This Tilly and the Buttons Agnes pattern in our lovely geometric jersey fabric was the perfect quick and easy sewing pattern for bouncing back after my challenging denim skirt project. Plus I find long sleeved T shirt tops one of the most useful things to have in my wardrobe all year round - perfect for layering, comfortable and ideal for wearing with skirts or trousers they tick all the boxes. I also thought this easy top project would be a good way to try and understand a fitting issue I have where the fabric of the garment gathers into creases that run from my armpit to the shoulder seam.
At first we thought maybe I had made a mistake with the sleeve insertion, but then I noticed it on some of my favourite ready to wear garments too and so I had discovered my first fitting issue. That's the wonderful and awful thing about dressmaking isn't it - your standards for the fit, hang and finish of a garment become so much higher than they ever were before. I nevernoticed this before and now it bugs me every time I wear something where it presents itself and that is how this quick easy project became a little bit more interesting...
Tissue Fitting
The first thing I needed to do before I started cutting or sewing was to investigate the creasing armpit quandary - why was it happening or rather what part of my body is weird and non conformist? After a bit of reading around I thought it seemed like a sloping shoulder issue i.e. my shoulders aren't as square as standard shoulders - quite a disheartening discovery when I think of the time I spend as a sweaty red faced mess doing press-ups in my weekly circuits class!
Here are the ugly creases in all their glory...
I did a tissue fit, a technique developed by Palmer and Pletsch, where you fit the pattern tissue to your body and adjust it accordingly then use the adjusted tissue as the template for your fabric. I traced off a size four Agnes top using Burda tissue paper and drew on the 5/8" seam lines then stuck Sellotape on the inside of the seam line around the curve of the armhole to reinforce it. This allowed me to snip to the seam line around the curve and get the tissue close to my body for fitting.
I pinned the front and the back pattern pieces together where the 5/8" seam allowance would be, but with the seam allowance on the outside rather than the inside where it would be for the finished garment. A good tip here is to have the pins pointing down so they don't fall out when fitting.
I made sure the centre front and centre back were straight, although they were slightly off centre because the pattern is for stretch fabrics and therefore has negative ease worked into it thus the pattern pieces are slightly smaller than the actual width of half of your body. I also made sure the side seams were positioned correctly.
The ugly armpit creases were there in all their glory even in the tissue paper. As I scrutinised the shoulder area I noticed the shoulder seam was way off piste and heading towards my back rather than sitting centrally on my shoulder. I identified where the shoulder seam should be sitting and marked this on the tissue paper with a pen then took it off to adjust the pattern pieces.
I had to add 1.2cm onto the back piece and remove 1.2cm off the front piece to get the seam in the right place. I also had to move the dot on the sleeve pattern piece forward by 1.2cm so that I could set the sleeve in correctly. When I tried the pattern piece back on the ugly armpit creases had disappeared - yay! So rather than my shoulders sloping down they are hunched forward - great! I always knew my posture was terrible, but this confirmed it.
The good news is once the top was made up the ugly armpit creases were definitely far less visible than on other garments, although they hadn't completely disappeared. This makes me suspect my shoulders slope and hunch - sexy! I'm going to have a play around on the next close fitting top I make until I can eliminate them altogether.
I would definitely recommend the tissue fitting method to try and resolve any fitting issues you may have. Clearly there are a wide range of different fitting issues and you may have more than one to resolve, but the basics for tissue fitting are fairly straight forward - prepare the tissue, try the tissue on, identify the problem area and adjust the pattern until you eliminate the problem.
Some adjustments are more complex than others and will have a knock on effect on another part of the pattern, for example, a sloping shoulder adjustment requires you to also adjust the armhole so it is always worth doing your research before attempting to adjust the pattern. It is also important to be realistic and expect that it might take a few attempts and lots of testing and adjusting to fully resolve your fit problem as is probably the case for me.
Whether you choose to attempt to fix any fitting issues depends on how much your particular issue bothers you, but I think it is a price worth paying to get a great fit from your handmade garments. It's also probably a bit sad to admit this, but I also find it really interesting how dramatically moving a seam line or adding a dart can change the whole appearance of a garment.
McCalls and Buttterick do a range of Palmer Pletsch patterns such as the Butterick 6848 and McCall's 8473, all of which come with tissue fitting instructions, so using one of these patterns is a great place to start. There are also some great resources available online so if you're willing to spend a bit of time researching and playing around with the tissue you could resolve your fit problems forever (or at least until your body changes again!).
The Tilly & the Buttons Agnes Top
The pattern itself was super easy to sew. It has just four pattern pieces and can be easily whipped up in an evening. I decided against the optional ruching because I thought simple, clean lines would work better with the geometric fabric I had chosen. Sadly we sold out of the teal version of the fabric and can't get any more, but I'm sure you'll agree the purple is just as gorgeous and we've got plenty in stock or if you really like the teal colour we have this alternative design.
I loved this fabric as soon as I saw it and sourced it then after the pre wash I loved it even more - get this - it doesn't crease at all! No ironing - what more could you want from a fabric?! Another great advantage of this fabric is that it doesn't curl up at the ends which made cutting it out nice and easy.
I had a couple of failed attempts at the neckband and learnt a very valuable lesson that you can't rely on the pattern piece to be the right size because it depends on the fabric you are using. In the end I quartered the neckband and the neckline and measured the neckband along the neckline to make sure it was the right size. I will share this technique with you in detail in one of my next blog posts, it really was a revelation and gave me huge confidence when attempting my next stretch neckband.
When it came to using a twin needle on the hems there was some serious tunneling going on so I reduced the tension on my machine, however, I had to reduce it so much the stitches were too loose. I placed some tearaway stabiliser between the fabric and the needle plate when stitching, which worked really well and meant I was able to increase the tension slightly so the stitches weren't too loose. Next time I would be tempted to use wash away stabiliser because there is a risk that tearing the stabiliser away could stretch the fabric out of shape. Every fabric will behave differently so always keep testing different approaches on scraps of fabric until you are happy with the end result. I shared a video demonstrating how to use a twin needle here if you're interested.
I'm really happy with the top and know I will get a lot of wear out of it, the fit is good and I'm particularly happy with the sleeves which I made extra long just because I could. You see I have chimp arms and shop bought clothes are so often too short in the arm so I relished making myself something that finishes beyond my wrist.
I'll definitely be making a lot more of these and plan to do one in this John Kaldor magenta portia fabric and the St Tropez pink stripey fabric both of which will look excellent with denim or black.
If you've enjoyed learning more about these advanced fitting tips, why not take a look at our post 'Expert tips for perfecting wedding dress patterns', an interesting read on how to approach and execute a large project from start to finish.
Have fun sewing!
Lucy
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