Swing Dress: Muslin #1

Well. It was a productive weekend, I believe. Friday was the day that I revamped my bodice pattern with the sba tutorial that Casey had put online for everyone. On Sunday, she posted a note about her measurements being a little off, and I think I need to take out a bit more (maybe another half inch) from my bodice. But her instructions were great and I am not as hesitant to try my hand at this again. I cut out my muslin with extra seam allowance and then I was off.

I spent most of Saturday putting the pieces together on the bodice until I got to the fourth instruction I was supposed to do and then it all came to a screeching halt. Put the shoulder seam together. Oh, okay—no problem. But! It has you do it all crazy. I found out after, I was not the only one with problems putting this thing together. I studied Latin and ancient Greek in college, so I think I am a smart girl. For some reason this one sentence made no sense at all to me.

I literally thought about it for two days straight. Night and day. I did finally end up getting it, but for those reading this, if you are having a tough time, hopefully these pics will help you :)

The instructions tell you to press under the seam allowance on the shoulder and facing seam. Then you took your bodice back and placed on top of your bodice front. My initial instinct was to pin right sides together from the back of the bodice (wrong sides out), as per every other pattern I have done. But in this one, you never sew the seam on the wrong side of the fabric. You start pinning from the *right side* of the fabric (which was what was getting me) and topstitch only from the edge of the shoulder to where the shoulder meets the facing.

Once that hurdle was crossed, the rest was pretty straight forward. There is a lot of topstitching in this pattern, actually most of the seams are topstitched. This is my first encounter with this kind of construction and I will have to see how my fashion fabric reacts to this.

And speaking of my fashion fabric, after much deliberation and outside influence I am now happy with my black fabric. I think it will be fun. I did what Evelyn suggested to do and draped myself with all the fabrics in question. Yes, this is what I do when left by myself :) I almost posted all the pics for it was quite a sight. Maybe next fabric indecision...which will be soon, I am sure ;)

Okay. Here is the first muslin. What do I need to do?

Still looks too big in the bodice. And maybe too long?? Like I said above, I need to adjust the sba to take out more fabric.  And I also think that I should move the gathers over, although this may need to be adjusted after the sba. Is that the right place for the belt, you think?

Bunchy in the back. Again, I assume I will need to take fabric out of the back bodice as well.

Is the front bodice too long? Yuck. Thank god for muslin :)

This is when I took the extra fabric and pinched it out at the top of the bodice. That is what it is supposed to look like, right?

So that is where I am right now. Any suggestions would be helpful. I will start redrafting the pattern pieces tomorrow. I think that is enough self-abuse for one day.