Not so good: Nettie Bodysuit

The quickest project, promising a short post.

Cut out this bodysuit on an afternoon of freedom before my final exam (at a certain point no point studying) and put it together in the morning before the exam. I haaaate it.

This is the Nettie bodysuit in an organic cotton lycra I bought wanting to make festive footie PJs for baby atti years ago, but baby clothes no longer call to me so that didn’t happen. Figured I’d been wanting sleeved tshirt type things and I had this pattern (a gift from a wonderful friend eee) and I love bodysuits so it would be a perfect way to test out the pattern. I went with the high neck in front and the low back. Disastrous.

Starting with fit because there’s little to say about construction - the bottom is fine. The length in the body might be fine/ looks fine to me but it’s hard to tell because the fit across the chest is so bad that it actively pulls on the shoulders and made me uncomfortable after like an hour of wear.

It compresses the tops of my boobs and pulls off the shoulders. All that negative ease appears to be way too much for the low back, and I can’t quite figure out why it is drafted so tightly if this is what happens, because it seems like this would be a common problem and not just my body being weird. There just is not enough space across the shoulders, the arms are extremely tight and act as anchors pulling the back open, and the front just… presses.

Tanit-Isis told me she’d had similar problems but going with a less low cut back helps. While that’s good news, I kind of just resent that the low back is so unworkable!! Not sure if I will ever remake this pattern or send it on to a new, less biased, home. She also mentioned that she’d added ties to a low cut version to fix the gaping back, which is still under consideration.

Moving on to construction, I did this all with a narrow zig zag and used a three step zig zag to attach the elastic to the mesh shelf bra, as well as for topstitching (i did the topstitching after trying it on so I already knew I didn’t want to bother changing out to a double needle).

One thing annoyed me here in a big way, which contributes to my “no thank you never again” feeling, and that is the leg bands. The pattern recommends marking out quarter points on your band, no quarrel with that here, and matching to quarter points on the leg opening. But those aren’t provided. You are supposed to walk the seamline and find the quarter points yourself. I get why it’s done that way with the neck opening - 9 potential combos makes it impossible to set them in advance - I get why it’s done that way for the bands - i appreciate measuring out my own small rectangular pieces and easily folding and marking instead of copying out a pattern piece - but on the legs? Those are a set shape, there’s dramatic curve to contend with, and there’s the seam allowance. It’s messy and less accurate and annoying and simply unnecessary to mark yourself.

So. That’s the bodysuit, lol! Kind of nice to do a project that so totally felt like a failure without feeling too invested in the tragedy of it sucking.

Pattern: Nettie Bodysuit by Closet Core
Measurements: B35, W30, H39
Size made: 8 at top (exactly where size chart put me), graded to 10 waist and hips
Next time: If there is a next time, stay far away from the low back, use a larger armscye/sleeve for more space in the arm