Flash Suit Progress 3

After finishing the bottom half of the suit, I began working on the top half. I started by darting the shoulder, and then sewing all the pieces together that connected to the shoulder, alternating right and left side for each piece, and worked my way down each arm.

There really wasn't any difficult curves to try and sew like in the pants because the majority of the top was cut with straight or gently curved lines.

Originally I had made elbow caps, but I ran into the same issue as with the knee, and they did not fit right, so I omitted them. Until I find a better solution I will be making the elbow patches out of a super stretchy fabric, possibly spandex or Lycra.

There is a seam that runs down the chest of the suit that was pinned closed for the pictures, but will close in the final version with a zipper.

Now the biggest issue was during the stretch test. I had Adam stretch his legs, bend down, lift his arms, and push his arms forward. On the forward push the seam that ran up the back burst, and so I marked where I needed to add more fabric.

I was at a stand still though until I figured out how to do that without letting the back bunch up and wrinkle. I had first though about adding a cat's eye of stretch fabric, but I soon realized that it would add too much length to the edges and I would be left with a lot of over hang. Adam then suggested to try and make a hidden pleat, like in the back of some suit jackets.

I pondered on how to do this for a while, and tried to sketch out my ideas.

In the 6 inch tall hole that runs between the shoulder blades, I added 7 1/4 inches tall by 1 5/8 inches wide to the right half of the pattern perfectly centered in that hole. The seam that runs vertical will be sewn to leave a 6 inch hole, and the excess fabric will be sewn with a 5/8 inch seam allowance. The two vertical seams will overlap on either end by 5/8 of an inch, and there would be a small hole you could stick your finger through at each end. The excess fabric would be folded inward and ironed flat, the creases running straight and even. After ironing the bubble of material on the inside would lay 1 inch wide.

The last adjustment I made was to add some small darts near the elbow hole to bring the edges in.

To finish I labeled all of the major junctions with capitol letters of the alphabet to make sure I knew what went where when it came time to rip the seams.