Last night I was getting really frustrated. I was starting to think that I was either going to have to make major fitting compromises, or that I would be stuck wearing knit clothes the rest of my life (Not that that's a bad thing, but...)
Like I said yesterday - I had gotten my sure fit top to a BETTER place but it still wasn't fitting right. When I pinched up the excess fabric out of the top I had a whole THREE inches too much! I ripped the seam, ripped the dart, reset the dart (all on just one side) and sewed it all back together. That was better.
Here's the original fit
And here's the new fit. Nice huh?
But.. and you can kind of see it in the second picture - this made a HUGE (6 inches people) dart. And now I had weird wrinkles below the bust and weird poofiness in the back. AND when I went back and tried to figure out how to draft this 6" dart onto my pattern.. my mind started to melt. It was at this point that I said eff it, I'll wear potato sacks and jersey the rest of my life.
But, as I sat there staring at the sure fit outline I had an idea.. born of something I had read a long time ago that suggested fitting a pattern based on your upper chest measurement and THEN adjusting for the bust. So I did that. I redrafted based on an upper chest of 42 (instead of a bust measurement of 48) except for right at the bustline - that I measured at 48. I drew in the standard DD dart, redrafted the entire back in the same way (leaving a square shoulder adjustment in both) cut it all and sewed it together. And... And...
It was almost like putting on a pair of gloves!! It has a few more adjustments: I think I'll do a DDD dart instead and I need to adjust a back just a little - but it's so much better now, and close enough I decided to try to make a partial muslin for the blue check wrap dress... Yeah I should have stopped while I was ahead :-\ I have read of people having issues with the wrap dress and it being too baggy in the upper chest.
If you look at the drawing
See how the dress is supposed to be wider then the shoulders? Well that width plus the lack of any attachments to the back except at the waist made the whole thing fall open at the upper chest - it was even worse then my first sure-fit top! The good news is, after sleeping on it, I have some ideas on how to fix this - I'm going to work on that tonight.
On a much more positive note. As I was getting ready for work yesterday I said (not for the first time) I REALLY need a new trench coat! That got me thinking about, "I wonder what fabrics you would use for a trench coat?". As fate would have it.. as I was rolling through blogs later I found that Sewaholic had posted on Fabric Ideas for the Robson Trench Coat just that day! I eagerly read through it. And what prey tell was the first fabric listed?? Cotton twill!! and what did I buy on a lark because it was 70 cents a yard on Friday even though I had no idea what to do with it?? Cotton twill!!
Remember this?
Yes, it's white - and covered with pokadots, but I ran the idea past my hubby (who is never shy to give a negative opinion if it's warranted) loved the idea. I'm so excited. (So many projects swirling through my mind right now...)
One of the things I would like to do if I'm going to use it for a coat is to try to treat the fabric with stain guard. Has anyone done this? Is it hard (or even possible). Should it be done before I start to sew or after the thing is assembled.
HELP! :D
No comments:
Post a Comment