Project 1, Part 1--The green dress, and a morning scene of domesticity

Rosebud helps Mama dry fabric laundry on the line. A perfect scene of domesticity

My first planned project of the new sewing year will be a party dress to attend a friends wedding later in the month. I haven't had a new dress in ages...not since my body changed to grow the baby....who is now turning 2 on Saturday. So as a special treat, I bought some really extra special fabrics (shown to the right) in summery greens and pinks and yellows. Some Liberty print, some Henry Alexander printy goodness, and some loverly Amy Butler. A very fine dress indeed.

The bodice pattern begins...

STEP 1: Design the dress.
I decided on a simple dress comprised of a princess seamed bodice and tiered skirt. The solid green fabric shown above will be the bodice, and the three tiers of the skirt are in order from right to left, each one a high quality cotton that are fun to feel and see. The airy Liberty print of the first tier has alot of open space with small scaled flowers. The scale of the flowers increase dramatically with the second tier, a Henry Alexander print called "Larkspur in Bloom." The Amy Butler print in a deep plum with even larger flowers and a dark, solid background will help "ground" the skirt.  and provide a fine balance to the garment. I'll be binding all the skirt seams using bias binding made from yardage of the bodice fabric. So far, the materials cost has been around $130, including all notions.

STEP 2: Drafting the pattern. Since I wanted the bodice to fit below my waist to my high hip, I knew I needed my trusty torso block from design school (a combo sloper made from a bodice and skirt block in combination). now, of course, my body has changed quite a bit from before I had the baby. While I may be a smaller size, my shape has changed as things shifted around. I now have more belly although I have a smaller waist, and I have less bust, but a rounder, higher butt (thank you running for weight loss!). I made these blocks for my body 5 years ago, but they'd be a good enough start. In a later issue, I might go into more detail on how to convert a torso block into a princess seamed bodice, but for now, I'm just going to go over my process.

STEP 3: Test fit! Test fit! Test fit! Arguably the most important step. Make sure your pattern fits before you go cutting into your fashion fabric. In my case I used a inexpensive cotton muslin that I seriously buy by the roll because it is cheaper to do so and I go though so much when I'm sewing like a fiend.

Cut out your pattern in the muslin adding in all proper seam allowances (1/4" for neck and armhole, 1/2 inches for side seam, 1" for center back). Sew it together with a quick, loose stitch and then get someone else to pin the back closed for you.  I actually manged to get it on me a second time by pinning it half way down my back, leaving the bottom open, and then pinning the last bit myself once I wiggled into it. Then stand in front of a mirror and pin out the excess. Make sure you are wearing any underwear you might be wearing (i.e. a bra...I forgot to do that the first time). The goal isn't to pin out all excess fabric, you do want some ease or you won't be able to sit or bend at the waist. If you notice any place where the fabric seams to pucker because its too tight, slice the pattern to relieve the tightness and measure the distance of the gap in the mirror. You may need to add a dart or gusset in that place to adjust the fit. I ended up removing inches from the bust and waist, removing fullness from the front side hip, and adding fullness back into my back hip with a gusset

STEP 4: Adjust the pattern.
Once finished adjusting the pattern in the mirror, I marked all of the pinnings along their edges so that I could see how much fabric needed to be removed or added. I then transferred these markings to a traced off version of the pattern. You want to use a tracing, otherwise if you make a mistake, you will have ruined your only pattern and would need to start over. NEVER make these changes on your master pattern.

Here is a tracing of half of the front bodice (it is a mirrored piece. I marked where my pinings were, a small extra fullness at the top of the princess seam, and another one just above the waist. The first bit is easy to remove, just mark where you are making the change and cut it off.

Adjusting the waist is a bit more difficult. I needed to make a line from the bottom perpendicular to the tracing of the dart. I then adjusted the dart position to square it off. Its highlighted in blue. To adjust the distribution of the fullness, I then sliced the pattern along the edge of the dart at the waist area and the long line from the bottom to the dart....

...and then shifted the pattern. From there I had to measure the original pattern length along that bottom edge and cut off the excess. I ended up with a normal looking pattern piece. I then test fit the second bodice and, success! A dress pattern that fits beautifully.

In my next installment I'll go over my sewing techniques, including making bias binding out of self fabric etc and hopefully have some serious project updates with very finished looking photos. My goal is to have this done before Saturday this week (my daughter's birthday) but I'm also designing socks for my HUNGER GAMES TRIBUTE SERIES. So we'll see...sigh.