day one: math
“Day One!” I thought. “I get to cut fabric!” I thought.
Silly Tasha.
No, I’m creating a pattern for myself based on a shirt made for someone a lot smaller than me, working with a scale drawing of the pieces where the legend does not correspond to any even measurement on my ruler. This Means Math.
The legend represented 50 cm, but according to my ruler was only 32mm long.
So I measured all the lines in millimeters, and then did the math.
All the math.
(It really wasn’t that bad once I got going, and I used an app to convert millimeters to inches.)
Then I double-checked my measurements, and encountered Questions. For example, the pattern shows the square neckline with the top edge of the square positioned on the shoulder fold. Should I do that, or move it back to accommodate the fact that one’s neck is forward of the centerline of the shoulders?
While I was pondering this problem, I reached out to my friend, Mistress Álfrún, to see if she had any wise words for me. She didn’t have any insights into positioning the neckhole, but offered the observation that people who have made it love the neckline for the way it keeps out the cold. “Is it a double flap?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied. I took a hard look at the pattern pieces, rotated the front lining in my mind, and realized that the front lining is slit opposite to the outer fabric. Freaking brilliant.
I wrestled with the question of neckline position for a couple of hours, but while chatting with Mistress Álfrún, finally decided to stop overthinking and take a practical approach to the question: position it as shown, and if I need more room at the back of the neck, cut it deeper. (That thumping sound you just heard was my head on my desk.)
After I said good night to Álfrún, I wrote in my measurements on the pattern I printed out, and discovered that using the layout in the documentation, I’d need 114 inches (3 yards 6 inches) of fabric, at 53” wide. I don’t think I use that much fabric to make a serk to go under a smokkr when I make girl clothes. So clearly I need to figure out a different layout, and That Means Paper Dolls.
I’m going to make a new layout using my own measurements, more or less to scale. I’ll do more math, converting the inches back to millimeters, then draw the pieces and cut them out so I can draw a representation of the fabric and arrange the pieces on it. I may decide later that I’m still overthinking it. (I did just decide to simplify my life by making the shaped pieces into rectangles for the purposes of layout. Ain’t nobody got time to cut out wee little tapered sleeves.)
So yeah. Look forward to Math 2, The Mathening, coming soon to a project blog near you. Like, say, tomorrow. Night, y’all.
Mistress Álfrún’s Website: A Wandering Elf — go take a look; she has tons of great info