I couldn’t help the charm of those lines, the temptation of making a perfect light and fresh summer dress. And with a sewalong going it was impossible to stop myself from buying this pattern, which had 15% discount at that moment. If I didn’t have any reasons before to buy a new pattern, those were enough for me.
I printed the pattern and placed all the pieces together on our living room floor. Good that I was alone at that moment, because it covered almost completely the room floor (have I ever mentioned we live in a small apartment?). After assembling them and cutting them with some allowance, I traced the bodice on tracing paper, just in case I needed to make modifications. I cut the muslin in a very cheap fabric I bought for this (€1/m) which was stained even after being washed. I don’t even want to know where it came from and I just want it to make muslins, so I’m not going to think further about it. My bust size is a 2, waist is a 4 and hips even larger, but since the dress will be loose there, only bust and waist matter. I cut a size 2 to see the effect.
After sewing the muslin, during which process my machine almost gave me a headache, since it started to go only backwards (after unmounting the sewing plate it went to normal again), I saw that there was something wrong with that shape.
I apologize beforehand for the pictures of my muslins. They were taken, as you can see, with my phone camera, and as it was previously demonstrated, it’s a pretty bad one. Anyway, it’s enough to have an approximate idea. The darts are too low there, what makes the bodice look baggy. I raised them 2 cm and the result is much better. In the following picture I have the muslin inside out to be able to pin and check whether it improves the shape.
The waist was not bad, in fact I could stick with a size 2, but probably a bit more room there won’t hurt, so I decided to grade the shape to a size 4 for the waist. Consequently, I’ll make also a size 4 for the skirt to avoid any matching issues.
I’m still not sure about the neckline. I usually like necklines a bit lower than this, but I guess if you lower this one, you will lose a bit the shirty feeling of it.
And you? What are your modifications to the pattern?