Some Gathering Beside the Neckline // Pattern Drafting Exercise

Thank you Bianca for sharing this with us, especially when you weren't in a good head space. Big hugs! I'd like to share something with you and all who have a birthday that sucks....when I turned 30 I didn't like it at all!!!!!! A girlfriend said to me, would you really want to go back to 18 and do it all again, without the knowledge you have now? Hell no!!! From that moment on I embraced every birthday, every grey hair and wrinkled because I'd earned them. I'd learned lessons that I would never repeat and taught myself to appreciate the things that life had taught me that I didn't have to 'go back' and do again. I turned 60 this year and yes, I had to teach myself to appreciate that too. I never thought I would live to 60. Trouble is, I look in the mirror these days and I see my mum staring back at me. Yep, the older I get, the more I look like my mum. My Friend, I wish I could take the uncertainty away but I can't. Just remember you have people who really care about you and how you are. Big hugs from Down Under <3

Ha, this reverse engineering was fun to watch! And that drapey peplum in that last sketch, oh my, *gorgeous*, cannot wait to see that in action! Sending you all of the strongest "anxiety can take a hike!" vibes that I can.

Hi Bianca! Just a couple thoughts I wanted to share with you. I have gained a lot of confidence in my sewing and pattern modification this year and I owe a lot of that to you. Thank you! I had a really bad year last year and ended up opening a little alterations operation out of my house for extra money. While it helped pay the bills, it really drained my love of sewing and it got to the point where I dreaded it and didn't sew for myself at all. Oddly enough this year has been better for us and I feel so sheepish saying that considering how people are hurting but that just really shows how bad my year was last year. Anyway, all that to say watching your videos has helped inspire me and it has given me my spark back. I have learned so much from your pattern alteration videos and I'm so pleased with the things I'm making now. I also wanted to say that I turned 30 in January and it sucked. I was really having a hard time and it didn't help that my family could see I was having a hard time and they thought it was funny. To hell with that. I hear you and I'm with you! What a weird age to be and a weird time to be living in. I'm sending you good vibes!

Thanks Bianca, again very inspirational. I love that you work from the picture - a challenge for the brave-hearted! (If you want your tailor's dummy to more represent your own figure you can put a bra on it and pad it out with stuffing) Happy 29th birthday and don't let the ride on the Coronacoaster affect your wonderful personality - you're still there! x

Hi, First a belatedly Happy 29th Birthday, from the other side of the big water. I know that you said that you didn't really enjoy it, but it could have been worse. It could have been 31. Sorry, that's just my somewhat dark sense of humor showing under the skirt, like a to long slip. It's my and my family's way dealing with the less fun parts of life. Dark sense of humor, I mean, not to long slips... I think... Okay, no more philosophizing for me tonight. It's not good for anyone's sanity. I'm sorry that you don't feel safe at this time, but I can understand it. At least everyone in my family accepts that I and my husband are in isolation, and don't bug us for not attending all the birthday celebrations happening the last weeks of July. (In case someone wonders I have an immuno-insufficiency and two lung conditions) I don't know if you know that Sweden look like it's ahead of everyone in per capita COVID-19 related illness and deaths. Some of it is because we are very good at reporting everything, that other countries around us might not report, but we are higher on the list of cases for real too. We never went into lockdown as most everywhere else did. We had strong recommendations. That works with us, as a people, in a way that is unlike almost everywhere else on earth. This way we haven't been totally overwhelmed with cases really, at any point in time but more of a steady high demand on our medical care system. We have all adapted well so we haven't really gotten into Corona-fatigue and opened up too soon either. Most everybody has adapted and does more drive-thru shopping and meet friends outdoors, and things like that. I hope that you will get some respite from all things negative soon, as you so deserve it. What you do is giving at least me, but likely a lot of other people, something very positive. Looking at the responses in the comment sections after your uploads give me the feeling that you do. I know that changes nothing, but I wish it did. Take care of yourself and know that you are an at the least midsize blip on the radar, with a woman in Sweden, Europe. (You cross the Atlantic and when you get to Germany you take a left heading north, you take a hop and a skip and then you're in Sweden. If you take a right turn in Germany, heading south you get Switzerland, where I'm not from😉🙂) When I did my Masters Degree in the US, oh dear almost 30 years ago, there was a guy from Switzerland and I from Sweden in our group. We would have endless fun with the all the mix-ups you can cause, if you want. Both of us spoke American like Americans too so no differentiating accents, ergo a lot of opportunity for fun. He tried to teach me about baseball but I can honestly say that he failed miserably. American football yes, baseball not even a bit. Another American friend tried too, and I learned that if you have VIP seats at Yankee (?) Stadium you get a very good lunch, and sports food and anything you want served to your seat during the game. It was miserably cold but a lot of fun. But I still don't understand the first thing about baseball. I hope all of us in the comments can give a little bit of distraction and that you can feel safe, protected and in general better soon. Yours (and an internet air hug), Ann

I liked this video a lot. I love looking at old patterns and old dresses for inspiration, but get overwhelmed by the complexity of the details. I loved seeing the simplified, but just as pretty option!

That was really interesting, thank you! I’m also team 2 pieces. This was very timely for me. I’ve been looking at all of the places I can put gathering since I got some lovely flowey rayon. I hadn’t thought of this configuration, but I like it.

This was a really interesting one. I loved seeing how you figured it all out based on just those little tid-bits from the pattern pictures!

I really enjoyed watching you test this design out. Personally, I'd go for the seamed yoke, as well. And I love the look of that asymmetric hip drape on your croquis for the rayon dress project! **heart eyes**

Thanks for doing this! Seeing you do this IRL and in 3D, I am thinking that the inset has a self facing added on to it , hence the large swag. That is why it must have a center seam. Also, I think that tapering the inset seam right from the start of the seaming might mitigate the abrupt ending and make it smoother. Again, thanks for taking on this challenge.

I think that the neckline/gather bit is winged out so far so that it can be folded over to create a self-facing for the side of the neckline? At least that would be my guess... And then the allusion that the line is curved is crated by how heavily the section is pulled to the side by the gathers... I think?? Also, I think in order to avoid the pucker, you would start tapering your seam allowance sooner before you get to the end of the gathering. At least that's what I can gather from a pattern that I have that is similar... (no pun intended 😂)

Could you trace a facing for the whole neckline from the pattern after you'd added the neckline curve in but before you cut in to it to slash and spread? I agree with you though I think it would look neater as a completely separate piece 😊

Another super interesting video. I am team two pieces too. My week was meh. I have been super tired and unsure why. I did get vintage (unsure how old) basic block pattern pieces so it will be interesting to figure that out. Super excited for the next video. That fabric is so fun and I totally think it will look awesome in that dress style. 😁