I don't have the materials to make and photograph the entire process right now and, anyway, I'm still uncertain about posting my unders for the world to see. Still, it seems many people are interested in sewing their own and my way is a bit different from what I read in most tutorials, so I thought I would contribute to the pool of information.

I started by tracing my best fitting RTW (ready to wear) pair. I used an old t-shirt to sew a muslin from this pattern and they were two sizes too small. I kept adjusting the pattern until I got what is pictured here. I don't add seam allowance to the edges that will get elastic, but I add 1/2-inch SA to the connecting seams.

For reference, I wear a Hanes size 7 underwear. I can make one pair of unders from a Hanes size small (boxy/classic fit) t-shirt.


Half Underwear Pattern
When using a t-shirt, I cut the back pattern out of the back and the front out of the front t-shirt. The stretch is going up and down instead of side to side, but the unders still fit.
  • I try to avoid VPL (visible panty lines), so I wanted the only seams to be on the sides, not across the bottom where my pants pull tight. All the tutorials I read have the front and back connected where they are in RTW pairs, but I eliminated this seam.
  • Underwear always crawls up on me. Always. I decided to experiment and found out that if the cheeks are fully covered, that is, the elastic goes around, not over, them, then the unders stay in place. It's the same idea as having bra underwires cup the breasts instead of riding up over them (well, there is no support in the elastic, but the cupping visual is the same). Try finding full coverage, low-waisted unders in the stores, especially if you don't wear white. I don't think they exist.
  • The crotch in this pattern is a little wide, but it is easy to free-hand it ½-inch or so narrower if I feel like it. If your unders elastic normally pinches you, try making the crotch area wider or the elastic looser in this area.
  • I zig-zag the crotch layer wherever it does me the most good, which isn't where it is placed in RTW pairs. You can also experiment with how long you want this layer. I haven't found this small line of stitching to make a visible line under clothing. I put the insert in after the side seams are sewn, but before the elastic is on. I find it helps with accurate placement to have the unders assembled before sewing on the layer.
  • I want my unders waistband to be lower than any other waistbands I might be wearing. This is especially important if I'm wearing shorts under a skirt. For comfort, all the waistbands need to be staggered. With some experimenting, I got the back waistband to be high enough to be comfortable, but low enough to not be above my jeans waistband. The front waistband is much lower and nicely curves under my belly and lower than any of my clothes waistbands. To get this, play around with a curved ruler, free-handing curves, and know that you might have to trim off small points at the side seam after the elastic is attached. 
I get the best fit if I stretch the elastic about 50% - 75%. Then again, I dislike the loose, floaty legs such as those one might find on petty pants, so this is definitely an area to experiment and find your personal preference. So far, I've only used the lingerie elastic you can easily find at the chain fabric stores but I'm eager to experiment with other kinds.

I've made this pattern with t-shirts and yardage knit fabric. I'm anxious to get my hands on some stretch satin to see if the pattern needs to be adjusted for woven fabrics.

Now that I've gotten this pattern the way I want it, I bet it would work well for swimming suit bottoms, too. 

Hope these ideas help. Once you get the pattern right, sewing unders is one of the quickest, easiest projects! 
Full Underwear Pattern
This is the full pattern. I like to draft my patterns in full so that I have the option of using them on the fold or flat without extra flipping or tracing. The front of the unders is at the bottom of the picture.
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Unknowns 05/05/2012
 
For an unknown amout of time, I will have an unknown amount of sewing machine access, computer access, and internet access. When these unknowns are resolved, I will return to weekly posting. In the meantime, I'll post when I can.
Yellow Tank
Yellow sheer sleep top pieced together from scraps. You can't tell in the photo, but this is very sheer. Also, all the seams have turquoise top stitching.
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With Maddie's help, I've created a bodice block that fits better than any woven upper garment I've had. There's still work to be done – adding the sleeves and enough length to cover my midriff, but all in all, I'm very pleased with how things are turning out.

I'm petite in the sense that my vertical measurements are different from someone of average height. Altering ready-made patterns never worked out, which is why I tried to draft my own. That also is a frustrating, if fascinating, process. Following other pattern drafting instructions, I kept running into trouble – even with my measurements the clothes fit almost as poorly as RTW. Then Maddie came along and discovered something for me:
  • When following pattern drafting directions, petite vertical measurements should be less than what is written (assuming the directions are for an average person). In the case of Maddie's tutorials, this meant the 2-inch vertical measurement in her directions should be a 1-inch measurement for me. 
Other things I learned:
  • The armhole drop will seem too short. In the books, I read that an armhole drop should be around 7-8 inches for a woven shirt. When I measure myself, it is less than 6 inches. Before, I tried to make it seven inches because I thought I was measuring myself wrongly. The problem was that with an armhole that low, once the sleeve was in, I had limited mobility. It felt like the armhole was at the same level as my bust line or halfway to my elbow. For the current bodice draft, I used my measurements of less than 6 inches. So far, it feels better.
  • The sleeve cap height might be shorter than expected. I'm still working out my sleeves, but the best fit has come from a sleeve cap height of less than 5 inches. 
As I work out the sleeve fitting problems, I might make changes, but I thought I would share what I have so far in case any other petite person is reading and having the same problems.

Here is a muslin of my bodice draft so far. I slit down the front and put bias tape on the neckline so that I could try on the muslin with all the seams sewn and without causing the neckline to fray. It's still a tight fit, but manageable. 

Bodice Muslin with 1 Sleeve
With the sleeve in, everything has shifted up. How to fix this?
Bodice Muslin - Pulled
This is how it should fit, but without me pulling it. It fit properly before I put the sleeve in.
Current Problems:
  • Before I put in the sleeve, the shoulder seam sat at center shoulder. Now it is pulled towards the back.
  • Before I put in the sleeve, the front darts stopped at exactly the bust point. Now they are an inch too high.
  • The sleeve cap has 2-inches ease over the armhole. I do not want puffed sleeves. Uh, uh! Never! I've reduced the puffed effect by distributing the ease around the entire sleeve, except for an inch at the very top and at the very bottom where the side seam is. This still creates gathers that I need to get rid of. I also wonder if this contributes to the pulling backwards on the bodice. How to keep the proper shape of the sleeve cap and enough room in the sleeve while reducing the amount of ease?
There are so many things that go into making a sleeve cap and arm hole that fit together properly. I don't know what thing to start with to fix my problems. My priority is to put in a sleeve that allows the bodice to sit properly and my arms to move freely. Fixing the puffiness is a second-tier priority. 
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I had part of a sarong left over, I kept seeing TV characters wearing loose, flowy tops, and I wanted a quick sewing project that I knew would fit. I cut as little as possible because the rayon fabric loves to fray and when I did make a cut, I made sure the raw edges were completely hidden.

The sides are straight forward: sew a straight seam between the armhole and the side split. Fold under any raw edges and stitch down.

For the neck, I cut a wide "U," making sure I didn't go too low. I know that on me, I can go down seven inches from the shoulder before showing too much, so I mark that spot and make a neck shape from there. To differentiate the front from the back, I gathered two inches in center front. This also helped to narrow the front neckline so that no bra parts show.

Finishing the neckline was the trickiest part. I folded the raw edge ¼-inch to the right side (normally, you would fold to the wrong side) and stitched down. This was difficult over the gathered area. Next, I took light blue velvet ribbon that came in a grab bag year ago and stitched down the center, covering the neckline's raw edge.

Maybe it's a little dated, especially with the fringe, but it was a relaxing sewing project to break up all the hard work of drafting a bodice block and fitting it. And yes, I know it looks nothing like the t-shirts Kono or Kensi wear, but I also don't have their body types.

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Striped Tank Top
I used the reversible nature of the fabric to make the top and bottom bands.
I didn't have enough of this striped fabric left over to make a full t-shirt and I really wanted to play with the stripes. I love clothes that mix the directions of the stripes. I didn't have enough fabric to really do much except piece things together to make a tube with straps. The top is a little too big and the bottom much too small for me, but for someone with a more even waist to hip ratio, the tank would fit better. I brought the top up enough (made the straps short enough) to cover my normal bra, but that means the part under the arm is a bit too high. Oh, well. At least the fabric is a garment instead of scraps sitting in the box. I'm sure I will find a way to wear this under something so that only the top half shows. I don't know anyone to whom to give it.  

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I've had scraps of swimwear fabric in my stash for years. I couldn't figure out how to make the odd pieces into something wearable.

I needed another warm-weather shirt for OWOP, so I took the scrap pieces out again and played around with them and my pattern.

This shirt is the result.


I sewed the top elastic in two pieces so that I can easily adjust the front or back if I need one tighter. I like this shirt, but I may try to piece together enough tiny scraps to make some kind of strap to hold the front up. When I move, it slides farther down than is comfortable to me and I dislike constantly hiking up my clothes. 

Swim Top Side Gape
That excess fabric has to go somewhere!
Without the back fabric to keep the front sides pulled tight, the sides gaped. I fixed this by pinning out the excess fabric and then pleating it. I wanted it to look like diagonal ruching, but was uncertain how to get that look. My method serves its practical purpose.

Swim Top Bra
The right side of the fabric will face my skin, so I let the fabric be loose and meld into the curve of the cups as I sewed. I could have given it a little more ease, but it turned out alright.
After I made the solid front and the two-piece back, I realized that I had material enough to make a solid back, but I like it with the cutout. I used the last spare rectangle and a stretched out bra to make modesty padding in the front. 

Even though I wear this as a regular top, I suppose I could have it as a back-up swim top. I like multi-purpose clothing!
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The photo gallery is under the Outfits tab. If there is a blog post about a shirt, the photo is linked to the post. This event made me want even more to make more of these shirts, especially out of work appropriate fabric. I also want to learn how to make patterns for decorative details like a twisted knot front or empire waist seam. I'm sure I could work it out, it's having appropriate fabric to work with that's holding me back. One day...
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Scrub Shirts 03/31/2012
 
Scrub Tunic Front
I didn't want to cover the decorative hem, so the pockets are a bit high.
Scrub Tunic Back
Yep, it's wide enough to fit over my hips. Can't get that with RTW!
Not only do I need to wear scrub shirts to work, but they also are cool and comfortable in a humid summer. Even better, while from a woven fabric, they are wrinkle resistant. I appreciate a machine washable woven that doesn't need ironing!

Although I can get scrub shirts for $4 at Goodwill, I was curious about making my own so that I could have more design control – maybe eventually using the pattern for a casual tunic.

I started by tracing around the longest, widest RTW scrub I have. It is the lab coat I altered here. The lab coat has set-in sleeves and I wanted grown-on sleeves, so I used a normal scrub shirt to trace the sleeve and sleeve to body transition. I even remembered to add seam allowance before I started cutting my fabric.

Because this is a loose, unfitted garment, it was easy to sew and there were no fitting issues. In this version, I used the hem of a sheet for the hem of the scrub top, but forgot to shorten the length by the hem allowance, so this one is a bit longer than anticipated – another couple of inches and it would be a shift dress.

The pockets are scraps and I promise the top one looked straight when I pinned it on to sew.

I didn't want to fuss with making the neckline the same as RTW scrub shirts. I think a round neckline is more flattering to my chin. Plus, it's easier to sew than figuring out how to add the binding to a V- neckline. I added elastic to the front neckline, sewn on at the shoulder seams, to try to keep myself modest when moving around or working with taller clients. I think I could have stretched the elastic a little less and still have a tight neckline, but overall, I'm happy with the result. This is the first time I tried to put elastic into only part of a seam.

The biggest mistake was that I used ½-inch seam allowance for the neckline, so it was a bit difficult to sew and has some tucks. While fighting with it, I kept wondering why the seam binding was so difficult to sew on smoothly. After I finally got everything together and tried on the final product, I realized that I always draft my necklines with 1/4-inch seam allowance. You would think the crease in the seam binding would have clued me in that 1/2-inch was too much, but sometimes my brain doesn't catch on quite fast enough. 

If I want the shorter style scrub top, that's easy even for me to to with this same pattern.

Elastic Neck Sewn at Shoulders
Before I sewed on the bias binding, I sewed the elastic to the shoulder seam allowance.



Elastic Neck with Bias Binding
The tricky part was to keep the elastic from twisting when I sewed it into the bias binding casing.
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Lab Coat
Too tight
Lab Coat
Fits better
I had this lab coat, but I don't need it. All I need are scrub tops. When I wore the lab coat open, it flopped around and make me feel sloppy. When I wore it closed, it didn't look right with the bottom snaps undone and with them fastened, the coat didn't fit around my hips. I believe in changing clothes to suit my needs whenever possible and this problem had an easy solution.

To change this lab coat into a wearable scrub top, I opened up the side vents as I have to do on all my normal scrub tops. With this quick and easy alteration, the lab coat fit around my hips and I can wear it closed as if it were a long scrub top.

Don't let clothes you need sit in the closet; change them so that they do what you need them to do.  

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Tilly's project sounds fun. I'll be using my self-drafted t-shirt pattern. I don't think I have seven shirts from this pattern, especially not suitable for a southern spring, but I'll wear what I can and hand wash to wear again if I have to. I'm working on a summer t-shirt right now so there will be at least one new seasonally appropriate piece that I haven't blogged before.
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