Look Ma, No Muslin!

First, heartfelt thanks and smiles to everyone who responded so graciously to my post about the burglary.   Although I had hesitated to even write the post, I'm happy that I did - it was a cathartic release for me, and every single one of your comments reached my heart - deep thanks for your understanding, caring, and thoughtful comments.   I love my readers!!!!

And now, for the post that I meant to write last Tuesday.....

The Good News (and really, it's ALL good news):

1.  I made it into the sewing room and sewed for me, me me!
2.  At the pattern-tracing level of this tshirt, I discovered that taking the Sisters Tilton Craftsy Class had an even bigger impact than I initially thought.   I realized that I had the confidence to make all the necessary fitting changes at the pattern level, even with a T-Shirt that was slightly more complex than a basic front, back and sleeves.
3.  And it worked!

This is probably a long overdue realization, but I was able to cut several steps out of the fitting process, and cut straight into my fashion fabric with enough confidence to be pretty sure of the fit - I'm thrilled with this!

After seeing several makes of Katherine Tilton's V8817 in blogland and in person, I knew this was a winner!  I made View C, which has a 3-piece front, 3-piece sleeves, and a 2-piece back.

Now really, WHY didn't I try this pose???

It just screams out to be duplicated, don't you think???

The shoulders are quite broad (especially by my narrow-shoulder standards), and any changes to the shoulder width would involve re-drafts of every single pattern piece.  I  made my fitting changes on the front by first marking the seam lines on each front piece, and layering them by matching the stitching lines, as if they were sewn.   This pic shows the upper front and middle front pieces:

I drafted a basic front, a back  and a sleeve piece (using the Craftsy Class pattern) as a TNT template.   Here's the TNT front piece laid on top of the pattern pieces from this pattern:

Next I drew new pattern pieces, using a combination of my basic TNT, and the V8817 pieces:

I cut them out pretty much as drawn (I did leave a bit extra at the side seams, since this pattern does have a pretty loose fit, but I didn't really need it.   I used the same method for the back and the sleeves.....and it worked!!!!

I did find it interesting that the pattern as drafted came very close to matching my shoulder slope, since I usually re-draw the shoulders for a more dramatic slope - someone with square shoulders might need to do more of an adjustment with this pattern.   With my new TNT concept, it's hard to say what size I actually used, but it was probably a narrowed 8 at the shoulders,  expanding through a size 10 at the rib cage,  to a  size 12 around the hips.

The only other changes I made were a slight shuffling of the suggested contrast fabric placement, but then, the Tilton patterns really are designed with that sort of shuffling to be expected.

Here's my result:

I admit that I'm not crazy about my fabric choices (although I have received a lot of compliments on it, so maybe it will grow on me), but I do think that the weight, length, and general color combos will give me opportunities to get a lot of wear out of this top.   And as far as the pattern itself, it's definitely a winner!

Here's to more easy TNT adaptations...really, I'm THIS thrilled about what feels like a giant step forward in my let's-make-fitting-easier attitude!  :)