It's Licorice Time

Yesterday I thought I would trace out some patterns that I'm planning for the SWAP. Ever since I moved out of my sewing room, I've been using the dining room table for cutting. Well, it IS getting close to Christmas, so I guess I need to get that cleaned off!

After I traced out the coat pattern from FSG, I decided to trace the Licorice dress pattern from the new Colette sewing handbook. (I know, I know. I said I was going to make the coat in the BSSH, and I am still drooling over it. Unfortunately, it requires light weight wool, and the wool I'm planning on using for a coat for winter is heavy weight coating. I don't think it will work well with the BSSH coat. I guess I'm saving that one for a spring coat.) ANYWAY, I decided I needed to make a muslin for the licorice dress since I have never worked with Colette patterns before. Well, my muslin is turning out pretty well, so I'm turning it into a real dress.

According to the measurements, I should be cutting a 6, which I did. It fit's great except that it is too big in the upper chest. I probably should have cut a 4 and done a FBA. The Colette patterns are drafted for a C cup, but that's still 3 sizes off of where I need to be! SOOO, I ended up taking a giant dart (which just looks like a CF seam) from the neck to the waist in the front of the dress. This is working out fine for now. I did not do the exact same alteration on the pattern piece, because I do not want a dart down the CF of my dress! I'm taking off 1/2" down the CF to the waist and then slicing the pattern at the waist so that the whole front will lie against the fold line. I then added back some fullness to the skirt. I hope this will work on my next version, which I intend to make out of wine wool crepe. My "test" dress is a poly charmeuse, but I like how it is turning out. I have some pink ambiance in my stash, so I am using that to line it.