Bodice completed

Here is the completed bodice top with piping set in neck and sleeves. The sleeves were very good to me and set in right away...lots of pins, basting and sewing slowly.  Now I'm debating on doing hook and eye closure or go to the buttons as the pattern suggests.  I'm thinking I can always do the buttons, if I don't like the hook and eye. I know the button band will lay flatter with the h&e.

(The sripped dress is a costume my gramie made back in the 1970's I think it was. So interesting to look inside and see how she finished things.)

On to the skirt now!

Bodice redux

Documenting the process as I go, for later reference and learning.  Here's the bodice with the back on top to show the shoulder seams.

Here is the bodice front...ready for side and shoulder seams to be sewn together. I've stitched the lining and fashion fabric layers together all around.  The lining was about 1/2" longer in the pleat/dart area (visible at the lower left waistline) so I eased that extra from the lining into the waistline by pulling gently on the FF. I read that a lining should be actually a bit larger than your shell. Whodathunkit?

Underlining aka flatlining a garment seemed excessive to me...now that I've worn a bodice with an underlining, I really like the structure it gives to the garment. I picked up some great tips on flatlining over at Historical Sewing . Especially the "Best Flatlining Tip Ever" which I used on this version.  This pattern doesn't underline the sleeves, which is nice. It seems I'm never wearing costuming in cool weather...why is that? ;)

Here's a shot showing the easing of the curves of the front bodice into the straight lines of the back bodice. I think that I'm used to seeing this curve in the back seam if memory serves, but since this seamline sits to the back of the shoulder it makes sense that you'd make the curve on the bodice front.

Playing with Pattern Alteration

Clothing has seldom fit me the way I would like it to. We all have this problem because one size just doesn't fit all.  In my last post I put up some pictures of an historical pattern I'm trying to get to fit me. The pattern is fine except for some gaping at the neckline that I want to get rid of. I don't want to hide it I want it gone.

I've played around a little bit with getting a pattern to fit me, even had a class that taught me quite a bit, but this fix seems to be a bit more of a challenge and not an uncommon one...gaping fabric at the neckline.  The bodice on this dress has a 1.5" gaping at the neck front. That's a lot. Now, granted, this pattern is taken from a 1870's workdress that most probably didn't fit any better than this does me, but it fits me so well everywhere else there just must be a way to get that gaping out so the button band lays neatly against my chest front.

I've taken some suggestions and tried some slash and pivot techniques, but I'm really in a completely new arena here, I'm just unsure of what I'm supposed to be doing. 

So the suggestion was to take a pleat in the neckline taking out the excess fabric there. Slash the pattern down to the underbust pleasts and let the excess fabric from the reduction in the neck land there...easy enough to deal with by taking the pleats in a little more or adding another one...but then what does one do with the changes in the pattern lines at the neckline, armscye and waistline...let me show you what I mean.

I've made the pivots keeping the Center Front on the straight of grain.

So what does one do at this point? Do we true up those changes in the neckline and the armscye? Or does that put one back to where we were at the start...this may seem a really silly question, but when you're only grasping the concept by the outside edges...it's really not all that silly :). 

So that's where I stand to date, still working on it...