Shirt draft request

[Milo]

Hello everyone, I'm needing some help with drafts again. I'm looking for a shirt draft. I've looked around on this and the previous forum a bit, but having trouble finding something suitable. A lot of the drafts I have found seem to be more useful as an inspiration or discussion on tailoring rather than actual useful drafts. For example, the Chaudhry drafts are full of flaws according to jcsprowls on the old forum. I have also found that to be very true.

So, the draft I need is for a basic shirt, nothing fancy. Imperial measurements, and then ideally, stating the amount of ease, and very clear seam allowances. Id like to find a draft that has been used and proven to be a working draft, with no major flaws. The draft will actually be adapted to make a cardigan of woven wool fabric. It is something I've wanted for quite a while, and adapting a shirt, I think would be the best way to do that. Obviously cardigans can have a bit of room for error. I could cut it two dimensional, with the sleeves and body as one piece. But, that's not ideal, I like doing things the right way. Ideally, the draft would be something maybe like Poulin's drafting system. When I was using his method for trousers and a jacket, his draft seemed fairly simple and straightforward, but solid.

So, if anyone can point me in the right direction for a draft, or has an old draft that could be useful to me, I'd really appreciate it!

[Dunc]

I do not know of any publicly available shirt draft that fulfils all of those requirements... About the best you'll get are the old Rundschau drafts, which are metric, and do not include seam allowances. Mike Maldonaldo's pattern making course will teach you how to draft a shirt, but it's a rather different approach to the typical tailors proportional draft, and it's quite a lot of money if your not actually looking to learn shirtmaking. There's also the Rundshchau "Hemden Schnitttechnik" book which has a number of drafts that might be more useful, but it's 98 euros and in German...

I'm not at all convinced that you want to adapt a shirt draft to make a cardigan anyway - they're very different garments. You might be better off starting with a cardigan pattern and adapting it.

[Schneiderfrei]

I agree with Dunc, don't go trying to adapt ashirt pattern for a cardigan.

[Hendrick]

Hi Milo,

Since you will be cutting a jersey, milano, or some other knitted fabric, stay away from woven patters, no matter how good for shirts... Try to find something like a vintage cardigan, correct and adapt  it and trace a pattern from it. If you look for something "roomier", start from a/a kimono draft, or b/a classic baseballers shirt. Lastly, remember that each and every knitted fabric has completely different consistancies, so in most cases the difference in fabrics will outdo the finesse of your pattern... That is why, in women's  jersey pieces are usually draped in "final fabric".

Good Luck & Cheers, Hendrick

[peterle]

When You want to make a cardigan, You could take a look in a knitting magazine. These often have also a pattern included. But be aware what Hendrick wrote is also true for the other way around: a pattern for a knitted garment will probably look strange in a woven material. It´s also difficult to translate knitted cuffs and hems to a woven material.

When You tell us what you mean when you talk about a cardigan (usually a knitted, longsleeve jacket with elastic tight cuffs and hem, often with a shawl collar), we can point you easier in the right direction.

[Milo]

By cardigan, I do mean the garment that is made of knitted fabric, has ribbed cuffs and waistband, single breasted, 5 or so buttons, and is typically worn over a shirt. I will make it though, out of woven fabric. The cuffs and waistband are not really important, there's a lot of ways I could make those (buttons, no buttons, cuff, no cuff, gathered, not gathered, etc). Since I want a woven cardigan, not made of knitted fabric, I thought the best way to do it would be taking a shirt pattern and adapting it, because that is the closest garment to it I could think of. And I want it to be more or less like a shirt. I want it to have a low sleeve cap rather than a high sleeve cap, I want it to fit like a typical shirt in the body too, so that's why I want to adapt a shirt pattern. If there is such thing as a cardigan pattern for woven fabric, I could absolutely use that, I just have never found one.

[Schneiderfrei]

I fear that if you made the cardigan from woven fabric according to a shirt draft, it would still just look like a shirt.

What about a bomber jacket or a varsity style jacket, with softened fashion points?

[Milo]

I understand what your saying about it possibly looking like a shirt. And yeah, that's basically what I want. A garment that fits like a shirt, but has the features of a cardigan. So, a woven fabric cardigan. In my mind, using a bomber jacket or something like that doesn't have quite enough structure. A shirt has just the right amount of shaping and mobility for my idea. More structure than a bomber jacket, less than a suit jacket. That's right where I wanna be. Thanks for the responses so far.

[peterle]

So you aim for a "shaket"? This is basically a shirt of sturdier material worn as a jacket, but looking like a shirt. In this case any shirt pattern will do it, as long as you keep in mind that as an overlayer it needs more chest width, lower armholes and a bigger neckhole than a normal shirt. I can´t point you to a specific pattern, because I don´t draft imperial.

[Milo]

In some sense, it is a shirt jacket. But really, it's a cardigan. Like I said, it'll have the sort of shawl of a cardigan, the waistband, possibly pockets, all that. I'm looking at this draft now, as it seems to be approved by the tailors in the old forum.

http://www.cutterandtailor.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=990

it's too pixelated to use, but I found an album on Pinterest that has higher res pictures of the draft. It uses direct measures for some of it which may or may not be ideal. But if I use this draft, we'll find out. Im also considering these drafts:

http://www.cutterandtailor.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=190
http://www.cutterandtailor.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=944

The Chaudhry one, probably not, as it seems to have a lot of problems according to the responses it had. So most likely one of the first two. It seems I may just have to work out my own method for drafting shirts in a sense. Obviously derived from different drafts. No matter what drafts I would use, I'd obviously have issues to sort out with it. I just like the idea of starting out a draft with a lot of variables (ease, shoulder slope, seam allowance, etc.) that are clearly layed out. So theoretically you could get closest to the right thing in the first place. I'm sure there are some drafts like that out there, I just have to find them.

One more specific question I have is of the shoulder slope. With patterns that have two different angles on the front and back pieces for the shoulder seam, how would one adjust the shoulder slope to match that of the wearer? I guess the first problem would be finding what slope the pattern already has, and then adjusting it. I'd think you would take the two angles and then average them to find the slope of the pattern. Then you could add or subtract the same amount to each to adjust. Is that correct?

I think that I did some calculation a while ago that found that if you have a shoulder slope of say 20deg, then you could just apply that directly to the shoulder angle of the pattern (so that the angle of the shoulder seam in relation to a horizontal perp. to cf. line would be 20deg) the garment would end up with a 20deg shoulder seam. I could be totally wrong with this though.

[Schneiderfrei]

While a few people support the Onishenko draft, I didn't really find it easy to use, and noone ever put one up as a fitting example.

I have personally used the Parson's tunic draft. It is very old, very awkward and I would not recommend it as a useful draft, more of a historical adventure.

The last tunic draft, if I recall correctly, is not too bad.  It's modern enough.

Some easier drafts to look at are:

http://movsd.com/BespokeCutter/index.php?topic=95.msg356#msg356

This draft has been well covered in the forums, its a little bit dated and so is not as close to the bodice as a very modern draft.

http://movsd.com/BespokeCutter/index.php?topic=507.msg4014#msg4014

This might be useful, never tried it or seen it tried.

http://movsd.com/BespokeCutter/index.php?topic=88.msg343#msg343

I am sorry to say I have not yet tried this draft, although it is very interesting and it's been up for a long time.


G

[Dunc]

The Onishenko draft is a sloper, so it needs further work to develop it into an actual garment pattern. It's OK as a starting point, but I don't really like its approach to the shoulder slope (which I found very unclear) or the shape of the armscye. Also remember that there's basically no wearing ease in it as specified.

Shoulder slope is a bit tricky... You can use a clinometer to measure the angle, but then converting that to pattern measurements is largely a matter of ready-reckoning, and then fine-tuning it in the fitting. For a first approximation, an average shoulder slope is a 2" drop from the neck point on the front pattern, and 1.5" on the back.

[Schneiderfrei]

Thankyou Dunc,

Those are the exact problems I recall about the Onishenko draft.

There were too many similar reports for me to bother with it.

G

[Milo]

Thanks for all the help. I will look at those drafts.