I decided to make a muslin of both the New Look 6670 and the Simplicity 2648 patterns. That way, I'll have two more dress patterns tested for when I want to make another dress. How convenient that the front of the Simplicity and the back of the New Look fit best since those are the parts I intend to use in my frivolous dress.
The Simplicity pattern has princess seams in the front and darts in the back. I didn't expect that and wasn't impressed. Of course, if I'd looked at the line drawing I would have known. I didn't. I made assumptions based on the front.
With this pattern, you have a choice of slim, average, and curvy back pieces. The fronts are exactly the same with the only change being cup size. I cut a fourteen D-cup through the shoulders widening to an eighteen at the hips using the curvy option. That still didn't seem wide enough across the back so I added some more, which made me feel huge. The front fit pretty good other than that the neckline and the bust point need to be lower.
The back is way too wide. I could pinch out basically everything I added. That made me feel better. Luckily, I can test the smaller size just by taking out the side seam, re-cutting the back, and stitching it back together.
The Simplicity pattern is a lot like a fitting shell. It has a waist seam and fitting aspects top and bottom. One thing I discovered with it is that my waist might actually be lower than I thought. With the New Look 6670 muslin, I moved it down to see what happened.
The front is too wide. The shoulders feel like they are falling off and I can pin a significant tuck between the bust points. One problem is that I have both narrow shoulders and a short armhole. I need to shift the position of the armhole both up and in. That's easy enough to do normally but quite a bit harder with princess seams. If you have any advice, I'd appreciate it.
The back of fits quite well. It's a little smoother on Millicent than me. As much as we look a like, she's missing a few bumps. Hopefully a shaper takes care of that. The V is slightly too low. I'll be moving it up in the next test since I don't want to buy a new bra just for this dress. LOL - since I'm learning to sew bras, perhaps at some point in the future I'll just "whip up" the appropriate speciality bra but I'm definitely not there yet.
This morning, I'm taking Kyle to a doctor's appointment and then to school and then meeting a friend for breakfast. Tonight is knitting. In-between, another muslin. Because of the shoulder and armhole issues, I decided to print a princess sheath using the pattern software, and sew and compare it. By tonight, I should be ready to stick all the patterns together and design the actual dress that I'm sewing and then - LOL - make a muslin of it. By tomorrow night, I anticipate cutting out real fabric.
Talk soon - Myrna
Grateful - Awareness. I've reached that "it's all too much" point with my fabric stash. I'm thankful for it and it's beginning to overwhelm me. I can't think with too much in the studio so I scooped up this mess that was spilling onto the floor of the closet and dropped it in the family room. I'll clean it up and put it back somehow however, I'm grateful for the reminder to stop buying and to start sewing up the stash. When I don't pay attention to that feeling, guilt and frustration ruin my sewing. Can't have that.
I think once you understand where you waist in relation to these standard patterns, it makes things so much easier. It's taken me a while to realise that with most waisted dresses I need to lengthen the bodice by about 3cm. Once I did that it seemed to fix a lot of the other fitting issues. I'm just this week getting to grips with the high hip/low hip thing and as soon as I understand that I'll be happy. Good luck with your dress.
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