Even though I’ve sewn for years, I’ve never really learned to tailor fit my clothing. I took the easy way out by choosing patterns that were more boxy in style—boxy by design so I didn’t have to adjust much. I’ve always adjusted things like where the waist falls (I am a little short-waisted) but I never did anything else to alter a pattern.
This pattern is a McCall’s pattern; I have a long-standing dislike of their patterns because the directions always seem a bit off to me (and yes I know, McCall’s owns just about all the pattern names now). I loved the old Simplicity patterns and also Butterick or Very Easy Vogue. As a quick aside, Vogue rates their patterns easy, average and advanced. I think I’ve made just one average pattern. It was a Ralph Lauren dress and while it turns out beautifully, it was very hard for me. So if that’s average? I won’t bother with advanced.
Anyway I ran into two problems with the bodice: the fabric from top to bottom of the bodice in front isn’t really long enough. I had this problem in a bikini I made when I was 16. I know my parents still don’t believe I added almost two inches to the top but I did and it was still on the skimpy side. Well that and it was almost the exact color of my skin. I was really naïve.
So the bodice needs to be longer in front and the second problem is that my back is narrow. That means the bodice back is too big. This is something that’s hard to fix by yourself, you need another pair of hands to pin and fit the blasted thing.
Enter the dressmaker’s form. Now you can buy these things and some of them can be adjusted a lot of ways and some very little. But none are cheap and I’m watching my pennies. So I looked around online and found directions for making a dressmaker’s form out of duct tape.
1 comment:
My wedding dress was made for me, and I'm trying to remember which conglomerate made the pattern. I loved it, and the seamstress found making adjustments easy.
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