Axton - Drafting the Jacket Pattern

Okay, first off I'd like to apologize, I don't have a lot of photos of the pattern draft, I tried to make a series of videos with it, but they are large files and I probably won't post them.  You'll find out why in a bit.

So when I first tried to approach this part of my costume I thought of the Jacket more as a shirt, and less as a jacket, which turned out to be a completely wrong approach to it.  What I figured was if I made the jacket as more of a T-Shirt is that I could cut down on the complexity of the project and save myself a lot of work, that was a bad idea.

Now, this isn't the first time that I had drafted a pattern, so I had a bit of experience going into the project.  But this shirt/jacket was much different from my last pattern draft, which was a Sub Zero tunic and armor pads, but I didn't need to worry about making allowances for how to do sleeves or a tight fitting neck like Axton required, so it was a bit of a new experience for me.  But in my experience, drafting a pattern for a sewing project was pretty similar to drafting a blue print for putting in a fence, or a garden outside, just using different measurements.  And while I am partially right, I had never had do do anything with sleeves, which can make a huge difference.  Also considering that I don't have a dress form, and I've yet to make a duct tape form due to time/money and what not.

One of the best reference pictures that I found while trying to make this jacket pattern.

Pretty much the way I started it was doing the typical measurements of my chest, shoulder, across the back, arm length, wing span, neck, and all the other good stuff.  After all of that was done I decided to make the pattern so that I would place one edge on the fold of the fabric for a solid piece on the front and back.  To do this I cut the measurements across my back/front in half and marked them along the length of the pattern along with the measurements representing 1/4 of the diameter around my waist and chest too.  I made sure everything was spaced out accordingly to my measurement between my shoulder and the bottom of my shoulder blade as well so I was getting the right place in my chest line.

After I finished both the front and the back this way I connected the dots using a straight edge, then did a measurement on both how long and how deep the neck needs to be, squared out the drawing, and then curved around the neckline using 1/2 the measurement of my back neck line as the minimum length for the neck, and I did the same in the front.  After that I curved out the area for the arm on the front, again using 1/2 the diameter of the size of the armhole as the exact length of the curve this time as it will be directly attached to another piece of fabric.  Finishing that I directly copied that to the back pattern, thinking (wrongly) that this was the correct method to take.

After the front and back patterns were finished I decided it was time to start on the sleeves.  To do this, again I thought that a direct copy of what I did for the arms on the main body pattern was the right way to do it, but it didn't work properly.  Needless to say I just lengthened the sleeve out with a pair of parallel lines to finish the sleeve.

Finally I needed to make the yoke.  To do this I did a direct copy of my measurements onto the paper.  While this was very straight forward I never actually put it to the test because of the faults with the other parts of the pattern, but it really just boiled down to a direct copy of the measurements.

The finished product, minus the yoke.  Needless to say, I don't have this anymore.

When testing a pattern you made it's always a really good idea to use a test fabric instead of your actual fabric so you don't waste any of your good or expensive fabric.  So I went to WalMart and for about $1/yard I bought some clearance fabric.  And it turns out that my sleeves were completely wrong, which ruined the whole pattern, and also forced my hand in deciding to buy a pattern, which there is no shame in.

I know that I didn't do the art of pattern drafting any sort of justice here, but the product didn't turn out.  Though from this I learned that I will need a lot more experience before I attempt to draft another pattern of this complexity again.  I also learned that even more careful measurements will be needed in the future, and that if I am making a jacket, treat it like a jacket, not like a shirt.