Georgia dress FBA

When it was released last year, the By Hand London girls very kindly sent me a copy of the Georgia dress to try out. Although I LOVED the bombshell look of the dress, my initial reaction was one of panic. It was so fitted, so party girl, so slinky - when would I ever have an occasion to wear a dress like this? I soon talked myself into making it though, how could I not when it has such a lovely va-va voom shape?! The very fitted bodice meant that I'd have to do quite a bit of fiddling to get it to fit. So a practice muslin AND a full bust adjustment were both essential - no fudging this one.

Following discussions with my almost-size-twin, Roisin (sadly for me she's lost weight recently, which means I can't just automatically copy the pattern size she uses!) I cut a UK size 10. This is one size down from my measurements because of the stretchiness of the fabric I chose. The fabric is a lovely navy floral pique, from the same family of fabrics as my grey rose fabric used here. It does have quite a bit more stretch to it than woven calico, so I made sure I bought enough fabric to make the bodice muslin in my actual shell fabric.

After scrutinising the Georgia sew along posts, it turned out that I needed a one inch FBA. This was super simple to do as you're only actually adjusting two pattern pieces - the bodice side front and the  bodice centre front. Here are the original pattern pieces…

All I did was make a hinge in each one.

The red pen shows the adjustments made

My first muslin fitted perfectly in the cups and across the back, but rode up too high at the centre of the bust. I remedied this by adding a ⅝" wedge starting at the bottom of the bodice centre front piece and tapering out to the cup seam, so that the fit of the cup wasn't compromised. You can see this adjustment at the bottom of pattern piece A above.

It worked!! I did take photos of me actually wearing the bodice muslin but believe me, so much white/blue flesh on display was NOT a pretty sight… You'll have to make do with Angie who's padded out to resemble me.

That's the only major adjustment I made to the pattern and it really wasn't as bad as I thought. I'm curious to know if a FBA on a plain darted bodice will be just as straight forward? I guess there's only one way to find out! Next up: the finished dress. x

Sew for Victory progress

There's a rare sighting on my blog today - an actual muslin. I can only bear to make them about once a year, so consider yourself lucky Sew for Victory dress. 

Even though some of the sewing is a bit slapdash, the muslin is very close to being the fit I was after. It's a tiny bit tight on me, but a perfect fit on Angie (my dummy) and she's about a 90% accurate clone of my body. My bust isn't quite the same as the dummy's, and my back, although as narrow as Angie's, is a bit more flabby fleshy. I decided I just needed an inch adding across the bodice section. 

Once this is divided across all the seam allowances, we're actually talking teeny, tiny amounts, so I'm just going to decrease the bodice seam allowances by an eighth of an inch each. This is what I ended up doing with my Oolong dress after I cut the pattern a size too small by mistake (doh!) and it worked fine. I've also taken two inches off the length.

The only other change I'm making to the dress is to put a long 22" zip down the centre back piece instead of having a side zip. This is partly because of my loathing of side zips, but also for a more practical reason. It's actually a lot easier getting the bloody thing on and off with a long centre zip. In my experience I've found that with a fitted side-zipped dress or top, if you have any kind of bust then it's really difficult to get the dress over your boobs without fear of ripping it. As the fabric I'm using is pretty thin, I didn't want to take any chances, so a seam allowance was added to the back piece to allow for a zip.

As of today, my fashion fabric pieces are all cut out and underlined with silk cotton, just waiting to be sewn together.  You never know, this time next week, I could be in possession of a darling Du Barry dress!  Wish me luck. x

Jacket fitting delights

I'm steaming through my autumn to-sew list (which admittedly only had three items on it) and am now fully engulfed in the delights of jacket fitting...

As this is my first time making a jacket, I thought I'd better break my bad, dirty habit of winging it with patterns and make a practice muslin first.  I'm using a pattern from the Built By Wendy Coats and Jackets book.  Even though there are 23 different variants of coats and jackets to choose from, in typical annoying fashion the one I have in my head isn't there, so I'll be mixing the jacket and collar of two different patterns.  There might not be a pattern for my imaginary jacket in the book, but I did find a drawing:

Very plain and uncluttered, with princess seams and a classic collar.  Nice.

So, going by the size chart, I cut out a medium jacket and sewed it together.  One word of warning for anybody interested in trying out this book: the patterns run small.  I'm a UK size 12 top, sometimes even a 10 depending on the style, and I'm short (5' 2").  So any tall or busty sewists (or even tall AND busty sewists for that matter) beware of the chest width and length of these patterns.  Admittedly there are no seam allowances on the hem, but the shortness of this first effort does make me look like some hideous mother of the bride

WAY too short, and not in a cool, Sammy Davis Jnr kind of short…

No, more like this pair….

As well as being too short, it also didn't fit across the bust.  There will be a button extension added but it was still too tight.  And as for the back.....

Imagine stretching for something on a shelf in a shop?  Not a pretty sight.

Much as it killed me to do so, I decided a redraft was called for. and heart breakingly, a second muslin.  I made the following changes:

- Added five inches to the length.

- Measured the distance it gaped apart at the bust, divided it by four and added it to the side seams as advised in the book.

- The second attempt was much better but the shoulders seemed large, so I made a small vertical tuck right down the back and that seemed to do the trick.

These muslins are shockingly unflattering, but I've managed to see past the cream calico and imagine it in a lovely grey wool with a teal satin lining.  So far so good.  The next steps for me now are to cut out the final pattern pieces, draft the facings and put scissors to cloth (gulp).   I'm liking the look of it so far though.  x

Crepe muslin trials and tribulations

I've been working on my first ever muslin for the Crepe Sewalong, and, as mentioned in my last post, it's become something of a trauma.  My first stumbling block was the sizing of the pattern. It was WAY off, which was disappointing, as the last Collette pattern I used was a perfect fit - I barely had to make any adjustments.  But that was a skirt and my bottom half is a standard size, the problem is with my top half which isn't quite so standard.  Collette patterns are cut for those with a reasonable sized bust which is good as that's what I have.  However, I have a very narrow back so my measurements aren't standard (32E if you must know).  I came up against this same problem when adjusting my new dressform (see last post and yes, I know it's supposed to be a Christmas present but this muslin has become something of an emergency!)  The back section was as tightly closed as I could get it, whilst the front section looked like an autopsy victim - wide open and gaping right down the front.  I still had to put a bra on it and stuff it to get the exact measurements.  But it now exactly mimics my measurements which I'm delighted about, and which was the whole point of buying it after all.  

Anyway, back to the muslin, because of my bust/back anomaly, the first muslin I cut out was really baggy and looked dreadful.  In fact it was so ridiculously baggy I re-cut it to the next size down.  

Ridiculously baggy muslin

Still no good though, so I went back to Gertie's blog for advice.  I basically then did everything she advised, as the fitting issues she was having were exactly the same as mine:

The back had too much bulk, even pulled across as a wrap, so tucks were needed on each side.

The shoulders also needed taking in, along with the side seams.  However, it was at the front where the most work was needed.  Look how much excess fabric there is.

Another horizontal tuck right across the front was called for.  I also took some small tucks out at the sides of the neckline so it didn't gape so much.

Much improved but still not too flattering

This was WAY better but it was still baggy under the bust. I get this a lot - there's basically a shelf where the bust is, and then unless it's fitted well, the fabric falls straight down to several inches in front of my stomach, making me look pregnant (which I'm not). I read a bit more of Gertie's blog and she started talking about reshaping a dart for a more flattering bustline. YES, that's what I'd been waiting for all this time!  I also moved the dart down and the combination of both these adjustments seemed to work

Lovely new fitted muslin 

The new muslin still has fold marks on it and the darts are very quickly sewn and not pressed (I was getting very frustrated by this point) so they look a bit pointy, but essentially it's a very good, flattering fit.  Here's the back.

I still don't entirely know what I'm doing when I'm transferring the muslin changes to the pattern pieces but my method of winging it seems to be working.  Gertie really has pulled out all the stops for this sewalong, she's an amazing teacher and I'm so grateful. Despite all the huffing and puffing, I would never have been able to adjust the fit so well on my own.  The next step will be cutting out the real fabric (which fills me with horror) ... x