When we last spoke, I'd made adjustments on the bodice, moved the darts, and had the side seams come out all uneven. So I made a new version of the pattern piece for the front bodice, with my adjusted darts, and evened out the side seam. Then cut out a new muslin of the top.
Here's where I am now: I had to shorten the shoulders - on the front I took it from the straps, and on the back I shortened the whole thing. Amazingly, this made the side seams the same length as the front (they were longer before). Awesome thing #1: I sewed up the back where the zipper will go, and still managed to squish it on, which helped immensely - I can't really figure out how to adjust the back by myself with my short arms, but at least I can see where the problem is! I do need to do a sway back adjustment, since the back is dipping down below my waist. And my adjustments to make the side seams straight means the bottom of the bodice is now bigger than the waistband, so I need to figure that out. Maybe make the darts from the waist bigger? Or just redraw the seams. Phew!
Awesome thing #2: the fact that I managed to take a photo of my back in the mirror. SKILLS.
Update! I made the swayback adjustment, which seems to have worked well. And the waistband seems to fit to the skirt now, which makes no sense to me, but okay. Having sewed the waistband on, though, I suspect it's a bit too short right in the front. And possibly too large around the waist. I may be making yet one more copy of the shirt front pattern pieces. I'll attach the skirt and see how it works first.
(As for the ongoing shirt, my adjustment worked this time, hooray! And then I futzed with seam finishes for a while. I'm now ignoring it because the next step is to trim the edges with bias tape, which scares me a little.)
This is going to be amazing when you finish it! I love the gathered wide straps. I would probably buy anything I saw in a store with that bodice, even when it fit wonkily. :D
ReplyDeleteHow long is this dress destined to be?
Erin, that's a good question! Maybe just at the knee? I feel like it needs a certain amount of length to balance out the straps. The images from the pattern maker have it just below the knee.
DeleteThere's two skirts, a full one and an a-line. I really want to do the full skirt, but I'm not sure I have enough fabric. If it's the a-line I might do it slightly shorter.