Happy Mother's Day

I was thrilled that both my son and daughter came up and went to church with us this morning and spent the day up here.  I am that very proud mother of both of them.

They both left around 5, so that gave me a little time to work on my muslin.  I was stressing my brain trying to figure out how to take that dart out of the armscye.  Since it was about an inch, and I was already taking out an inch and a half for FBA, I did not want to rotate that into the side dart.  It just would have been to big.  If I tried to taper it to nothing at CF, it threw the CF line off.  I tried a few different places, but finally ended up taking it out at the CF on the neckline.  I cut it out of another scrap piece of knit  and the fit is much better!  There is still a little bit of gaping at the armhole, but that will disappear when I put binding on the armholes.





It's hard to tell in the wild print, but the gap is gone at the neck and the majority of the gap is gone at the armholes.  The dart makes the sides lie much smoother and I think the weight of the skirt will pull down the sides enough that everything will hit at just the right place.  I may need to shave a little bit off of the CF, but I will baste the skirt on first and see.  I can see that the side seam is pulling to the front near the waist, so I may need to change the shaping there a bit, as it is not tight in either the front or the back.  Maybe some consistent sit-ups would help change this problem!  The one thing I will need to do is redraw the armhole a little farther toward the arm.  I blended it  in when I took that dart, but I think I may have drawn it too deep.

And THIS is why we make muslins!  I would have been so disappointed if I had used my real fabric and it did not look good!

And, for MMMay, this is one of my favorite skirts.  It is Simplicity 2451.

Making Moneta - fitting quandries

I've really liked the Colette Moneta pattern ever since it came out.  The only thing that held me back from making it was that the bodice is lined.  Although I have a good stash of lining, I never seem to have knit lining and our local JoAnns does not carry any knit lining except for beige swimsuit lining.

So I have the beautiful fabric shown below that I got at Michael Levine during PR weekend.  Unfortunately, I only have 2 yards and this dress takes about 2.5.  Wait - I have some smaller pieces of black knit that I could use to make the bodice!  Wow - I think that will look better anyway.  (Necessity is the mother of invention)

After attending Linda Maynard's Fit and Couture classes at PR weekend, I decided I better make a muslin of the bodice of this dress.  The skirt is pretty full, but I always have issues with the bodice so, I found some old yellow knit and went for it.  I checked the pattern measurements, and I lined up with a small.  I know I ALWAYS have to add length in the front for FB and often have to lower the waist in most dresses with waist seams.  I added 1.5 inches in length to the front and then another 1" in length all the way around.  For the muslin, I just eased in the extra length at the bust so I could see if I needed to add a dart or just leave it eased.

As you can see, other than my fat stomach, there are some problems.  There is pulling at the bust, gaping at the neck and armholes, and obviously, I did not need the extra inch that I added all the way around.  Also, you can't really see it, but the side seam is too far forward.  I know that Peggy Sagers says that circumference is just circumference, and the WE don't have side seams, but I feel I know where my side seam should go, and it's not that far forward!


The first thing I did was to undo the shoulder seam and make the front lie flat.  You can see how far off the front and back are on me in order to make that happen.  I also still had to pin out a little bit at the front neckline.    In order to make this alteration, I would need to redraw the neckline.  I would have matched the front to the back because otherwise the shoulders would be to far out.  I would have also had to redraw the armhole to make it line up.  Instead, I decided to take a big dart in the front, which means basically to shear 3/4" off the CF at the neckline and taper to nothing at the hemline.
 This seemed to work better (and eliminated all that re-drawing).  I still had gaping at the armhole, so I will need to dart out the pattern at that point as well.  I also cut the extra inch off at the bottom.

I am going to make a second muslin of the bodice, because I never know if one change will affect another, so I just need to recut the front.  The back seems OK.  A tiny big of gaping at the armhole, so I will see if the new front affects that before I do anything.