Friday, December 10, 2010

4 Dresses, 15 days (Day 2)

Wednesday - I traced the pattern pieces I will need for Emma, Sophie and Allie. They're all just about the same size the bodice, so this should be a smooth process.  Then I cut the pieces out in muslin to test and stitched it up, and tried it on Sophie for size. Uh-oh. Apparently I did something wrong. The chest fits pretty well, although a little big, but the waist is WAY too small. So I measured Sophie again and compared her measurements to those on the pattern. Nope, I did it right. The size 1 dress should fit her with a bit of room. So then I looked at the directions and the pieces I traced. Yep, sewed everything together correctly. Yep, traced them correctly too. (Go me!) So I took out my tape measure and measured out the pattern, added it all up, subtracted for seams, and came out 3 inches too small in the waist. Fortunately, Sense and Sensibility Patterns has a FANTASTIC degree of customer service, so I hopped onto the forum and posted my dilemma. A few emails later, and it appears that there's a good possibility the pattern was printed incorrectly.

After taking a dinner break, thank you to my wonderful husband for cooking so I could focus on figuring out how to alter the pattern, I went back to the original, decided to change the seam allowance to 3/8" instead of the allowed 5/8", and slashed the back pattern pieces (there are 3 of them) from the bottom to add 1/4" to each one, which should give me the 3" I need in the waist. (Yes, math really is a useful subject.)  I cut new muslin pieces, restitched it, and tried it on Emma - Sophie was not very cooperative - and it fit! Almost. Now the chest was too big (probably because I changed ALL the seams to 3/8"), but with a tuck here and a fold there, we might have a workable pattern. Woohoo!

(Sorry, no cool photos edited by my son today.)

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