Vintage Pattern Finally Finished!

Yeah! It is finally done!! It took me a while because we were making life decisions at the same time, but I have triumphed! Of course, I am also getting it in just under the wire.

First a list of changes that I made to this pattern-

1. Graded up just a little in the back only.
2. FBA on the front.
3. Swayback alteration in the back.
4. Really deepened the darts on front to give the bodice more of the shape on the drawing.
5. Pegged in the hem about 2 inches on each side, again to give it more of the look in the drawing.
6. And this is the big one- FTA (full tummy alteration, for those that don't know.) This was a big one because I did muslin after muslin and just couldn't get the front to drape right. I kept getting wrinkles that just wouldn't go away.


Can you see what I mean? After much research, what I found was that I had to do the FTA. It has been a while since I seriously sewed for myself and so this was a new one for me. In all the books I read, they recommend staying away from darts altogether with this flaw, but the dress has 2 front darts on each side. What I ended up doing was cutting the front skirt off and redraping it with only one dart. So, the front bodice and skirt are now actually 2 pieces instead of the 1 the pattern originally had. But, this works perfectly! No strange wrinkles!

I meant to take photos of this process, but with the upcoming cross country move, I have been rather preoccupied.

Anyway, here are more photos of the dress- they are kind of difficult to see because of the dark grey fabric and the fact that my photographer is only 15 and doesn't know about lighting, but beggars can't be choosers and she did a great job overall!



Full front



Full back



Hem done with seam binding as per the instructions.



Close up of the neck pleats.



And the elbow darts!