Enough, I Give Up...on the Pastille

Whew, it took two years for me to make that decision, but my last go at alterations got me so upset. It is to the point where I doubt I could ever enjoy wearing this dress even if I got the fit perfectly. So, I have taken the entire bodice apart, saving the faced neckline, and will use it to cut out a bodice from another pattern. Here are the gory details:

Pattern: Colette Patterns Pastille* from the Colette Sewing Handbook (2011)

Pattern Description: Fitted sheath dress with sweetheart neckline and unique cap sleeves.

Pattern Sizing: I cut out a size 6 above the waist and a size 10 and 8 below.

Were the instructions easy to follow? Yes. The Colette patterns' instructions take you through each step and have helpful illustrations.

crisp facing edges

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? I loved the shape of the neckline and how well the facings for both the neck and sleeves gave a professional finish to the dress and hid the raw workings. Unfortunately, I had other problems with the dress. The back was both too long and wide resulting in excessive fabric in the upper back. The skirt was too wide right below the widest part of my body, basically saddle-bag height. Not good.

Fabric Used: 2 1/4 yards black and white patterned spring suiting (64% polyester, 34% rayon, and 2% spandex) from Jo-Ann for $11.23 (at $4.49 per yard, orig. $5.99), 20" black regular zipper, and Pellon Sheer-Knit fusible interfacing (my new favorite notion!).

Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made: Unfortunately, this pattern unaltered did not work for my body at all. The back had far too much fabric in the upper back. After becoming increasingly frustrated with trying to fit my dress in the fashion fabric version (I even had my sister pin fit me at the holidays to no avail) I finally made the muslin that I should have made months before! After taking my full body measurements, I had discovered that the back neck to waist measurement of a misses pattern  is around 16" while mine is almost 1.5 inches shorter. Therefore, I had to take almost 2" out of the back piece (see below). I found that the back pattern piece was already longer than the front, so there was definitely too much fabric.

In the muslin, I was able to see that cutting the back pieces from the bottom or even altering the pattern at the shorten/lengthen line was never going to correct the back length. The extra length was not along the bodice side seam but in the upper back and sleeve area. When you placed the shoulder seams together, the underarm curve of the back piece was far below the front curve. After pinning up 2 inches in the area above the side seams and the start of the cap sleeve I had a corrected back which even placed the neckline lower (see above) and where it properly should lay on the body.

I used a design ruler to redraw the underarm curve. The bodice seam angled down at the sides and then back up to the middle in the back. I sewed in the darts and used a ruler to straighten the bodice seam line so that it would match the skirt. The red lines in the second photo above show where the pattern piece will be altered.

The skirt portion of the dress fit very well at the waist and over the rear, however, the curve below that was too extreme for my body, strangely reminiscent of the now popular By Hand London's Elisalex dress. However, that is not the look I had in mind. So, on the skirt I kept the waist at size 10 but had to shave off the hip curve which brought them to a size 8. Cutting out a hip size smaller than the waist size has never happened to me before since my hips are ten inches larger than my waist. It doesn't seem right.

Marking the precise pleats

However, after all of this, I decided that since I would probably not make this dress again I abandoned the muslin and decided to go ahead and make further alterations on the actual dress.

Therefore, the last alterations I subjected this fabric to were: taking the back in with two vertical tucks, essentially connecting the waist and shoulder darts and disguising them as princess seams. I cut an inch off of the back bodice length. In the front, I moved the waist darts closer to the center and used a high side bust dart to take up some more fabric. The final bodice change was an attempt to cut off the cap sleeves which were a bit awkward and didn't fit under my cardigans.

And the result? Project Fail!

04.08.2013

All that work and it still looks like this? It's not much better than it looks here, in November 2011! Remember the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Yeah, done with that. Without recutting the back and starting all over this will not improve.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? No, I will not make this again. For some body types this pattern will not work, it is made for a full-hipped hourglass with a C-cup. So, knowing that it can make a beautiful dress and the instructions are excellent. There also have been questions about the accuracy of  the draft since the majority of the people who made this dress had the same baggy back problem that I did. Therefore, I strongly suggest that you construct a muslin first.

Conclusion: I loved this fabric, the weight was perfect for a three-season dress, it took to pressing wonderfully (check out that crisp sleeve facing above) and the 2% spandex was very much appreciated as I could put the dress on without a zipper. So, I may not have a completed Pastille, but I'm also not giving up on making a dress out of its remains.

* Was meant to be item 4 of the 2011 Palette Challenge.

Progress Being Made

New pattern piece is a mash-up of Simplicity 4111 and New Look 6836

1. I made up a muslin for the "milk maid" blouse using my adapted pattern. I used the new front piece which is a size 14 with the 4111 pattern's back piece in size 12. There was some gaping at the v-neck, so I pinched about 1/4" from the inner shoulder seam and the neckline then laid flat. To the back I added shaping through two small darts at the back neckline, much like those used in vintage patterns.
   
   
   The bodice fit seems good but there is a pretty severe twisting problem with the sleeve. So, I have to deal with that before I can move on.


2. In a break from that project, I had a sudden desire to work on the Pastille pattern alteration some more. Instead of my haphazard way of decreasing the bodice back length, this time I used directions straight from "Perfect Fit: The Classic Guide to Altering Patterns." Luckily, the pages concerning these type of alterations were available online through Google Books. The first time, I had just folded out the amount I thought I needed, at least 2 inches.
   
   This time, I first taped all of the darts closed on both the front and back pieces. I then pinned them together at the shoulder and side seams. With this 3-D model, I could see exactly where the extra length was located in the pattern; midway between the shoulder and bottom of the armhole. Strangely enough, it looks like this discrepancy is built into the pattern and not just a problem for me because of my short (14.5" long) back measurement.
   
   Next step will be constructing another dress muslin using this new altered bodice, and shaving the bell-shaped skirt into a straighter skirt by reducing that unwanted width at the upper thigh.
   
   C-curves


3. I did go and do the comparison of the c-curves of my pant pattern possibilities, Vogue 9745, Vogue 2883 (these shorts), Vogue 2532, and Vogue 1922. Next I will do a comparison of the more jean-inspired patterns, the Colette Clover and Built by Wendy's Sew U jeans.
   
   Images: My own pictures

Fitting the Pastille - A New Approach

Yes, it still isn't finished. Surprised?


It's getting closer, right?

The back of the fashion fabric version was still not working, there was too much fabric in the back length-wise. After becoming increasingly frustrated with trying to fit the dress, as cut (I even had my sister try to pin-fit me at the holidays to no avail) I finally made the muslin that I should have made months before!


Major Improvement!!!

What did I learn? After taking and recording my true body measurements, I discovered that the average misses pattern has a neck to waist measurement in the back that measures 16" while mine is almost 1.5 inches shorter*. Therefore, I had to take almost 2" out of the back length (see below).



In the muslin, I was able to see that making the back shorter by cutting from the bottom or even altering the pattern at the shorten/lengthen line was not going to correct the back length the way it needed to be. The extra length was not below the armscye but throughout the back shoulder and cap sleeve area. When I placed the shoulder seams together, the underarm curve of the back piece was far below the front curve and it billowed out. After pinning up 2 inches in the area between the side seams and the cap sleeve I could see that the back neckline was now lower and in a more natural position. See the very 1st photo to see how high it was before the alteration. I also extended the back darts up to the alteration to take up some of the extra width.



I needed to change the bodice waist line to even it out from side to side. Because of the front angling down to the sides it made the dress seem like it was rising up in the front. Therefore, after I sewed the darts I used a ruler to straighten the bodice seam line so that it would match the line of the skirt.


The red marks in this photo show where the paper pattern piece will be altered.


The new bodice


The skirt portion of the dress fit well over the rear, however the curve lower on the hip was too extreme for my body. So, with the skirt portion I kept the waist at size 10 but brought the hips down to the size 8(!) and will shave some more off the hip curve so it no longer sticks out like fabric saddlebags. I might need a wee swayback alteration, bring in the waist some more and lower the bodice darts about half an inch.



Though the back alteration helped immensely, there are still three sets of drag lines on the front of this dress. I thought that altering the waistline of the bodice would eliminate the drag on the skirt, but it seems I need to bring it up even more. Perhaps I should make the side darts larger and use those to pull up the bodice sides? The third set of drag lines are just a given with cap sleeves.

Hopefully, the next time I write about the Pastille on this blog will be to reveal the finished version. By the way, the Vogue duster coat; still in its muslin phase, is being put on the back burner. There are a few separates (like my latest skirt) that I feel are more important to finish sooner than later. More on those later.

*Yeah, I don't get it either. Why 16"? Does anyone else have this problem?

Fitting The Pastille!

Pastille Fridays, part 2

Fitting Issues with my Pastille



Doesn't look that bad from the front, right? That is if you didn't know my waist was smaller than this, you wouldn't be suspicious. However, the dress is too big at the waist and directly above and below despite my measurements exactly matching the pattern measurements. Just goes to show you, it really is proportion and how your body is distributed, not the size numbers or the weight.

However, check out the back.* Despite how pretty close it fits in front that is some truly excessive fabric pooling back here. I had no idea about that until I went ahead and basted in the zipper to check. Thankfully, I do have more of this fabric if I need to cut two new back pieces (and there is still some in the stores too) However, I really don't want to redo that neckline and facing. I did a great job the first time.



I can't say this is a sway back problem because it fits great over the rear. This is more a back length problem, I think the bodice is too long for my body. The zipper is only hand-basted so I can remove that and maybe bring in the width by at least a 1/2" on both sides, deepen the darts and shorten the back bodice.

Side view. Ugh.

Also, can you see how the waistline dips down towards the back? It's even more obvious when my arms are down. At that side seam, my actual waist is at least one inch above that line. Though it might have stretched while it was on the hanger. I like the way the skirt fits so I only want to alter the back bodice pieces. Any suggestions?

These two pictures show where my actual waist is located compared to the waistline of the dress, a more than one inch difference. This is where comprehensive body measurements or a muslin could have really helped me out.*



That is why I started to look up information on taking your correct body measurements that can be compared to pattern pieces before a muslin is cut out.* I will be writing about that in another post that will include all the online and print resources that I have found.

*I promise I will never NOT make a muslin again!

Stitching The Pastille!

In honor of The Colette Sewing Handbook showing up in stores and mailboxes a bit earlier than expected (NOW!) I am going to let you in on my time constructing one of the new dress patterns in the book. In fact, it just happens to be the dress on the front cover. Enjoy the journey.

Part 1

In the spring, I responded to a request from Sarai of Colette Patterns for pattern testers. I had tested the Oolong dress for her before. This time I was offered two patterns from her upcoming book, The Colette Sewing Handbook. Licorice, a loose shift-like dress with sash and draped collar and Pastille, a fitted sheath dress with a modified sweetheart neckline and petal-like cap sleeves.

While I liked both designs, Pastille called out to me because I could see it fulfilling an important purpose in my wardrobe. I saw it as a potential job interview dress. Professional, non-fussy, classic, but with a non-corporate vintage edge. Styled with a cool vintage enamel brooch this dress would be great in my wardrobe, pretty and feminine enough for a dinner date but also appropriate for more serious occasions.

I will be posting a traditional review of this dress (see the teaser at left) later but I wanted to write in more detail about what I learned while making it. As it turns out I found myself trying out some new techniques when constructing my version of the Pastille dress.


My new pattern weights

My first move was to go to Home Depot and buy some metal washers. These would be my new pattern weights instead of straight pins. At first, I only saw the small ones that weighed nothing but eventually I found the heavy steel/zinc 5/8" size which were perfect. I now have 14 of them at only $.46 each! They work wonderfully in holding down your fabric and I've already used them on stretchy Lycra knits. In addition, re-positioning of the pattern is now quick and easy.

The second new thing I did was use clear tape to help out my dart making abilities. I have never been able to sew a straight dart, they always veer off course and end up where they're not meant to end. This time I replicated the dart lines from the pattern using a straight piece of tape instead of straight pins. Then I could just sew along the edge of the tape. So fabulous and my darts for this project were perfect.

Then I used my new friend (adhesive tape) to mark the three horizontal pleats along the bottom half of the skirt. The instructions say to thread trace the lines but I first wanted to make sure my lines were straight. I didn't have any fabric markers that would show up on this fabric so I used my design ruler and laid tape exactly where the lines were needed. With two contrasting colors of thread I then hand basted across the three skirt pieces right next to the edge of the tape, resulting in perfectly straight lines of stitching. For maximum visibility, I used yellow and orange thread to mark the different rows and I loved the resulting contrast on the dark gray fabric. Perhaps I'll use the same technique as a permanent feature on a future project.

However, this project used up a lot of tape, so next time I will be using painter's tape. It has a very low adhesive factor so that it can be used again at least two more times. Not as wasteful.

Coming up: Fitting issues with the Pastille.