TV 423 Two-Toned Bodice (Airship hostess) Part 7 "A New Hope"

Now that I completed the skirt, it was time to face the music again. I knew that the armscye needed lots of adjustments, but I put the bodice back on the dress form to see if there was anything I wanted to change since I was not committed to a complete redo from the pattern up.

The view from the back looks pretty good:

But you can see from the side view, that I need to drop the waist and take in the back peplum area:

I pinned out some of the excess in the back and tightened up the waist (effectively moving the narrowest part of the back waist farther down).

It's a little hard to see in the photo because I had to pin out, but the fit was much improved.

Since I was going to redo the whole thing anyway, I decided to redraft the front to bring the contrast section a little more narrow and closer in line with the concept drawing. This means a narrower center front and a wider side front:

Those adjustments made, it was time to transfer the changes back to the pattern. Again. This time I want to focus on the armscye fit, so I decided to trace off my sloper so that I could cut it up into a more princess seam shape and see where that put the arm hole.

tracing the sloper:

paper copy that I can cut up

Deciding how much to drop the waist:

D'oh! I forget to add a seam allowance at the neck edge (the sloper has no seam allowances). Maybe that is part of the reason the collar wasn't sitting right:

Widening the side front:

Narrowing the center bust & adding 1/2" to front opening (I want a little more wiggle room for the buttons).

And here's where all my troubles began

Seriously, you mean I have to read all the directions?

That's right friends, up until now I had been using 5/8" seam allowances on all muslins and the final version except where the instructions made a note about 1/2" seams. I bet if I could go back in time and start again with true 1/2" seams, most of my fitting problems might have resolved themselves. I have a brief moment where I thought that I might be able to just resew the current bodice, but then I remembered the clipped seams and the unfixable armscye.

Oh well.

I resolved to sew this muslin with 1/2" seam allowances and I expected things to be a little loose in the front, as I had transferred all the 1/8" seam increases I made as I was desperately trying to save the latest version. I saw how fast extra ease gotten eaten up with the lining and I'm going to add poly boning on this version, which will also add some bulk. I can take things in if it's still too loose in parts later.

muslin 2.0

Here is the latest muslin in ticking:

The back looks good and I like the extra length. It will make me look taller.

The side view reveals the extra room at the front. Some of these seams are now adding in 1/2" instead of 1/4" because I added the extra 1/8" to the cutting line before I realized that I would sew 1/2" seams instead of 5/8" seams. I'm sure some of this will come back out later.

I now have a 1 1/2" overlap in the front. 1/2" will be seam allowance, leaving me with 1" instead of 1/2" for the buttons. I like having the extra room for now.

Tonight I will try tacking in some boning and trying it on my body. If nothing looks outrageous, I look at sleeves again.

Question: do we want to keep a burgundy collar or do we want to go with a bronze collar so that it is more visible?