Drafting a dress - 2

First I’d like to thank those of you who commented on my recent posts. I have a few very regular commenters (extra thanks!) and recently I’ve seen quite a few new names too. Welcome to my blog and please share your thoughts. In a time that blogging is regarded obsolete by some it’s nice to know this is still a lively community.

Back to the story of the dress. I’ve cut and basted the dress and there was a moment of disappointment. The pleats did not form a nice fold, there is too much fabric. Worse even, the neckline was gaping a lot. So much that I don’t want to share a photo.

I think the pleats are just too long. As I said, I’ve drafted this dress two years ago and I’m not sure now whether I took out the space of the darts. Well, better too long than too short. I hope that these will be fine with some manipulation.

Part of the gaping is probably caused by my figure. If I would have an A or B cup it wouldn’t be so bad, but there is a bit more to cover. It would be fine if I could put on the dress and stand completely still all day. Don’t know about you, but that’s not the way I spend my days.

It was mainly the right front that was pulled away.
As you can see in the first picture of my previous post, I drafted a straight line to the waistline from the point where the left and front cross in the neckline. That is probably the main problem . The right front is not “anchored” properly. Back to the draft and making sure the right front is attached to the left side. Below again the sketch of what I did on a block from a book.

Instead of going down to the waistline, I extended the right front to the left side, keeping the line below the bust point (in this drawing on the bust point).

I moved the top of the waist darts to the bust point. Something I’ve learned in Suzy Furrer’s classes (I keep referring to her classes, I learned a lot from those). She either uses a high or a lower point for the waist dart, depending on what you want to do with the pattern.

. The waist dart on the left side is cut out, the legs of the dart can be placed together, thus removing that dart (cutting one dart leg and moving over would have been enough, but thought this might be clearer).

In the next picture the left waist dart is closed, as is the shoulder dart. The space of the shoulder dart is moved to the bust dart. That’s the extra space you see there under the original bust dart. That’s one option to get rid of the shoulder dart.

A second option to remove the shoulder dart is to move the space to the waist dart.

The last is what I’m doing. Keeping the original bust dart and use a wider waist dart. It will be covered by the pleats of the left front panel.

I’ve tried this extension on the front by cutting it from a piece of silk organza (thinking I might keep it that way) and have basted it to the front, waistline and side. A huge improvement. I will however re-cut the right front.

Hopefully I’ll get some sewing done this weekend, but I’m not sure.