Aug 1, 2017

Dragon Embroidery & Rounded Back

www.surefitdesigns.blogspot.com

Just in time for the new season of Game of Thrones...if you happen to be a fan.  This dragon embroidery was stitched by Christine Shanahan, one of our Sure-Fit Designs UK sewists.  She did a fabulous job and Wes (my DH and your cameraman) ended up with a new T-shirt.




But my DH is definitely developing quite a rounded upper back, so this is a good opportunity to review how to refine the back neck, lift it up and make it fit better.
Here's a photo of what a typical ready-to-wear T-Shirt looks like on his neck and back.

Notice how the front neck ribbing is riding high, the back neck pulls down and definitely doesn't cover his rounded upper neck hump, and the shoulder seams...oh they are riding so far back from his natural shoulder position.

To correct this on his Sure-Fit Designs Shirt pattern, I used to simply raise the center back neck point about 5/8", but recently I've also split the pattern and added more lift.

After you've slashed and spread open as shown above, you would typically true Center Back with a slightly rounded CB seam.  But because this was sewn into a T-Shirt, which doesn't usually have a center back seam, and because I wanted to place the dragon embroidery in the center of the upper back, center back was trued and straightened.  This neck lift is still there, but the curved CB shaping is eliminated.  Wes is definitely fast becoming a candidate for a shirt with a CB seam due to this upper neck rounding.


With the CB now lifted, you can see how much better the fabric comes up and over top of the back neck rounding.  And notice the shoulder seam - it is sitting where it is supposed to - on the top of his shoulder line.  Such an improvement.  Just look back to the olive green T-shirt above, the simple splitting and lifting of the CB makes the difference of night and day to how it is riding on his body.



You'll find an article in the Sure-Fit Designs Learning Center that goes into much greater detail and also shows incorporating the center back seam for total great shaping of the back.  Take a few minutes to click through to http://www.sfdlearningcenter.com/RoundedUpperBack.html.

 Happy fitting & sewing,
Glenda...the Good Stitch!

7 comments:

  1. Perfect timing! I have the same issue, the rounding on my back is high up also. I've slashed the back of my patterns before but it really didn't take care of the rounding by the neck. Thanks for the tip of adding up by the neck!I really don't care for center back seams in my shirts, so I'll definitely be giving this a try!

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  2. Hello!! I'am glad to read the whole content of this topic and am very excited.Thank you.
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  3. This dragon embroidery is a gift for Game of Thorns lovers. Thanks to Christine Shanahan for such type of creative embroidery digitising. good job.

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  4. nice article, it is very helpful for me. i really appreciate your efforts. this is interesting to read and very clearly explained the ideas. recently i get service from the fast digitizing service. it was a great experience for me. so thanks for sharing such an amazing article.

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  5. Wow.. This is amazing. What a step by step guide for best learning the art of embroidery digitizing. I love your above patterns. Good work. Keep it up. Thanks.

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