#simplicity 8444

Simplicity 8444 or simplicity s8444 is Simplicity's relatively well-styled lolita pattern. It's relatively well-styled because they stole the designs from some indie brands and then ended up being the reason we don't have Rufflecon anymore, but let's not get into that this time. We can get into that later.

This picture above is of view B. Now, View B is the long-sleeved blouse, the JSK with an open front, and the ruffled underskirt. Some cool separate pieces, right? View A has a short sleeved blouse and a closed-front JSK, so some cool mixing and matching, right?

Well, someone please tell me what in the everloving jpeg of a hot dog is going on here:

This pattern is written so that the long sleeved blouse and the underskirt must be made of the same fabric. If you are making the underskirt, you are also making the long sleeved blouse.

You cannot make the blouse on its own. You cannot make the underskirt out of another fabric. They are the same. They are combined. They are together.

There will be NO long sleeved blouse for you to wear with A's JSK unless you also have a useless underskirt.

THEY ARE THE SAME.

On the back of the envelope, it does give yardage for "b blouse and underskirt" as one, so you can't just buy fabric for one.

Also, ALSO, what is happening with...like...all of that. Why is this three pieces. Why is piece 3 just...there? how did this end up this way?

I’m in a potentially funky legal situation. I made a pattern for personal use, which was based off the pattern for the Innocent World JSK in GLB#49, which was published 7 years ago. I didn’t actually do any tracing or copying, but I did look at the pattern before I made mine, and I didn’t modify the actual JSK to make it a different final design. All I did was take a pattern designed for a 85cm (US size 4) bust and resize it for a 130cm (US size 24) bust.

I’m pretty sure that selling the same pattern, of an out of print pattern, of an no longer made garment, in a size that the pattern and the dress were never offered in, is still not legal in my country. I probably can’t go to Fed Ex and scan this and post it like I have for other patterns I’ve made.

On the other hand, if I have any friends out there who would like to test this pattern and can contribute about $2 for shipping costs, I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to hand-trace this pattern onto vellum, stick it in an envelope, and drop it in the mail. I made it for personal use (both to make a post about half-back shirring and so that my dress form isn’t naked) so I don’t have great instructions or any real plans to grade it up and down in size (especially if I can’t sell it), but the dress design itself has shirring in the back, so it fits a variety of sizes the same way that mainstream lolita dresses tend to fit several sizes.

So, if you want to be my friend, shoot me an ask.

(I’ve got five friends who are interested, and I’m going to cap it at 5 for now, until I know for sure that I can’t get sued over this. If I get sued over this, however, this blog will change from being called 20dollarlolita: budget, offbrand, diy and will start being called 20dollarlolita: I Once Got Sued By Innocent World

The bonnet for Simplicity 8443 is the worst lolita pattern I have ever seen. The bonnet for Simplicity 8443 is maybe the worst pattern I’ve ever seen produced by a professional pattern company. Simplicity 8443 is maybe the worst pattern I have EVER USED that was made by someone outside of the first week of Intro To Patternmaking Sewing 201 classes.

It’s bad, folks. It doesn’t look like the worst thing ever on the envelope, but it’s bad.

How bad? Well, I made it and I’ll talk about that in a bit, but let’s check out any red flags we could see before we decide to commit and make it.

But first, let’s look at a premade bonnet that I own. This is a soft, full bonnet from Baby The Stars Shine Bright:

Sorry for the rumpled picture.

A full bonnet covers the back of your head. The more popular half bonnet leaves the back of your head open, which makes your hair much easier to style.

A soft bonnet is what it says on the tin: it’s not stiff or structured. There’s interfacing in the brim, but no wiring or cardstock-level stabilizer. It keeps its shape by being constructed and patterned for doing that. The brim leans on the band and the band ties to your head and all that stops it from falling down. This means that it can’t defy gravity more than a certain amount without losing its bonnet-ness.

It’s important to keep old school soft full bonnets in mind, because that is where we derive the shape of the hard, half bonnet. Straying too much from the full bonnet shape can get into ita, ageplay, or bad sci-fi territory.

1) Brocade Panne Bonnet, Surface Spell. 2) Dark Printe Bonnet, Infanta. 3) Fire Signs Collection Bonnet, Arcadian Deer. 4) Layered Lacy Floral Baby Vintage Style Bonnet <nice name>, Crucis Universal Tailor Company. 5) Summer Maidens Theme Bonnet, Souffle Song. 6) Rose Sanctuary Bonnet, Infanta.

So here’s some half bonnets to keep in mind what half bonnets look like. I just grabbed some images from a search on DevilInspired, and just grabbed every picture where the side was showing.

As you can see, there’s two elements to the basic bonnet construction: the brim and the band. The brim is the fan-shaped piece that frames the wearer’s face, and the band sits behind that, on top of the head. The band often goes down over the wearer’s ears.

With our new bonnet education in mind, let’s look at Simplicity 8443, view B.

So, going to say it once so that we don’t have to address it again: There is no reason for the cat ears. The cat ears are stupid. Moving on.

So, for starters, red flag number one, why is there a band in front of the brim? The ribbon clearly comes from that, which makes you worry about what the band of the bonnet must look like.

The other picture you get doesn’t really help you understand what’s happening. Simplicity very carefully chose to not show the sides or back of this bonnet.

The pattern is four pieces, and the only thing that looks like a band is actually that casing the ribbon goes in.

Spoiler: there is no band.

It just ends. It just stops existing.

Let’s talk angle for a second.

I was careful to not distort the bottom arch of the bonnet band, which would change the angle that the bonnet sits on my head. This was not easy, but this is the intended angle that Simplicity wants the bonnet to sit.

Look at that bonnet compilation. Now back to this. Those aren’t the same. This is a damn plate stuck on your face.

That’s pretty bad. That’s bad enough to make the bonnet unusable. But it’s not the worst part.

There are no words for the construction of this bonnet than incorrect and insulting. Here’s a basic rundown:

You have a front piece and a back piece. You sew them together. Turn to front. This is fine. If you’re making this with cat ears (don’t), you might have trouble clipping your corners. You insert a piece of ultra-firm stabalizer (peltex/pellon 70) into the pocket that you made between the two pieces. This is tricky, but not really an incorrect way to handle this situation. The cat ears will make this much harder. There’s a front piece to be gathered (called the drape in the instructions). You gather the bottom piece, but the top is meant to be the same size as the top of the bonnet. You gather the bottom to the length of the bottom of the brim, and sew it into place. You sew a trim to the top edge.

Now you bust out your hot glue gun and just glue the top edge together. The sides of the pattern and the sides of the bonnet don’t match and you have excess. The top isn’t quite short enough (probably due to those sides being the wrong shape) and you have to pleat it or hide it somehow. There’s no gathering threads to do this; you just are expected to kind of wing it.

Keep that damn hot glue gun hot. We’re going back to fold the casing in half (no instructions for finishing off the sides where the ribbon comes out) and sew that onto the front. There’s a raw edge at the bottom of the brim. You just leave that there. I disapprove. Grab your glue gun and glue some lace onto that thing like this is a child’s halloween costume that has to last one night, because now this thing is done. Enjoy your fraying edge. It’s there to stay. I read the instructions so many times in the hopes that there’s a way that they intend you to solve this other than hot glue. I did not find one.

Now just take this thing and call it done. If I turned this pattern in as a project in a class, I’d get a C- at best.

Yes, there’s instructions to glue trim over the wrong edges, and no, I didn’t do that, because I’m not about to throw decent lace in the trash, and I don’t have any burner lace at the moment. That’s not the point.

This pattern is sloppy. The method of construction is sloppy. This pattern has “we wrote this off as a costume” written all over it.

It’s so sloppy. It’s not thought out. No one cared about this pattern. No one considered this as clothes. This was intended to be a one-off costume piece.

Also, just a heads up, if you’re not really careful with the colors then this turns into the kind of costume bonnet that you get with a “big adult baby” Party City costume (or worse). If you already have problems convincing the locals that wanting to be a different age isn’t a factor in how you dress, you probably want to steer away from this pattern. Also if you just want a real bonnet, it’s not a good pattern. It’s just not a good pattern.

Handily. McCall’s has a pattern that really looks like a decent actual half bonnet. I bought it, but haven’t actually tested it out yet. My only negative so far is that it has you use a coat hanger instead of something like plastic boning on the rim, and that can make the wrinkle you see in the back view. That’s an easy swap and I think it’ll make this a good option. At least it has a band in the back and goes down far enough to cover your ears.

it’s not your sewing skills. That’s just a really sloppy pattern. I know that Simplicity didn’t take the 8443 accessories seriously, and gave us Satan’s Spoon Face Bonnet, but it’s a bummer to see that they gave the same level of care to patterning the companion dress.

Guess it’s hard to make a good pattern when you’re busy stealing designs from indie designers at Rufflecon or something.

)

(The process of making a pattern bigger or smaller is called grading, and it’s one of my favorite things to do, actually. It’s a really good job skill to have if you’re looking to get into fashion patterning, costume design and tech, or working for a small studio. Just throwing that out there. It’s a real skill, and it’s somewhat complex, but once you get good at it, definitely put it on your resume! And yes, you can make almost any pattern into almost any size!)

According to Simplicity’s questionably helpful technical drawings, it looks like the bodices of those pieces are princess seamed.Who’s up for 20dollarlolita attempts to teach an entire 10-week term of pattern grading in one ask using MSPaint and a trackpad that breaks when you try to click-and-drag? That’s what we’re about to attempt:

So here we have the back of the only princess-seamed pattern that I already have on my computer. Yours will be a little different in the piece on the top, since the JSK doesn’t have an armhole, but the process is the same.

I suggest tracing your pattern pieces onto a sturdier piece of paper. You’re going to be drawing all over them, so having clear lines is nice. Since you’re making the paper bigger, make sure to leave a border of several inches around the edges of each piece.

You’re going to want to hold your pieces close together, match notches and measure where the biggest part of the bustline is. Since you have that border around your pattern pieces, you might need to get creative with the folding of the edges. I think it really helps visualization to get all four pieces of the bodice(half) lined up, so imagine this picture, but with the side front and front pieces lined up too.

Draw a line across all four pieces at the bustline Measure how big your waist and bust pieces on the pattern are (red lines) and write it down. I like to find the under-bust (teal line) too. This is usually 3-4″ lower than the bust point. It may be more or less for you. Just measure from your bust point (that means nipple, but the word nipple makes me uncomfortable to say) to your bra band or underwire on one of your busts, and mark in that spot. You don’t need to worry about industry conventions here, because you’re sewing for you.

Now measure your bust, waist, and underbust, and write it down next to the measurements from the pattern. Subtract the pattern measurements from your measurements to figure out the difference between each. Write those numbers down and circle them. Then, since you’re working with four pattern pieces, divide that number by four. Write these numbers down and double circle them or put them in a box.

For example, the bust on a Simplicity size 20 is 40″, and the bust on a size 26 is 48″. 8″ / 4 is 2″, so each piece of the pattern needs to be 2″ bigger at the bust line. 

This was the part that blew my mind the first time I did a pattern: you just mark out the distances on the pattern piece. I had assumed there was a formula and a secret and everything, but you just draw the new distances out.

One tip: It’s a lot easier to redraw a straight line than a curved line, so I’d probably add 1/2″ onto the curved pieces, and make up the difference by adding 1+1/2″ onto the side, back, and front seams.

Then you just connect the dots. If they look very choppy, you can smooth them a little bit. It doesn’t hurt anything when you do that.

Keep drawing things bigger and connecting dots as you go. If your armhole’s bigger, you draw it bigger on both pieces. (the gray line is me aproxxing in what the sleeveless pattern is more likely to look. Should have done that 4 pictures ago, but oh well).

Seam allowance all around the outside, and you can cut out your patterns. Then you’re going to want to get some muslin (or any cheap woven fabric. Check walmart’s 50cents a yard bin when they have it) and make a mock up. This is especially important for the bodice, which can be a bit tricky due to all the curves. Adjust your mockup as you need to (good tutorial here) and you should be able to get a better fit.