Burda 8-2008-126. Last week I made a muslin of just the bodice of the dress. The pattern starts as size 36 and Ellen's bust measures 78cm. I penciled in on the pattern sheet a size 34 and then traced that. This is the first time that I drafted the smaller size before tracing and I found it much easier to work around. You can see the pencil line on the blue piece.
I reduced the curve in the side piece and also reduced the length in the centre front piece. This worked beautifully and the cups fit her just right.
I made the muslin in the size 34 even though she is smaller still. We pin fitted the muslin and found we needed to reduce the curve of the bust (not quite filling that out) and taking the side seams in a bit. I used the instructions in Palmer Pletsch Fit for Real People to do the small bust adjustment.
I reduced the curve in the side piece and also reduced the length in the centre front piece. This worked beautifully and the cups fit her just right. Now that was the good bit. The not so good bit was with the overlay. It is in one piece that goes from centre back across the front and back to centre back. As there were are side seams I needed to take circumference length out.
Also note all those pleat markings? Just imagine trying to mark, pin, baste all those and then they don't fit the bodice? Hmmm. I unpicked all that and made my own pleats to fit ensuring they looked pleasing enough. Much easier option!
All was going well until the next fitting. Oh, no...it does not meet at centre back! I am sure I added the seam allowances when cutting, but something went wrong. So onto plan B or is that C or D by now? I added the extra width by adding some panels at the back (remember there are o side . I then sewed on the buttons, inserted the zip and attached the skirt. Time for the next fitting.
The skirt has issues but I will talk about that tomorrow! Back to the bodice - it is TOO BIG! The poor girl is exposing herself each time she moves. Now, I would like to blame Burda but it has to be operator error - just not sure what error(s) they were. Anyway, back to ripping and resewing. I managed to not have to take the zip out by just gathering the extra back width into the bodice. Now I am just too scared to get her to try it on again!
This morning before work I was back at it trying to get the V to sit nicely at centre front where the skirt meets the bodice. It is not co operating! Perhaps tonight it will be a bit nicer to me.
Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post and for welcoming me back! I have a few questions to answer but will attend to that in my next post. Wish me luck!
8 comments:
Good luck Vicki. I hope you work it all out.
It does sound tricky, I hope it works out tonight. I have found that there is an awful lot of bust room in the BWOF patterns for my teenage daughter - the SBA for her is about 4cm in a straight dart(trial and error)even after scaling down to a 32 size, so maybe it is bodacious German busts on slim girls that the pattern is drafted for, not operator error?
Yikes! What a project! I know it's going to be beautiful, though! She's going to look like a dream! :)
it looks so deceptively simple in the line drawing too doesn't it?! Good luck, I know you can do it and the end product will be lovely.
Keep working on it - I'm sure she'll be lovely in the end.
I have the same problem with my small-busted daughter. I had to buy her some of that fashion emergency tape just to prevent the peekaboo that sometimes happens.
Best of luck. It's tricky sometimes, but if your lovely daughter will stand still long enough I know you'll get this done and she'll look like a dream.
What a trooper you are, doing such a complex piece! She'll love it; I love that deep blue fabric. Can't wait to see this to completion!
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