How to add ruching to your tee shirt front! Picture heavy!

Just wanted to show you how I did this. I'm not a professional pattern maker, and make no claims to doing this the "right way" but this is the way I did it. 

This is my take on a ruched front tee shirt. I'm leaving the sleeves alone as I don't need any excess bulk on my upper arms. My inspiration is the Bresnan Studios Sangria tee shirt shown in the previous post. 

I knew I could do this with a Franken-Pattern from my much altered Pamela's Perfect Tee shirt and my much altered LJ Designs Ala Mode Margarita top. But I needed to figure out what proportions I wanted for the center piece. I have a very light weight tissue rayon jersey to use, so knew it should fall in soft folds without too much bulk. I waffled and pondered and thought, and then talked to Dale about it and showed him the “inspiration” picture. I was initially thinking I needed a 1 1/2:1 ratio for the center piece, but he thought it looked like more 2:1, so that’s what I went with. He's much more visual than I am, and as a finish carpenter, he really gets proportions. 

Here's my much altered Pamela's Perfect Tee Shirt Bodice Front piece. Because I use it so much, it's been copied onto Poster Board, rabbit punched, and hangs on a pattern hanger for easy access. 

I made a new copy of the PPTS top, adding ¼” seam allowances past the part where I mocked up the center princess line. Then I copied off the center front at the width I wanted with a ¼” seam allowance, trying to keep the proportions and nice shaping of the original Margarita top. I didn't go ahead and make it into a full princess shirt by incorporating the darts into the princess line because I like the side darts on a tee shirt for better shaping over the bustline. 

After that, I measured the center piece, and marked it in 1” increments. When we were in Flat Pattern classes, I remember Lyra showing us how to do this on something else. You actually cut apart your main pattern piece, and add the additional pattern paper at intervals the entire length of the new enlongated pattern piece so it maintains the shaping, and just gets longer for the ruching. 

This took FOREVER to do! Using various scraps left over from other drafting projects, I made a really long piece of pattern paper, and drew in the center front line straight for just under 40 inches. Then starting at the bottom, I marked it in 1” increments. Next I took my cut pieces from the pattern and taped them to the new piece, with 1” separating the original pieces until I had the whole thing done. It's roughly twice as long as the original piece. You can see my tissue jersey in the background, the original center piece and my elongated center piece before trimming and final taping in the front. . 

Before trimming and finish taping

Ready to cut out of fabric

If you decide to do this, you will need some planning of your cutting layout. I hadn’t thought about it being on the fold, and had left enough yardage for 40" in length, but not enough for the width, so the center piece wound up getting cut on the cross grain instead. Thank goodness for horizontal and vertical stretch in the jersey fabric!

It's in my sewing room now awaiting construction. Next post will hopefully show the finished garment!

I keep a big bag of paper scraps from other drafting projects for alterations. It never seems to diminish because very time I use some, I have more left from a new project. It was really nice to be able to pull out pieces for my alterations. 

My lovely friend Kathleen pointed me towards this blog post. It's about infinite lists. It's a lovely freeing thought to be able to let go of all the "shoulds" because they will always be there ad infinitum and allow that everything on your to do list will still be there infinitely whether or not you take an hour or two to feed your soul and do creative things on your "want to do" list. 

http://tashamillergriffith.com/2014/07/25/time-productivity-and-all-the-things-id-love-to-do/

I hope you take some time to do your "want tos" along with your "should dos." 

More later!