Jungle Blues

Apologies to CW Stoneking. The cat that inspired my second safari with the jungle fabric  was from some blue planet or the other,  Neptune maybe.  A step down the psychedelia scale from the scorned hat,

maligned titfa

but still steering clear of the authentic.

This time, I made a self drafted tunic, loosely based on the blighted Burda 12/12 (Burda Redraft).

In the end I didn’t do this

but this

Bagginess above the waist kept to a minimum.  I left this as a crappy working pattern rather than drawing it out properly,  because its most likely going to be one of a kind. Rescued crumpled from the bin to show anyone who may want to take this route instead of the Burda draft with the extra underarm flap folded across,( below).

What I did was close off the right bust dart (folded out top left in the photo), opening it out at an angle to give some room for folds and drapes in the tab, which is drawn at its end. I closed off the left bust dart, opening it to use as gathers or folds under the tab, but decided not to add more bulk in there.  So the red section from the armscye, which I put in the half scale diagram, isn’t there. I added the width of the left waist dart to those gathers and thought it was enough.

I redrew the right waist darts to be angled tucks.

The skirt part, sliced off and at the bottom of the photo is flared out slightly, and a vertical slash and spread put in for gathers under the tab.

I made a faced slit to poke the tab through and liked it better pulled towards the side seam rather than turned back on itself, as in the Burda.

Melissa made a success of the Burda, and pointed me to several other versions, but on me this bulk above and below the tab didn’t look right. This draft has a closer fit in the bodice. Its sacrificed the knot-look the original had at the waist, where the tab turned back, but again, I couldn’t get that to look right on me. Here’s how it tuned out

This photo shows what’s happening around the tab better;

The angled tucks above the diagonal seam are stitched for a couple of inches and (theoretically) line up with a couple of soft pleats in the skirt part, then there’s a bunch of gathers to the right of that in the skirt part. The folds in the tab are over on the right, just above my hand, and its threaded into a faced slit and secured from the inside.

Not the Burda, but works better for me.

About these ads