Darts! I marked them very carefully (while watching The Corpse Bride, fun movie to sew along with) and then sewed them veeerrrrrrryyyy sllllooooowwwwlllyyyy. Started toward the middle and continued out toward the point, then broke the thread and went back from the middle in the other direction, as I learned from The YouTube Videos. This intarwebs thing is pretty cool!
So then I tried it on, first just over my shirt, then over my corset+shirt:
You can totally see the difference. Kate was absolutely right and I never questioned her, but I was very curious to see the difference for myself. The corset kind of turns that part of you into a dressform and you don’t need ease there. I sat down in it and nothing changed. Verrry interesting.
There’s even a bit of extra room! You can see I’m quite pleased with myself. I’m probably going to turn the neckline just like that for a simple lapel look.
One of the big problems is the extra fabric above the bust. As B put it, I do not have a “shelf” even wearing the corset. Here’s the solution I finally came up with when we got it all pinned for the actual fitting:
I extended the frontmost darts all the way up and over the bust to take in the extra bulk between bust and shoulder. The instructions call for dart adjustments to be made equally from the same point on all 4 darts, but there was nothing to help with the extra bulk up top. It’s still overing above my chest, but I can’t get it to lay flat and it looks kind of dramatic, which is always a plus.
ETA: I just realized that we pinned the front closed improperly – it should be 1″ stitching line against 1″ stitching line, rather than against the edge. Because of the buttons. So back to the fitting process I shall go next time around. This is all good stuff to mess up in the mockup phase, before I go nuts and shred the nice fabric. Speaking of which…
And one more before I go. Just a little teaser pic of the fabric and trim for version 1.0.
4 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
Great work, J. You’re learning lots. It looks great. And you look more like your mother every day!
Love! Mom
Awwww thanks Mom!
Looks fantastic. I thought of you because I made the Kittyville hat and had to pick up and knit lots!
I studied sewing for a few years, you are really doing a beautiful job there. It sits so well on your body. That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Sometimes I would make things that looked really good until I tried them on….
Thanks, Kim! I’ve been eyeing that Kittyville hat for years. I popped over to Ravelry to take a look, it turned out great for you! The little ears are so cute.