Bodice Pattern

With the basic bodice pattern, you can make and design any shirt or dress that will fit you perfectly.  I am going to introduce you to the Japanese Bunka style bodice pattern and show you how to use it.

1.  Get the measurement of your bust (measurement 1 in the front and picture), back length (measurement 6 in the back picture).

2.  Draw a rectangle with measurement of your back length and half of your bust plus 5 cm (1/2 b +5).  I use centimeter in all my measurement.

3. Follow the instructions on the picture to separate the big rectangle into 2 halves than to smaller rectangles.(B=bust measurement)

 Draw another line to form 4 rectangles at the middle.

The distance between the middle of Back or Chest to armhole.

4.  Create back neck line.  Let's call the the number of 1/20b=2.9 ---N. We are going to use this number through the whole project.

5.  Next thing we will do the shoulder.

6.  In this step we will draw armhole.  The distance between the middle line and the line on the left we will name it A. The curve intercepts the line between shoulder and and armhole at 2.5 cm below the center.

7,  Let's finish the back piece with line on the side.

This is the back piece should look like.

8.  Now the neck line of front piece.  Remember the measurement of N from the back piece?  Use the number we get from N-0.2 (we now name this number F) and N+1 to create a rectangle, then the curve.

9.  Front shoulder, back piece - 1.8 cm

Draw the front armhole the same way as back piece.

10.  Now the breast part.  BP is the tip of the breast.  The BP line is drawn 0.7 cm left of middle point of B1 and B2 and 4 cm down.

11.  Since our fronts are not flat.  We need to make it longer to make more room.  It is 1/2 F longer (remember F we used to make neckline).  Draw the bottom line, then, finish the front piece. 

I will show you how to use the patterns to make a dress pattern.