Bombshell - another muslin??

Well, if I’m going to put this much work into something, it better FIT right!  I’m still not sure that it will, but I think I have now made 2 more muslins on this thing.  After my last post, I still was not happy with the fit yet.  I decided to take my muslin pieces and see which size they most closely matched and go from there.

I ended up using the largest size cups on the pattern which was a 44.  Then, I had to figure out how to make those cups fit into the size 36 bodice.  I don’t know if I did it the “right” way, but I hope that what I did works.  I lowered the cup curve on the bodice and also added some to the cup.  I tried this on, and was still not happy.  The center front would not go in close to my body.  Not sure what to do at this point, and not having a fitting partner, I had to get creative.  I kept looking at the bra I was wearing and thought, “OK, this bra touches my body in the center, why doesn’t this muslin?” I decided to take a molded cup bra that has only been worn a couple of times and fits me perfectly and use that for my “model”.  I used the two bottom cup pieces from the pattern and pinned them onto the bra.  I then smoothed the upper piece along the top, pinning as I went.  I used a pencil to mark where I needed the top and bottom to meet so that there would be no pleating or puckering.  I’m hoping this will work!!  I really won’t know until all the layers of the dress and boning are put together.  The only unfortunate thing is that I think I may have lost some of the design lines to the cups that have the little corners.  Oh well, it will be worth it if it fits correctly.  That was Thursday.

Here is a picture of the muslin being shaped over the bra.

These are the changes that I made to the cups after marking them and taking them off of the bra.

Last night I traced all of those pieces with the changes onto muslin again.  This time the pieces will be used as the underlining.  I did prewash the muslin because it does shrink.  If I’m doing a lot of pressing, I do not want the underlining to shrink.  Because of all the layers (fashion fabric, underlining, lining) and boning in this dress, I think I will make sure to only dry clean this one.  I have only used ridgelene boning in the past, but plan on ordering spiral steel boning for this one.

This morning (Friday) I pinned all of the muslin pieces onto the fashion fabric.  I cut around these pieces and started basting the two layers together, following the seamlines.  All of this basting will be removed later, so I used silk thread for the basting.  Because of the print of the dress, I tried 3 different colors of thread before I found one that showed up well.  I finally ended up using an off-white.  I wasn’t going to use this at first because it won’t show up on the muslin.  Well, that doesn’t matter because I can see the tracing on that side!

Tomorrow I would like to finish the hand basting and start putting it together.  The basting is actually going pretty fast and is easy to do while I’m sitting in the family room watching DVR of Project Runway season 10!  Thank goodness for DVR, I hadn’t realized that the new season had already started.

Bombshell part 3 - Getting the muslin right

muslin 2

I am so excited!  I think I actually have the fit of this bodice now!

When I got up this morning, I decided that what I needed to do was to lower the bust curve, but I wasn’t sure how.  I  looked at the pattern pieces and how they were graded up to the next size.  My lower bodice is cut in a size 36.  I decided to start with altering to a size 40 cup.  The first thing I did was trace the lines for the two lower bodice pieces top edges onto tracing paper.  I then traced those lines onto the muslin so that I could make sure that the cup would line up with the new curve that I drew.  I then traced the size 40 cups and left a generous seam allowance all around (good thing!) I sewed in one, and could see that it was still too small.  You can see the blue line where I redrew the bust curve.

Next, I added to the height by adding to the horizontal seam line across the front of each cup.  

This seemed like it would work, but I need to try it on.  My dress form is not exactly my shape, so I wanted to try this thing on my real body to make sure.  

At this point, I sewed the back pieces together and added a long zipper so I could get it on and off easily.    After trying this thing on about a dozen times, I kept making little alterations.  

My final alterations were to  do this:

(only the right cup has the final alterations on this muslin)

• Keep the size 36 lower bodice
• add 1/2 inch to the top of the lower cups and the bottom of the upper cup for a total increase of 1”
• Used a marking pen to add to the sides and center front of the cups.  A total of about one to one and a half inches.
• I also added to the lower portion of the cups which also changed the shape of the cups.  I sewed these changes in by hand and marked them with a marker after they were sewn.  (Unfortunately, I did not use permanent marker, so you can see where the ink spread when I turned my iron upside down to press a curve and water spilled out!)
• I also took a small dart in the outer part of the upper cup.  I was having a little gapping there.
• I pinned out almost an inch in the back that I all remove by making a sway back alteration to the back pieces.
• I may also have to take a little out of the side back seams, but I will be able to do that after all the layers are put together.

Now the trick will be to take this apart and make all the changes onto the new pieces.  These cup pieces are so messed up and only the right one is the correct one.  I think I will need to trace a new set of cups based on all of my changes.

Bombshell part 2 - muslin

This evening I decided to try to put my muslin together.  With anything this fitted, it is always a challenge.  I never really know what size to start with, so I decided on a 36 for the bodice and 38 for the skirt.  I knew I would need to do a FBA.  It is frustrating and discouraging when I have to keep lowering the bust point!!  Age and gravity are not always my friends ;-/

The nice thing about putting the dress together this way is that there is no worry about seam allowances since you are only working with seam lines.  The thread tracing helps you feel where those are and how they should match up.  This is very helpful on the bodice.  It is a little tricky to fit it all together, so after pinning and seeing that it wasn't' lining up right, I decided to hand baste it.  This worked perfectly and everything lined up this way.  Well, it all lined up, but that doesn't mean it will fit!  I could tell after assembling just one cup that it would be too small.  I knew I would have to do a FBA, but now I'm worried about the lower bodice.  I think the circumference will be fine.  It is the depth and location of the cups that need to be altered.

At first I thought I would need to shorten the waist and raise the center front.  I think the line for the cup is wide enough.   But, now that I think about it, I need to lower the curve of the cups.  this may be a little tricky, so I'm waiting until tomorrow to tackle this.  I think I will need daylight and a few cups of coffee to dive into this.