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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

It's About The Fit, Part One

 A few weeks ago I showed you this pattern and fabric. Well, I've changed my mind about my fabric choice. I did a test run with the embroidery stamp and I can't see the stamp well enough to do the embroidery, so the search is on for another piece of fabric. Something much lighter that will take the stamp.

I did choose embroidery floss colors, but they may change as well. I do have a piece of pink cotton pique that I might use so if I do use that fabric, I will need to choose another set of colors for the flowers.

In the mean time, I am getting the muslin fitted and I thought I would share some of my fitting issues.
A few of my friends think that I have no issues, but I can assure you, I do.
So here is the raw muslin, no shape, rather icky.  Not a dress that I would want to wear.
I began by taking in the side seams and the front darts to give the dress some fit.
The bust darts are off, but this is not unusual for a vintage pattern. We just don't wear our bras in the same manor as we did even 40 years ago.
The typical problem I have with dresses is a gaping in the front. In the above photo, I have pinched in the extra fabric. 
To get rid of this issue, I open up my shoulder seams and smooth out the fabric. As you can see from the photo above, the front shoulder seams move over, but the back remains the same. I will need to remark my front armhole.
Now I have a new issue, extra fabric in my armhole. No problem.
In the above photo you can see that I have drawn in a line for my new bust seam. The underarm dart will be moved into this seam as well as the extra fabric. The darts that are on the front of the dress will remain the same except they will now extend into the armhole. In my next post, I will show you how I do this.
In the above photo I am showing you the back of the dress. I had just a small gap in the back neckline. This is probably caused from too many hours of bending over a sewing machine. Hey, I have to blame it on something, surely it isn't me!!
At this point, the dress looks better, it has some fit and I know what my next step will be. I'll be back with part two tomorrow and hopefully a decision on the fabric.  

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for a great demo on fitting. Can't wait to see how you translate the fabric changes back to your pattern... Lynn B

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  2. Thanks for the step by step fitting tips! I struggle with fitting and even took a fitting class recently to learn to do this better. I liked how you presented some of the common issues though.

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  3. It's fantastic that you show us how you modified your mouslins to fit well.

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  4. I have recently learnt the importance of fitting every pattern and once the penny drops there is no way back. Making and fitting a muslin is essential! Thank you for a thorough explanation of all fitting alterations

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  5. Thanks for the fitting explanation, it's great. The part where you undid the shoulder seam and let the front move over to get rid of the gap in front - I read about that in Sarah Veblen's fitting guide. It is good to see techniques I've read about put into practice!

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