Thanks Jo, Holly and Jen
Jo, your thread inspired me to have another go at drafting.
I have Helen JA's book and years back I tried drafting from that. There was a peculiar diagonal line that didn't meet up, it was inches out! I was very overweight at the time and it made me feel really bad about myself.
I have two of Winnie's books and have drafted a child's dress from scratch. I don't have any of Natalie's books - yet
The reason I chose the Vogue shell is there are a lot of instructions, 12 pages, on how to fit. You start off with a basic size the tweak it to make it your own. These changes can then be transferred back to any Vogue Pattern and you will have a perfect fitting garment (in theory). You measure yourself, make changes to the tissue, cut out in fabric and then fine tune.
I have a notebook I'm keeping to keep a record of everything I do, measurements, changes, designs etc.
I have made the trousers, I left out the front darts and only did one dart at the the back, because I thought that it would be best for my large abdomen. For the first fitting you try on half the trousers, this makes it easy to see if the crotch seam is correct. As I miscalculate the changes I made to the inner thigh seam everything was distorted hip, waist, crotch, length - everything. Correcting that seam made such a big difference, I couldn't believe the effect it had! Walking through the fitting stages on the pattern was quite easy, I had to let out the side seams and raise the front waistband.
Here's a pic of them finished.
TrousersShell_001 by
Lyn-J, on Flickr
Cringe - my sewing needs to be more accurate!
I should have gone on to raise the entire waistband about an inch and taken in the side seams a smidgen. I didn't because I liked the way they fitted: the legs felt right, the waistband was flattering and didn't make me look all tummy. I thought this was an excellent jumping off point for my own designs.
Really pleased with the results! I wish I had done this years ago. A real confidence booster to wearing trousers, I feel and look a much more normal shape.
I'm working on the dress shell now, don't think this is going to be as easy.