Well she’s gotta have a top on, right…..

 Oh hey, you caught me in a race to keep this momentum going, so let’s dive right into the bodice portion of the dress!!

I started off by using a commercial pattern (McCalls #8397) which is a (bad) version of one of the costumes from the TV series “1883” in the Yellowstone series.

Did a quick mock-up and HOLY WEARING EASE BATMAN THIS PATTERN IS NOT THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD AND I SHOULD HAVE DOCUMENTED MORE PICTURES CAUSE OH MY SWEET GHERKIN ITS TERRIBLE.  Ok…. So I had to do a lot of work on this to get it even CLOSE to fitting, so lets break it all down and then I’ll post the pics.

1) took it up by almost 3 inches to raise the waistline to where it should sit on my client (knew I would since she is short waisted)

2) took out the darts and re-pinned them in the right place.

3) Marked out the new waistline.

4) removed the tension in the hips by making cuts to tell me how much I needed to add in the hip.

5) Made general notes on how to create the right hem to mimic the original image.

OK, have fun with the pics.

(I also finished a pair of pants for another client, but were not talking about those…. Focus) Ok, now that all the adjustments have been marked, we can begin on another mockup to make sure we have everything correct.  Here’s how it went!!

LOOK AT HOW MUCH BETTER IT LOOKS!!!!  The only thing I didn’t document was turning the first dart closest to the CF into a separate pattern piece.  But essentially, I took my french curve and connected the top of the dart to the bottom of the neckline and then cut those pieces out, thereby creating a separate front vest and then the original dart becomes a seam connecting the vest front to the body.  Oh I also made sleeves and fitted them to her arms (nothing fancy, just 2-part 3/4 length sleeves)

I think I’m gonna do a separate final post for the making of the bodice….. It’s a lot and I wanna really dive into how I made it.  Lets continue on!!