BWOF dress - fitting a bodice with neckline pleats

As I mentioned previously, I decided I am going to make one more dress in a winter fabric before I plunge into my spring sewing. After flicking through an enormous pile of Burda magazine back issues I have decided that this is the one

It’s pattern no. 111 from November 2008. I have had my eye on this pattern for a long time but wasn’t quite sure how I would go about altering it to fit. I usually need to do an FBA and the bodice pleats had me a little puzzled. However, I armed myself with a lot of tissue paper, some coloured pens and the book Fit for Real People, by Pati Palmer & Marta Alto, and came up with the following.

This is my original tracing of the pattern for the bodice front (as I usually do, I traced a size 36 round the neck and shoulders, grading out to size 40 for the rest of the bodice).

These are the alterations I made (I have given the page numbers I referred to in Fit for Real People).

I drew a line on the pattern where a horizontal bust dart would normally be (Altering No-Dart Fronts, page 147)

Then I made the usual alterations for an FBA (Full Bust Alteration, pages 142-143) but I didn’t fill in the bust dart in with tissue.

I drew a straight line through the centre of each of the pleat marks from the neckline to the point of the open horizontal dart. Then I rotated the bust dart into these by closing up the horizontal bust dart and opening up the pleat marks (Moving Darts, page 136). I filled in the gaps between the pleat marks with tissue and taped it all down.

The finished pattern piece had more bust width and bigger pleats at the neck. I also made my usual petite alteration above the waist and I raised the armhole by 1/2”. The final pattern piece looked like this

That’s quite a lot of alterations, isn’t it? But I've learnt that if that's what the body I've got needs, then that's what has to be done!

I decided to get creative with my stash and I’m making this dress up using two different fabrics – a black wool crepe for the skirt and a printed silk for the bodice. I hope to be finished and posting pictures soon ..........

My Liberty print fabric is now a shirt!

My rather expensive Liberty print fabric, that I bought last month, has now been turned into a shirt -

Perhaps, at this point, I should reveal a little bit of my personal shirt history. I haven’t owned a long sleeve shirt since, probably, the late 1980’s – in those days shirts were much looser and, indeed, I was much smaller and, whilst the fit was never perfect, I could buy one RTW that was at least passable. Throughout the 90’s fashion got more fitted and my figure got curvier and I discovered that narrow shoulders and a full bust meant that if a shirt fitted my shoulders I couldn’t do it up and if I could do it up my arm movement was restricted by overhanging shoulders. I shudder to recall the many depressing changing room scenes where desperate sales assistants have attempted to button me into some hideously unflattering garment. Since taking up sewing last year I have been determined to make myself a well fitting classic shirt – the sort of thing that all the style gurus say is a must for any wardrobe.

I chose this pattern

which is pattern number 105 from the September 2009 issue of Burda Magazine. As I mentioned in my previous post, I liked that it was “slightly-fitted” and had a double-layered shoulder yoke, a narrow collar and curved hem. It took me two muslins to get something that I was happy with. I started by tracing the size 38 and making a 1” FBA but eventually decided that this was too fitted from the armholes down (I wanted a ‘relaxed’ fit) and was too big around the shoulders. So I started again with a size 36 for the neck and shoulders, grading out to a size 40 for the body and made a small FBA. I also made a petite adjustment across the front, back and sleeves just above the armhole notches, shortened the sleeves and cut the cuffs at a size 36. See what I mean? That’s a lot of fitting adjustments isn’t it? Next time I might be able to fine tune the fit a bit more but, on the whole, I’m pretty ecstatic that I’ve got a shirt that doesn’t gape at the bust and allows me to actually move my arms.

When it came to making it up I have to confess that the stitch ripper was constantly at my side with this one. I can’t blame Burda because their instructions were fine as far as Burda magazine goes. No, it was me not paying attention to what I was doing – Burda give you a nice way of sewing the outer and inner yokes on to the back and front pieces so that everything is neatly enclosed but I managed to sew the outer yoke on inside out! Or, it was me changing my mind – at first I chose to do the topstitching using a dark, navy blue topstitching thread but after doing the first line of topstitching on the back yoke I decided that it would be too overpowering so I ripped that out and switched to a regular thread in a mid-blue that disappears and lets the pattern do the talking.

Here’s a close-up picture of the neat little collar and, if you look closely you can, hopefully, just make out the lines of the yoke and the topstitching.

The funny thing is that, once I was done, although I really liked it as a garment on the hanger, when I put it on me I wasn’t so sure that this style suited me – I felt that it just wasn’t me! However, Mr Fabulous told me I was wrong, so I wore it out shopping for the day and, you know what, by the end of the day I decided that I really did like it on me after all. So, here’s another, full length, picture of me in my new smart-casual wardrobe basic.

Looks like I’ve found my TNT shirt pattern – thanks Burda!

I'm working on "The Fashion Sheath"

As I believe I have mentioned once or twice before, I love dresses. I spend many happy hours looking at dress patterns and fantasizing about the perfect dress I am going to make from them ..... until reality bites and I remember that in order to realise this dream I am going to have to actually decide on a pattern and get on and get it made!

So, decision made, in the pipeline is this lovely little number McCalls 5927 – “The Fashion Sheath”

A big selling point for this one is that it comes with separate pattern pieces for A/B, C and D cup sizes – such a boon (isn’t that a lovely vintage word?) for ladies of my shape, or, indeed, any shape that is not ‘standard’. I’m starting with a sleeveless version but I like that it has options for different sleeves if I decide that I want to make it again later. But I’m getting ahead of myself, goodness me, let’s get this one done first!

After a small amount of fiddling around, my muslin left me feeling rather hopeful – in fact it’s looking pretty promising. However, I would like to say a little something about the fitting. This dress has one of those bodices that doesn’t have horizontal, underarm darts, but has vertical darts that come from the waist up to the bust line. I’ve never made one of these before but the pattern, as it is made by McCalls, has one of those round things that indicate where the apex of the bust should be and the darts finish (just like horizontal darts do) one inch away from the apex. Here’s a picture of my traced-off pattern piece -

I measured the pattern and got it all worked out so that the apex mark on my muslin matched the bust point on my body but it looked all wrong. The darts didn’t sit right and it didn’t fit round my body at all. BUT, when I put a horizontal tuck across the bodice between the armholes and the shoulders to lift the whole thing up, so that the darts ended just a tiny fraction of an inch below my bust apex, it all fitted smoothly. Now I'd be interested to know if any of you have any thoughts on this but I found it a little puzzling because everything I’ve read about this kind of thing tells me that darts are supposed to end an inch or more before the apex. However, I’m going to ignore these rules and I’m making this dress the way I think it fits me best. Reckless – maybe! But it’s my dress and I’m going to do what I want and I did take some encouragement from Pati Palmer and Marta Alto in Fit for Real People because, although they seem to be pretty firm about ‘Bust Dart Rules’, they do also say “Just remember, if it works, it’s right!!”

So, anyway, I shall be posting pictures of this new dress soon – I do hope you're going to like it ......