my day job I have my own business and I have shared a link below, check it out. if the pattern is too tight the Torso we can cut down the middle from top to bottom to the middle between the neck and the armhole take it out as much as we need to fill in the gap and then redraw the line along the shoulder at the top of the neck end to the top of the sleeve opening if you have a little bit of progress. posture or just in general you find the shirt doesn't hang nice and straight and it's hanging back a bit and maybe sloping in the back.
ok, in that case, we add a wedge to the back panel and do it by cutting along the middle from the bottom line we pivot from the top corner of the armhole Just One Touch and then redraw and trim those lines, and the same goes if the shirt is unbalanced hanging too far forward it's a little short in the front mid-back line cut pivot redraw trim, likely, we're not getting the shoulder slope correct and the way to diagnose this is, for example, let's say you're finding.
that you're getting some sort of wrinkle lines happening in the upper neck area here if that's the case, so the slope is too much and we need to reduce the slope shoulder a bit so we just take it out as much as we feel we need through the top of the armhole but as much as we go up there we have to bring the curve into the bottom of the armhole up by the same amount now let's say for example you're finding that you're getting some draw lines or pleats and things that go over the shoulder in the back, in that case, we have the slope also shallow.
we have a need to reduce it a little bit Again for the shoulders bring it down and then lower it the equivalent amount at the bottom of the armhole I also want this seam at the top of the shoulder to follow the line of our top of the shoulder very nicely and if we need to make adjustments here like say the line is too far forward and we want to push it back a bit what we do is just cut a wedge as much as we need out of the back and then glue it to the front or vice versa if the line is too far back and we need to go a bit further we're cutting out everything.
we need from the front in that wedge shape and add it in the back we also want the neck hole to sit nicely butt against the base of our neck all the way around and maybe we'll have we increase or decrease the size of it and if that is the case we want to be consistent in every way and make sure to follow along the slope of our shoulders maybe we need to go up or down in the front or back at that case again we just shallow the curve we can deepen the curve as needed we can also bring the neckline to the sides we can bring it back.
if we want we also want the seam that runs between the body and the sleeve to be right in the center of where the slope change happens so we can bring that up a bit if we need to we can bring that up if we need to again we want to make sure that we continue to keep the slope of our shoulder so adjustments happen along that line maybe the sleeves are nice for the shoulder here but it's just too tight around the torso in that case.
we take the body out and then increase the length of that bottom raindrop got it right that time vice versa we can also bring it in the torso if it's too loose and around the chest or maybe just the size of your armholes are too small or too big and in that case you can only bring that bottom curve up or down, but keep in mind any adjustment in the armhole changes that circumference which means then you have to change that top curve of the sleeve again.
I mentioned earlier in the blog moving on to the sleeves and if you're having some folding happen on the front here by the sleeve or on the back of the sleeve that's known as dragging and essentially what that means is we have to change the centerline of the sleeve we have to adjust where the top of the curve is so if you're getting that drag in the front that means we have to move the centerline forward as much as you need and then redraw the line accordingly or vice versa if you're getting that back drag we want to move the center line back a bit and redraw the Curve finally.
we can play around with the sleeve shape however we want we can have it as a straight line if we want Personally I like I like a little more of a tight sleeve shape so I taper my sleeve just below the armpit and then have it go straight through the elbow for a while and then taper back down the forearm again and finally finish otherwise like this maybe you wanted a little more billowy you like looseness then you can just create more of a balloon shape play around with what you like or keep it as a straight line option is yours for the short sleeve.
we can also adjust that bottom line if we add a little bit of a curve at the bottom it's going to sit a little bit more horizontally when we use it if we just keep it straight it sits at a little bit of an angle and then if we add a curve up well then it's really I'm going to sit along the sleeve and it gives us that little short sleeve look we can also taper at the waist in the Torso and I think the best thing to do is just make a gentle curve the far end is at the point of the waist and then back out to the bottom of the shirt making these alterations.
I find a lot has a ripple effect on how changing something here might change the fit elsewhere and so I find myself starting with what I consider my biggest problems first read how it goes read the new sample based on that do my next tweaks maybe tweak the first one a bit more and so on until I get it so so actually this could be three four five six iterations until I get it so also there's a bunch of links to check in the description I regularly make playlists that you can stitch to I would send out a newsletter from time to time at this point we have a basic pattern that we can now use to make t-shirts short sleeve t-shirts long sleeve t-shirts.
they know but the real power is us now we have a basic template for Tops that can now evolve into any type of top you desire so for the next blog I'm going to make a copy of this template and show how I turn it into a button-down shirt like this so thanks for reading wait for it will be a few weeks or if you are reading it in the future exists to make a button-down shirt thanks to everyone who supports me on Patreon iIreally appreciate it and a special shout out to these top tier supporters thanks if you have questions uh unsure of things ask me below in the comments and uh check out the many links I talked about throughout.
thanks