Pepin Draped Bodice Sloper

And here is the sloper mentioned in the last post though I wasn't expecting it to work so I didn't take photos of the process, just the end result, as far I have got with it. 

The bodice was draped on one half of the model form, aka Twiggy, with the selvage edge forming the centre front and centre back.  The Centre front was pinned well into place first, then the muslin smoothed over the form and pinned into place.   The excess fabric on the front was then formed into a dart.  I did the armholes last because this is a bit difficult on Twiggy as she has a few underarm issues thanks to a problem with the cast when she was first made. 

Once everything was in place and pinned, seam lines and darts were marked with red pen before the muslin was unpinned and all the lines smoothed out.  Transferred it to card (lining paper actually) so it can be drawn around.  When I am totally sure its absolutely done, it will go onto heavy card.  For now I think its still a work in progress.  I deviated a bit from instructions after this point in that I made tissue and paper copies at every stage of the process so that if I made an error, I could back track to the earlier stage and try again, without losing any of the original work I'd done.  This turned out to be a good plan when I suffered dart lack of confidence this evening and was able to find an old tissue version to trace and play with to compare with the "currently finished" result. 
At each stage I marked up a half sloper on tissue/card but used it to cut a full front and full back in muslin for trying on.  I drew pen lines down the grain line of the muslin first then folded the fabric on that line exactly so that I had CF and CB marks to ensure everything was hanging straight and centred on the body. 

It took a couple of tries to get the darts into the place they are currently in.  They started out rather off grain and weren't in the most flattering place.  In particular, you can see on the back that the darts were originally hugely long and have been let out so they are the same length as the front darts.  I also made sure my darts had the straight of grain running up the centre so the legs were equidistant.  However, the practice sloper drawing, and the drafted sloper, show one leg almost parallel to the grain and the other slanted.  I thought that would make darts with unequal legs so they won't fit together, and it does.  However, the drafting instructions said to shorten the angled line to match the straighter one.  So, I had a bit of a play this evening and the end result wasn't hugely different to the original version.  I will probably make a muslin trial up to see if it makes a difference to the way the garment hangs on the body.

On the first muslin I had to alter the armhole line somewhat due to the problems of drawing this accurately on the form. Much easier to feel where the armhole should be, on your body.    Finally, I had to lengthen and straighten off the waist line because the darts had distorted it a bit and my dressform has her waistline marked in slightly the wrong place. 
I made a second muslin to check the alterations and found that I had a lot of ease over the abdomen which I hadn't noticed on the previous muslin.  Looking at the draft, the side seams were not shaped   yet. I had thought the draping would automatically shape this area but it didn't, or I should say, it didn't shape them enough for my figure.  Looking at the drafted version in the book, that isn't shaped either.  I shaped my side seams to get a close fit and am still not sure whether that was the right thing to do or whether I should have tried to get all the shaping just from the dart.

Taking in the sides created a gaping section on the front armhole which I darted out. I think this was partly due to my odd arm conformation and poor posture but also, the book does state that this may be required for a sleeveless draft, which, currently, this one is.  It also notes the need for a smaller armhole in a sleeveless garment.   I was particularly interested to note that when I pinched out the armhole dart, it automatically formed a perfect line with the top of the waist dart, in line with the bust point,  creating the beginnings of an armhole princess line.  I didn't have to try to do this, the excess just wanted darting out in that way.  Pretty cool I thought.  So I've drawn in my armhole dart, but not cut it out from the card sloper.  It will be notched at the end and I've made a small hole at the dart end point so I can poke a marking pin/pen/chalk through. 

 I made one last version of the sloper in muslin to completely check the fit, and to test shortening the back darts.  This is the set I remembered to take photos of and which are shown here.  You can see in the photos where I shortened the back darts as well as the neat way the armhole and waist darts want to meet up in a seam.  I also pinned the skirt and bodice slopers together to see if they would work, and they fit together just fine.  Both seem to be a success at this stage.  Not totally perfect, but I think the closest I have come yet to a workable sloper.  Also it may be slightly too tightly fitted on the waist now that I look at it again so could be catching a little there and failing to fall quite correctly.