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 ......