A Fitting Tribute - Butterick 5454

I've been working on the adjustments for B5454 for two weekends in a row, maybe three. After tracing the bodice and skirt three times and two false starts with fabric, it's all starting to run together.  But, I think I can say the hard work has paid off - I have a correctly tissued-fitted paper pattern!!! There are two small tweaks I'd like to make, but I think I can do those in the muslin.

For the bodice, I tapered from a 14 to an 18. Then, I did the FFRP slightly round back alteration by adding a dart. I went ahead and raised the back shoulder seam 1/2" for my forward shoulders. That turned out to be a problem. Too much and I widened the top of the armhole too much.

It all started to slow down with the FBA.  First, I spent a lot of time digging around the internet for instructions on how to do an FBA on a wrap top. I found a couple of good sources here and here. I'm so special ed when it comes to sewing, I had to dig through the pattern stash and find M5974. I looked at the FBA lines on it and recreated them on my pattern.  The pattern was 2" from my CF, but  I added 1 1/2" based on the finished pattern measurements (See, I'm learning.)

I lowered the front should seam 1/2" too. After trying the pattern on, I realized two things:  how jacked the armholes were and my back shoulder dart needed to match the seam in the front tuck. Grrr...  I ended up taking a 1/4" out of the shoulder adjustment. In hindsight, I may have not needed the adjustment at all; that's one of the tweaks I want to make in the muslin. All of the lines on the altered tissue got confusing so I traced new front and back pieces from the altered ones.

On to the skirt. Let the fun begin! I consulted almost every fitting book I own, plus the internet. I tapered from the 18 to the 24. I knew I wanted this dress to be 7" longer. No biggie.  However, I also needed extra length for my rump's curve. I think 4", if I did my measuring correctly. How did I know how to measure and what to do? Click here! The file links on the page don't work, but you can access the files through the link to Yahoo Groups.

Let me pause for a sec to wax poetic about these Burda workshop files. Yes, I have all the major pattern fitting books. I'm excited about this info because it gives detailed instructions like take 1/8 hip width and add 1" etc. Thank you, Cidell!!

What the Burda docs lack is telling you the max adjustment you can make. I can't add all 4" to the skirt back by using their rising hem adjustment. Through trial and error, the most I could get was 2". I had to figure out how to add 7" to the front skirt for the length I wanted and decrease it by 2" for the rising hem (I think.)

Here's the back:

The odd angle of the hem at the side seam is killing me. That's the second tweak I want to make.

Here's the front in all of it's raggedy glory.  Adding 7" and subtracting 2" is all about where you do the adding and subtracting. I got confused during the process and decided to cheat by just taping some paper to the hemline, marking the length of the back skirt at the side seam and going from there.

My side seams were pulling backward, so I whipped out my newly-purchased Pattern Fitting with Confidence and used the pivot and slide method to add 1" to the hip line. Still not too sure about how the side seams look. Since pattern pieces were starting to fall apart from so much handling, I traced entirely new ones when I added the hip width.

The last thing I did was mark how much needed to be taken out of the skirt for my sway back. So what we have, as of now, is this:

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of attempting to re-pad Ruby a while back. The side seams swing forward on her, but not on me.We are now no longer doubles; she's bigger than me in the waist and back and I'm bigger than her in the bust. hips and butt. (I did do a pretty good job with shape of the rounded back.) I don't have the patience to pad her again right now. If I ever get serious about the weight loss, I'll make another attempt when I'm smaller.  

I am pretty dang happy with the tissue fitting. It's a good thing because I've run out of my oh-so-wonderful Swedish tracing paper! I ordered more last night. I love this stuff. I actually sewed the the bodice at the shoulders and side seam instead of pinning.

On last note on this part of the adventure. I consulted almost every fitting book I own for guidance. When it came down to the what and the how, there were clear winners and losers

Winners

• Fit For Real People
• Pattern Fitting with Confidence
• Fitting and Pattern Alteration
• Honorable mention goes to The Perfect Fit, although I didn't use any of its techniques for this project

Losers

• Fabulous Fit
• Fast Fit - I'll post a review here later this week.

Butterick 3526 Unwrapped

Well, I finished the skirt!  Just in time, well actually a little late. I missed the sound check, but I made it in time to sing with the choir.

It's all about fit.  I got the hips perfect and the butt was really close.  Where I fell off was the waist.  No matter how I tried, I couldn't get it small enough.  At the 11th hour, I came up with a new design element - an asymmetrical wrap skirt!  (Necessity and desperation are the mothers of invention.) I was able to get the waist tight enough and it gave me more length in the front (advantageous when sitting in an elevated choir stand).  I actually like the way it looks.

I added a snap to the front and tacked the skirt in place.  I think the left side looks really cool.

The choir's uniform was a summer color blouse and denim skirt.  I wanted either orange or pink.  I decided to get my shoes from eBay and I figured orange would be easier to match than pink (how wrong I was.)

Aren't these cute?

Shout out to Sears for the only orange shirt I could find within the State Street shopping area.  Who knew coral would be more popular than orange right now?  I needed it in medium, but all they had was a small.  I went online and searched at every Sears. Small was the only size left in Chicagoland!

I don't know if this was the right thing to do, but for seaming, I used a heavy duty C&C thread.  None of the denim threads on the market were dark enough.  The fabric was a stretch denim, so I used a 90/14 stretch needle.  Why aren't there there any 16/100 or 18/110 stretch needles?

The topstitching was no problem; I used two strands of orange thread and a topstiching needle.  There are maybe five places on the entire skirt where one of the threads wasn't pulled tight enough in the stitch.  I wonder if it's because of the stretch fabric.

Anyhoo, I'll keep adjusting this pattern until I get it right.  I'd like to have this in khaki and black denim (both without the asymmetry).  I'll be on the lookout for a dark wash denim in a lighter weight too.  Three should get me through the summer and my choir needs.