Back in July 2017 before I gave in to the middle age slump…
With so many beautiful choli blouse fabric in the Stash I really need to get some pattern block for choli blouse sorted. And I have in fact been working on it for ages. So much so that I now have way too many pattern pieces, muslins (wearable & not), & mug shots to confuse me never mind you…argh! Long story short, no cigar yet. But I have a hypothesis with 2 more pattern drafting approaches to test. On to the nitty gritty…
My 3 requirements for Choli Block:
- Bust support lift & shaping: Depending on the back neckline design, I may not be able to wear a regular bra with my choli. So built-in bust shaping / support would be nice. But it needs to work for woven fabric & not constrict breathing.
- Stay-put neckline: Allow low / open front & back neckline without the top falling off the shoulders
- Fitted sleeve mobility: Allow arms up & forward without excessive sleeve width & winged effect on short sleeves
Experiments based on
K. King moulage > top block
Since I already had a top block that seems to fit alright I thought I’d get better results using that as the basis for my draft rather than follow the relatively less personalised authentic Indian instructions. (Typical Westerner!)
Well, it didn’t work out so well.
Wearable Muslin 1 >
Gajiwara 7384 Wannabe Choli with home embroidery
Choli Blouse Pattern with raised bustline
Embroidery that may have shrunken the patterns
- I tried to raise my ageing bustline unsuccessfully. It was only like 1/2″ higher on my pattern. But I think my custom embroidery shrunk the pieces despite being stretch taut on a frame frame. And because I was worried about metallic embroidery thread being scratchy I didn’t extend the embroidery far enough into the seam allowance to allow me to let out at the shoulder seams. I ended up with some draglines in the upper bust area for my big day. (Did let out what I could afterwards. But there wasn’t much seam allowance to fix it entirely.)
- Lowered neckline (aka unintentional off-the-shoulder look) wasn’t an issue in this version as I used the cross-back ties that one finds in many authentic Indian choli.
- But limited sleeve mobility was an issue despite a moderately shallow cap. The bit that feels most restrictive was mid arm joint height, as if the cap area wasn’t wide enough.
Can’t raise arms very far
Front biceps a bit restrictive
Wearable Muslin 2 >
Nakkashi 5036 gold embroidered Choli
Getting western pattern to fit eastern fabric
Patching embroidery to fit
- I had to tweak my personalised pattern to fit the ready-made embroidery, which is presumably shaped to work with standard Indian pattern-drafting. Eg the allowance for back waist dart is smaller than my back waist dart, so some of mine had to be pivoted to the back cut-out area. In other areas I had to twist the fabric slightly to fit my pattern, or even patch a bald area with embroidered scraps.
- Bust & neckline not an issue here as I didn’t attempt to lift the bust & this design has a back cut-out rather than lowered neckline.
- Sleeve mobility wasn’t too bad, but comfort was my main issue here. I made the cap even more shallow & wider to increase mobility & tapered the sleeve width more sharply to minimise the winged look. The result was the heavily embroidered underarm areas getting too close for comfort. I felt like I was holding something with my armpits! Again had to suffer through it for a friend’s wedding, but redid the sleeve increasing the cap height (by shortening the sleeve seam length) & removed as much embroidery from the area as I could. Wearable. But now the sleeve’s more restrictive. So I wouldn’t reach for it naturally.
After armscye alteration…
Before
After – can’t raise arms as much
Before
After
Before
More muslins & research…
- Stay-put lowered neckline:
- Tried the instruction for lowered F&B neckline from K King’s Moulage book. It was a method devised by his Indian teacher. Didn’t work for me. Actually made the shoulders slip off even more easily. Maybe I didn’t follow the instruction correctly?
- My patterns had the back neckline at shoulder blade width, but the muslin necklines all spread out more widely. Perhaps it was too much to ask the neckline to stay put at the shoulder blade peaks?
- Sleeve mobility:
- Tried cutting sleeve on the bias. Sleeve looked marginally less wrinkly, but made no noticeable difference to mobility nor decrease the winged look.
- Tried on a me-made choli based on older bodice block for comparison & was surprised to find that it actually had better sleeve mobility without excess sleeve width & winged effect. I had thought the shoulder slope & sleeve cap fit was off on that version, causing excess fabric folds pointing to armpits & draglines from centres of neckline as if the sleeves were pulling the neckline outward. Comparing the latest sleeve draft to that choli (don’t have the pattern anymore) that earlier sleeve shape was actually closer to my immobile fitted sleeve – cap taller & narrower than my latest drafts…WTF!?!?!
Do you think an underarm gusset could solve some of your sleeve mobility issues?
I tried cut-on gussets for the 2nd choli mentioned in my first post of the series ( with golden sequined embroidery). But the gussets folded too high up into my armpits & felt quite uncomfortable with the thick embroidery. They did offer slightly more mobility, but still felt a bit binding across the bicep (?) as if the sleeve caps weren’t wide enough.
I didn’t try separate sew-in gussets because they wouldn’t have worked for the per-embroidered fabric. I could try that with plainer fabric. But I really would like to understand how the authentic versions accomplish sleeve mobility without gussets. It would free me up to use the fancy per-embroidered fabrics.