Bibi body block
Designer notes
When I was designing my (in progress) Tina top, I originally was basing the pattern on Teagan and Brian. However, Tina is supposed to work for people with breasts and Brian is mostly designed for menswear and doesn’t support much body and bust fitting. So I created Bibi as a base for Tina.
For Bibi, I reused code from Brian mostly for the sleevecap and armhole construction and added a basic front bust adjustment. Because Bibi is supposed to be usable for very different lengths, I also changed the sideline calculation to fit to the waist and seat measurements and added a sleeveless option. After some fine-tuning, this is basically the result.
While Bibi was specifically made to support people with breasts, it also works fine as a base for unisex clothes or t-shirts.
Essentially, Bibi is just a simple T-shirt/A-shirt pattern that tries to fit the body on default settings. You can use it as alternative to Brian to Teagan for creating your own designs, especially if you need some basic bust support.
However, it’s also important to talk about what Bibi is not:
Bibi can definitely be sewn as a simple top or dress, but it’s mainly designed as a building block for other patterns or your custom designs.
Bibi is highly customizable, but it does not necessarily represent a specific garment or follow a specific style. Some option combinations might not make much sense, and you may have to experiment with different options yourself to find the design you’re looking for.
You can make Bibi as short as a sports bra, or as long as a dress, but that doesn’t mean that Bibi creates a good bra or dress as is. A sports bra probably needs more darts and lots of negative ease, and if you just make it dress-length, it will probably look like a sack.
Additionally, when you make a dress with Bibi out of woven fabric, you’ll have to ensure yourself that there is enough room for leg movement. Depending on the shape around the waist or the size of the neck hole, you also may have to add buttons or zippers on the front or back so you can actually put it on.
Bibi is also not a standard block/sloper for woven fabric. It only does a very basic front bust adjustment designed for stretchy knit fabric and will not work well as a base for fitted shirts and blouses from woven fabric. You’ll also need to increase ease settings when working with non-stretchy fabric.
The name Bibi is a little joke and comes from Bibi und Tina, a German audio play for children, where 13-year-old witch Bibi Blocksberg is a companion of Tina. So it kinda makes sense.
Jonathan