Dyed Dress

I dyed the dress last night by squising it into a rope, twisting it and wrapping it around a pvc pipe. I used rubber bands to hold the dress on the pipe. I used a pre-mixed royal blue and squirted it on all the exposed fabric. I then let it batch until this morning when I un-twisted, hand rinsed twice and then washed and dryed the dress. The colors are a bit spotty so I will probably overdye in a semi-even way with the same dye. The already dyed areas will darked but the contrast should be more pleasing.

The picture below is an opening in the right side seam for pump tubing. With no pockets I will need something to anchor the pump, but at least I have an opening for the tubing. I will probably try a safety pin first, if that works I will then look at a permanent attachment for the pump.

Finished Dress

The picture above is the cut out sleeve with the basic sleeve on top. Below is a picture of the finished dress before dyeing.

The dress form isn't shaped exactly like me, the dress fits a bit better on me. The dress is going into the washer tonight and hopefully will be dyed before work tomorrow.

Cross-over bodice changes and adding a skirt

Last weekend I moved some of the armhole dart to the under bust gathers. I also shortened the bodice a bit. I have the hopefully wearable muslin bodice ready to gather. The neckline is finised as are the shoulder and side seams. The next step is to gather the bodice and sew it to some twill tape to stabilize the seam before I add the skirt.

Last night I cut out the skirt. I measured the length of the bodice front to determine where to start the skirt on my princess line block. I decided I wanted a dress and not a top so I lengthed the skirt to be 36 inches below the pattern waistline. This may be too long but I would rather cut off extra than end up with the dress too short.

No pictures yet but I took some of the side back pattern pinned on the fabric and the new cutting lines for the skirt drawn on the fabric.

Drafting a crossover empire waist bodice

Someone on Stitcher's Guild asked how others used a sloper. I am working on bodice for the Pattern Review My Pattern contest and just drafted the bodice yesterday. Here are the details.

My bodice sloper is an armhole princess. I placed the side and center fronts together, matching at the bust point. I moved the side front so some of the dart equivalent in the princess seam formed an armhole dart with the remaining dart amount under the bustline.

If I were starting from a darted block, I would have rotated 1/2 the dart amount to the armhole and half to where a waistline dart would go.

I placed my tracing fabric over the positioned pattern pieces. I traced the armhole leaving the stitching line for the dart unmarked. I also traced the neckline, center front and side seam and marked the apex. These were traced on the seamline, not the cutting line. I then determined where I wanted the waistline and marked that seamline with a curved ruler. The sloper pieces were then removed from underneath the new pattern.

I folded the pattern at the center front and traced the waistline out several inches. The neckline was next, I measured (on me) how high the v-neck needed to be so the neckline wasn't too low. I then drew in a slightly curved line from the neckline just below the shoulder seam to the extended waistline. I measured back from the apex and marked the point of the dart and drew dart lines out beyond the armhole seamline. I folded the dart, and traced the armhole seam in the dart from the armhole seam below the dart.

I then put the side and center backs together in a smilier way leaving the dart excess unmarked at the waistline. The dart amount for my back is minimal and often not needed.

I added seam allowances around using my normal amounts (2 cm on shoulder and side seams, 1.5 cm on armhole and 1 cm on neckline).

The first muslin showed the waist was un-even and the bust gathers were too close to the center front. I pinned waistline changes so the waist was even and marked where the gathers should be moved to. I made a second muslin and basted the underbust gathers. The waistline now even but was too low. I also needed waist darts in the back. I measured how much to shorten the waistline and pinned darts in the back at the waist so I knew what size darts I needed. I made those adjustments to my pattern and have started to cut out a test bodice. I am using fabric I will wear if the pattern works okay that will be okay if it doesn't work.

The 1st muslin was off the bolt I bought last fall when Joann's had muslin on a good sale. That muslin was a bit stiff for this design so I used some softer muslin I had left from a gored skirt muslin/slip. In addition to muslin I buy $1 and $2 fabric from Walmart and check the red tag section at Joann's when it is 50% off.