Progress resumes.

After weeks off, I am back on the Crepe dress and making progress. This weekend I made the final pattern adjustments and cut out the fabric for my semi-final dress.

I am embarrassed to admit that I have more patterns tucked into my sewing closet that have gone through a few rounds of fitting adjustments only to be tossed aside than I care to fess up to. Scroll through the "sewing" label of this blog and you will find dress after bodice after blouse started but, um, never finish...? It's a sorry way to behave and still call myself a sewing enthusiast. But so many rounds of pattern adjustments get so tedious. But today, to fight the trend, I picked up the Crepe dress and resumed progress. After all, this dress is showing great promise.

I have now finished four muslins, and at this point I am both a bit tired of AND a bit addicted to futzing around with them. Every time I think I am almost there, I get to staring in a mirror, noticing flaws, pinching here and there, and in general just futzing around in an attempt to fix the fit to perfection. In fact, I almost went for a fifth muslin, until I decided I should just make the darn dress and wear it a bit to see if I like the general fit first. There are still some wrinkles here and there, some slight puckering and pooling above the bust near the armpit and such, but it's pretty darn good. Perhaps I am critiquing more my shape and body texture rather than the fit of the dress in the name of pattern fitting (Oh that I could only shrinking my tummy or perk up my bust as easily as a pattern adjustment. Just some slashing and spreading here, some trimming off seam allowance there, and viola I look like an hourglass-shaped model!).

As far as what it took to get to the final bodice, I have made so many pattern adjustments at this point I am not entirely sure I can document them all. I may create a summary post and try to consolidate all four muslin adjustments into one neat list, so I can reference for future adjustments. In hindsight, perhaps I should have used the size 16 or even the 14 bodice, grading to the 18 at the waist and doing a much larger full bust adjustment. Then the shoulders and back may have fit better, and I could have adjusted the bust alone. But this seemed to work in the end.

I am nervous to cut into my $125 worth of fancy fabric, so I am sewing the whole darn dress up in an old sheet first. If it works, I will be able to dress like a daffodil for spring. If not, I have reserved the beautiful fabric for something that will.

How many of you have to kneel uncomfortably on the floor and use jam jars and cans of refried beans as pattern weights? Oh, the things we do for sewing.