Summer Dress

Now the blocks are done I wanted to see how well they worked so I've drafted a summer dress using my hip length block.  This is the block I worked from.   The darts have only been partially cut out to keep the block stable, and  the rest of the dart lines have been marked with a line of holes punched with a blunt sewing needle which will hopefully allow me to mark the dart lines reasonably easily when using the block for further designs. 

I started with what I thought would be the easiest style; a shift dress.  All I had to do was extend the hip length sloper, and cut it apart on the lines, which you should be able to see running between the darts,  add seam allowances, and voila.  Things were less straightforward however, thanks to a visit from the stupid fairy. 

Things I should have thought of before I cut the fabric:

Ease - I should have added some.  Both design and wearing ease.

Hem width - I should have checked I would be able to walk normally in it.

Facings - Forgot to draft any and then ran out of fabric so I couldn't have cut them out anyway.

Shoulder seams - should be placed together to see if they make a smooth curve around the armhole before cutting the garment and finding it has a pointed "sleevelet" at the shoulder seam. 

Pride comes before a fall - there is a reason why all the books tell you to cut it out in muslin first.  Even if you drafted it to your measurements. Especially if you only own two lengths of fabric that are suitable for making dresses. 

Note to Self;  this is about the tenth time you have tried to make a shift dress.  You hate yourself in them.  You do NOT look like Audrey Hepburn.  You will never look like Audrey Hepburn.  You do, however, look like a very poorly dressed drag queen.  Seriously, just stop with the shift dresses. 

And thus, my dress was consigned to the bin, unphotographed and unmourned, except for the fact that I had wasted one of the two suitable lengths of dress weight cotton in my stash.

Cue round Two.  A copy of a flared, A line dress from an out of print Vogue pattern.  This is the dress I was copying.

The fabric is Liberty Lawn and it was one of my very earliest sewing adventures.   It came out too large, something I only discovered when I tried it on for the first time .... at the hemming stage! I was going to wear the dress to a friend's wedding, didn't have anything else to wear and made the dreadful discovery the day before the wedding.  Mum rode to the rescue with some judicious darts and despite the back fitting really badly, I've worn it every summer for the last sixteen years.  No one seems to notice the poor fit, nor that the dress isn't the latest style.   People see the fabric and all flaws are forgiven.  Possibly there is a lesson in that somewhere.

Over time I attacked that poor Vogue pattern several times, trying to make it fit but since I hadn't traced it, the original became such a nightmare of tissue additions, cryptic notes and multiple coloured lines that it was impossible to rescue and had to be thrown away. 
This copy is just an homage really.  The original has armhole princess lines whilst my copy has shoulder princess seams, the original has a bit more flare in the skirt and a wider and squarer neckline.  Though I suspect the squared neckline owes more to a set of darts placed to avoid sight of my breakfast when I leaned forward, than to any plan on the part of the pattern designer. 
Things I should have thought about before I cut the fabric, since it would seem that the stupid fairy was still very much in residence;

Shoulder princess seams are supposed to meet at the shoulder, ideally somewhere around the middle of the shoulder.  They are not supposed to be massively off-set.   If you notice this error on muslin one, it is probably best to alter the pattern before you cut out muslin two. 

If the bodice doesn't fit nicely in the shift dress version, it isn't going to magically look fabulous in the flared version.
If your original shift dress pattern was much too tight in the hips and gave you the appearance of an overstuffed sausage, its probably best to add ease BEFORE you do anything else.  Just because its got lots of flare in the hem, doesn't mean it has lots of room in the hips.  You saw this when you drew the pattern out.  You still went ahead and drew the pattern with the flare starting one and a half inches below the waist. Oddly enough, just about at the point where the whole overstuffed sausage thing was starting to happen.  You were very surprised when your bottom failed to fit comfortably into your dress.  Why was this?     
And so it was that muslin two was consigned to the bin, unphotographed because I forgot to do it and mourned mainly because I'd used the only remaining piece of suitable fabric in the stash. 

Cue work on muslin three,which was constructed in a sheet procured, it would appear, from Stains R Us.  Such disgusting fabric naturally ensured a result that needed only minimal tweaking.  

And here is the almost finished muslin, with the tweaks pinned into it. 

 The red facings were from muslin two.  There seemed no point creating a new set when I'd already cut those out.  The red zipper was purchased, of course, for muslin two.

The dress doesn't pull across the back when its on me.  Twiggy has oddly cast arms and they have an effect on how fitted garments show on her. 

You can see where the side seams have been pinned in a bit to rectify gaping on the armholes.
I think if you look closely you can see the pin lines for re-drawing the armholes to stop them from chafing the front of my arms, and the front seams have been taken in a little under the bust to give a more flattering silhouette.  The shoulder princess seams now meet over the shoulder and extra ease has been added to the side seams below the waist, one eighth of an inch to each piece (and boy was that a fun amount to stick to the side of the tissue pieces). 

I am planning the purchase of some nice but not overly expensive fabric to try and make this in a wearable form.  Hopefully I won't find yet another undiscovered fault.  

Can any of you see anything that needs to be fixed?