Friday, August 29, 2008

Good Sewing Kharma

Recent dresses have not been successful sewing projects. I am tickled to say that this dress is going to be a success. I have had to take some deeper and deeper seams to get this dress to fit the way I want it to fit. Below is the pattern. It does look like it is rather loose and straight. It would definitely hang that way if you were thin and waif like as the model wearing this dress. I use to be about 30 lbs. lighter and thin and petite. Now 30 lbs. and 30 years older, my shape is fuller and I actually have a fuller bust line. So why let that deter me from making this dress? It didn't.








I thought that I could pull this dress off and I did. However, I was more inspired after reviewing my latest Vogue Pattern Magazine and saw this dress on a more full figured person in a solid colored knit. The dress on the "live" model fits tighter and I found it flattering on her. Sorry I don't have a pic of the magazine model at this time so you can visualize this better.


When I decided to use the knit I did for my dress, it was my thought that the design lines would help lengthen and slenderize the dress on me. I think that it does. Let me say that I cut the dress using one of the upper range of sizes included in this multi-sized pattern. Mainly because my last dress was rather tight and small and became a Goodwill donation. This dress has more fullness to it and thus I cut it down from the original size I used before sewing the side seams. Let me say that I still ended up taking even deeper seams; I really was not going for the "mu-mu" style that I kept thinking it looked like on me. Referring back to the look of the model in the pattern magazine, I have a much better fitting dress than I had starting out.


Below is a photo of the basted side seams. Keep in mind that before I basted these seams, I re-cut the side seams taking them from an 18 to 16 from bust to hemline. So you can see from this photo that I took it up a lot. I also took a deeper center back seam as well. I have a narrow back from underarm to hip. Thus back darts are a good look for me. Taking a deeper seam in the center back helped with making the dress fit better through the back.








Here is the dress laying on cutting table. (Does not really do it justice.) It is almost complete. I only need to hem the dress plus sew hook and eyes for upper back closure. I will take photos of me wearing the dress as with all of these adjustments I find I really like the dress and now has the right fullness without being too full.


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