Simply Complex - A Process Post

As I was working on this obnoxious plaid confection, I applied all of the knowledge of bodice fitting I've gained so far. It was hard because its just me, and trying to explain how to properly pin out wrinkles, place darts, and so on and so forth, to either of the men living in my house is, well, akin to explaining where the g-spot is.  I used a combination of full length mirror and camera with tripod. But before that I did a great deal of measuring of the flat patterns and made the adjustments I thought were needed first. The big issues were:

1)Large Arms
2)Rounded Shoulders
3)Full Bust
4)Waist

Now, all of these adjustments I've done before on a basic style bodice and an armhole princess seam. I had not done it on a two-piece raglan sleeve and a bodice with neckline and waist darts.

Full Bust

The very first thing I did was trace off a size 20 minus the seam allowance and then do a three inch (total, 1.5 inch pictured here, since it would equal 3" with both sides there) Full Bust Adjustment*. There are many many tutorials out there on how to do a Y-shaped FBA, and in this case I used the principle of moving darts (Here's a good diagram that explains that) to make the change, then close up the side dart and split the difference between the top and bottom dart.

Here's the front sleeve and adjustments made.  The thing about raglan sleeves is they usually have a dart at the shoulder if they are one piece, or effectively with a two piece sleeve as there is a curve, much like with a princess seam. Trying to move the seam line forward for rounded shoulders proved to be challenging. It was a bit of trial and error.

I swear I had made one of these with notes on the photo, but I can't find it.  In fact, it looks like I lost half my  carefully done photos and now I'm sad.  I will share what I do have, however, and try to go from memory.

Obviously, I had to do a bit of dart adjustment.  The waistline darts in the front needed to be shortened and curved in a bit to match my natural shape. I also gave myself a 1/4 inch more roof all around after pinching a dead dart in the back. Upon looking at some of these photos I realize that my right shoulder and hip are slightly higher than my left. This must be from my back injury as that is the side I normally favor (due to the nerve damage from my spinal injury/surgery my right leg will give out on me or cramp up, usually when very tired and often without warning). When I can finally convince (read: enable) a couple friends to sew more and be my fitting buddy, I will probably have a right/left pattern pieces in the future. The wrinkles with the back-fat are not noticeable in the fashion fabric, lining, and skirt weight pulling down the bodice. This is a good thing. Ok, more photos.

Ah, ok, here is the notes on muslin number one.  I didn't note it on the photo how I moved the neckline darts, see the second photo down from here.  

You can also see I actually pinched out a bunch of width in the waistline.  I did this for the first muslin, but then added in a 1/8 inch for each side seam, for a total of 1/2 an inch all around. It ended up being the perfect amount.

Here I show how I ended up re-drawing the sleeve shoulder darts. This was also to keep the neckline from gaping and to prevent bra-strap showing. This is still a slight problem but fixable if I wear the right bra. In the next one I make I'm going to add a second neckline dart.   I kept the width for the bottom of the sleeves, which was lengthened 1 inch from the original to hide some of the jiggly.

Here is the aforementioned moving of neckline dart.  As I said, I'm going to add a second dart. Really, I'm going to add 1/4 inch to this one and then split it into two darts. That would give ma a total of another 1/2 inch taken in at the neckline and successfully give me regular bra strap coverage.

Though I don't have a photo of it, I did add an inch to the waistline of the skirt and to the length.  I marked the hem by measuring 24" from the waistline, then sewed lace hem tap to the bottom and trimmed. Also, I pinked the seam allowances. I did to a second row of stitching in the bodice seams for strength and then pinked.  This is a dry-clean only dress so I'm not terribly worried about fraying.  As for finishing the hem, I did a blind stitch by hand for the fashion fabric and a rolled hem on the serger for the lining.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Felicity is suppose to help me take photos in the morning, so hopefully I'll have those edited and up this week. Let me know if you have any questions! Hope your week is going well.

Same Print, Different Colorway

Vogue 8470

Its going to be my "Easter" dress.  I say it parenthetically because it won't be done in time for Easter. That and I don't go to church. My kids go with their Grandma,  but well... the rest of it is  personal and I'll keep it to myself. It doesn't stop me from wanting pretty spring dresses, though.

Bodice pieces

I've had this particular dress in my head for some time now. I think it was on my Spring Palette challenge for 2011 and been on my "to do" list since 2010. There were a few reasons I was reticent in making up, the biggest being fitting issues. Why the people at Vogue decided to label this as "easy", I can't even begin to guess.  All but the halter variations have a "lined under bodice" with the most convoluted instructions I've seen to date.  The more I tried to figure them out, the more confused I got.  Once I threw out (or aside) the under bodice piece (That would be #5) the entire thing became much MUCH less complicated.

So first thing's first, I had to figure out how to modify the bodice pattern for my bust size.  The waist should be fitted snugly UNDER the bust (ending result should be WOAH MAMMA!).  I cut my normal size 18  (for commercial patterns) and pattern ease is +3 inches.  This means I need to add 4.5 inches total for the bust, about three for the waist. I decided to go with the more couture method of marking my seam lines and then tracing onto grid interfacing (the cheap stuff from JoAnn's), to make my initial pattern modifications before doing my first muslin.

Marking seam lines

While I do like "Fit for Real People" it does have some limitations. I recently bought Fitting and Pattern Alteration after ordering Susan Khalje's online class as it was on her "recommended reading" list.  So between those two references and Miss Snug Bug's FBA tutorials, I had a plan of attack.

Fitting and Pattern Alteration

And I just realized I failed to take photos of the modifications I made after tracing the pattern. GAH!  I'll take more and post them later. I added width and length to piece #1. I widened the shoulder seams by 3/4 inch on both front and back bodice because I felt the need for more coverage. They were going to be WAY too thin otherwise for my frame.   Then, of course, the aforementioned width to the midriff band pieces.

Then I got to pinning and tracing the modified pieces onto muslin.  Have I mentioned I also purchased the 26x39 inch tracing paper from Richard The Thread? I have no idea how I ever lived my life without that stuff. HOLY COW does it make life easier!

thread tracing queue

Another little tidbit of interest; you know all those bobbins with just enough on them for maybe two or three seams before you run out? They are PERFECT for thread tracing a muslin. I used up about four of them in the process and now I have four empty bobbins ready to be filled for other projects. Hooray for frugality!

Front muslin view

So, first muslin isn't too bad. I made markings of where I want my front bodice seams to fall which should put the midriff front right at my waistline.  I'm also bringing the two pieces together in the front so the neckline won't be so plunging.  A good friend mentioned I could always wear a cami underneath for more work-appropriate modesty, which I thought not a bad idea.

back muslin view 

So, on the back I still need to do a rounded shoulder adjustment and I'm going to add darts to the back midriff to take care of my sway back/narrower waist issue.  What might not be obvious here is the bodice dart has also been deepened due to widening the shoulders.  I think I might re-draw the V-back to be not quite so deep.

All that work is going to have to happen later though. I've got my four, 12 hour days ahead of me.   Oh, and in case you were wondering, the black and pink is what I'm using for this dress. Same print as my daughter's fabric, different colorway.

Print in two colorways

Wow, long post!  I hope you made it this far with me!  I have much more to come on this one.  So, what's got you excited for Spring Sewing?

Rotating a FBA Dart on Cowl Necks

I am by no means claiming that I'm an expert here. However,  when working on this pattern I did have an AHA! moment. The design ease through the bust was 1.5 inches. This meant that I needed to add 4 inches in total width to give myself 45.5 inches (converter to metric here).  

This pattern, the cowl tank from Simplicity 2345, has a self facing on the cowl.  Its basically the front pattern flipped up and mirrored that you just fold over.  It comes down below the bust and solves the problem of having to finish the front neck seam. Kinda awesome, actually.  So, I cut the self facing off and started with a y-bust dart. 

Y-Bust Dart, Yellow Like important later

 So here you see the three lines for cutting the  the darts,  arrows in the directions you cut.  The yellow one we don't cut yet, but you want to mark it now.  Remember to cut to the seam allowance, then snip from the seam allowance in.  That way you have a tiny hinge.

Fun with arrows.

 Ok, now we tape it to our wax paper, or whatever you have underneath.  I use wax paper cause I always put tape in the wrong place.  This is where we cut the yellow line, including the wax paper.

Here we rotate the side dart closed, opening the dart in the cowl.

 So, I kinda wasn't thinking in this spot here. I should have had some more wax paper underneath to tape and stabilize.  I ended up doing this afterwards and it was fine.  You now want to straighten your shoulder seam.  Your arm-scythe will have changed shape, but as long as the length hasn't changed you're still good.  I think in most cases I would have rounded from the shoulder  seam to the middle, giving me sort of an arch.  Since I needed a straight line across in to re-draft the self-lining, I used the part that I had cut off as my starting point.  Now I have the entire thing on my graphed quilt interfacing I use for the final pattern copy.

comparison 

At this point, what I did was cut it off at the red line. Then I put the facing on top, lining the under part of the arm-scythe up and marked where the facing would end, drawing my line across there.  I then flipped it over after tracing the rest of the pattern and traced the new self facing as one continuous piece.  

I'm sure this could work for knits and non-knits. In fact, you could even split the difference in darts if you wanted.  In wovens and more stable knits I have no qualms with adding a side bust dart. Shaping is always a good thing!

And that's it.  Let me know if you have any questions!  

In Which I Butcher an FBA...

Well, as my trip to NYC (and my birthday) get closer I am filled with the overwhelming need to make a summer dress. This particular dress has been in my idea book for some time now and one of the things niggling at my brain to work on.


This particular pattern was an impulse buy as I was digging through the Vouge 3.99 pattern sale at JoAnn's. It looked like a great way to make the light and airy dresses needed for The South. And then came the idea of layering or lining sheer (and semi-sheer) fabrics from Threads #154.

So V8645 is basically an A-line Grecian style dress. Using the Palmer and Pletsch methodology I used size 18 based on my upper-bust measurement. And because this style of garment has very little need of 'fitting' I am not doing a toile and just doing a tissue fitting.

The tissue fitting told me two things. One: I needed to add 4 inches to the bust line and two, I need about .5 inches for the back.


I went with the Y Bust Dart Alteration* (p. 146-147 Fit for Real People) which is used for needing more than 2 inches in alteration. This also adds a dart to the front for shaping, which it seems I just can't get away from. Weee. Despite my fancy new washers paper weights, I still had to do some taping, which I also managed to iron, causing it to shrink and warp the pattern. *headdesk*


I widened the bust two inches to total four when all is said and done. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to add the .5 inches to the back. I only need it for the upper back. Wait, I think I just found the HOW on page 120. I <3 this book. So in any case, this is what I'm working on and I hope to have it done before Monday (I'm leaving on Wednesday after work).

I also have a second, more fancy, version of this dress planned with TWO sheer silks are layered. That one will most likely NOT be work appropriate, but we'll see.

*For a dress that is one long piece in the front such as this, I recommend cutting at the top "lengthen or shorten here" marking. That way you can make the adjustment to the top half and then tape the rest of it back on, cleaning up any of the cutting lines in the process.