Front and Back Bodice.

Starting off with this video so everyone gets an idea of what's going on.

This is one of the better brief draping videos I found. The way I was taught to do it is slightly different, but all in all to achieve the same goal.

Process is a word that I think is over used in my program. The word makes me want to roll my eyes. 

So let's say, development.

So here we are, after the measurements, the marking, the cutting - all the good stuff. This is the fun stuff though. 

Grain line/Centre Front (CF) is marked in red, and the bust line is marked in blue. 

I found my pins to be rather annoying. The fat top seemed to get in the way a lot. Anyway, the first few steps were quite familiar from first/second year of school. Notice the little snips on the neckline - I chopped off a little of the fabric (okay, I cut too much and had a hole) and made little snips to help the fabric sit flat. 

This is where I started to enjoy myself. Keeping in mind of the main goal being to keep the fabric flat - or looking flat across the body. No tug lines because that means it's too tight, and no access hanging around or it'll turn out too loose. We are trying to achieve a well fitted bodice that is almost like a second skin (almost, but not really).

 

My teacher was encouraging us to play around and she would say, "You can put the darts anywhere but in the end, it comes down to where the darts look good" (or something along those lines).

At this point, I started to see the flat pattern that I was very used to - the darts looked familiar and it all just clicked in my head and I was very excited. So excited that I removed the shoulder dart and played with two darts at the princess line! 

I must add that even though things made sense in my head, I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing. Everything looked messy when I started filling in lines for the neckline and armhole and darts. Sometimes when it's messy, it gets hard to tell what you're doing, let alone judge if it's right or not. 

The decision to put a single dart came from thinking that it might be easier to manipulate from one dart instead of two - although, it is a curved dart so some shaping might be lost in the process. Maybe deciding on where the darts should sit on the design, then drape it on is a better choice for fit. 

Putting one dart in was not easy because of how much needed to be taken in. Also had to remember not to tug on the fabric too much so that it would not warp/stretch.

Moving on to the back felt easy peasy. Same starting process with marking in the main lines. Since the back is more straight, the darts were obvious and quite tiny too.

I promise to master my line tracing. It's so terrible.

You can almost see that the blue line shifted up from the body's marking. That's just the way the body is shaped. This is also something that probably won't register when drafting a flat pattern. Usual flat pattern drafts will have a dart there that will connect to the centre of the shoulder. The dart will the be manipulated to open up at the shoulder. Here, I've put the dart on the shoulder and wow look at that. All makes sense. 

Only captured this much of the back because I was too engrossed in the work. Whoops. 

Final Front piece, laying flat. Darts were trued - notice the curve.

(Everything clicking away in my head!)

The bottom dart on the Back piece was an odd one to even out and as I recall, it's usually a straight dart on flat patterns. While I'm sure this will almost guarantee a great fit I can see why it's almost always straight - such a slight adjustment that might not be noticeable on the body (CLICK CLICK!)