Fitting, argh!!!!

Warning this is a word heavy post, but please do read it as I am in desperate need of some moral support, help me please!

Every so often I think to myself, “oh Laura, why are you so rubbish at getting your sewing projects underway?” 

Yes I have a bit of a thing against cutting out, all stemming from a childhood inability to follow the dotted line (I couldn’t colour-in very neatly either). But I am tackling that problem and have done ok, for example it only took me a month to get round to cutting out my Beignet.

But yet I avoid starting new projects like a small boy avoids bathtime.  And I had forgotten why, until last weekend when I decided to crack on with fitting the bodice for my frappuccino summer dress (I’ve decided to name it after my favourite summertime drink, plus the polka dot print is a light coffee colour so it ties in nicely).

My biggest fitting problem (figuratively and literally as well I’m afraid) is my boobies.  Previously mentioned here I struggle with full bust adjustments, and yet again the problem has re-emerged. 

The bodice I am fitting can be strapless or has straps that you adjust to fit you, so there’s no shoulder seam to hang the muslin from to gauge what length/width I need to add. 


The dress I am trying to make

 As far as I know you pin the muslin or tissue to the shoulder and the side seams when fitting and work out the extra width you need by measuring the distance from the pattern/muslin centre front to your actual centre front.  This also helps you work out if you need more length.  This is tricky to do with a strapless bodice as I have no clue how high the pattern is supposed to sit.

So I basically put the muslin as high as I wanted it and went from there.  Also I forgot to lower the bust fullness on the princess seam before making the muslin, so worked out where the fullness should be, then calculated the amount needed for the FBA by lowering the actual fullest part of the bodice to the right place, re-pining it there, and working out the distance needed to reach the centre front.

Confused?  I know I am.

Right so after all that I went back to my pattern pieces.  Firstly I moved the fullness down on the pattern piece based on the line I drew on muslin one.


lowering bust fullness

 Then I did an FBA.  I did have a look at the fab tutorial from Sewaholic.  I also referred a lot to Monkeysocks' post on bust fullness and FBA’s on a princess seam.  But these resources couldn’t help me as much as I would have liked.  This is because my princess seam is very much to side, whereas the standard princess seam sits on (or very close to) your apex.  So the standard FBA  is done on the side bodice piece, but my adjustment really needed to be on the front piece as thats where all my bust fullness was.  The main fitting book I use, Fit For Real People said that you can add to the front piece as well as the side if the princess seam is closer to the side.  I’d looked at the fit of my muslin and kinda guessed whether the room was needed at the side or the front.  I went for the front so did a different type of FBA, thankfully my book FFRP explained the process.


My FBA

 Lastly I added an inch in length to all the bodice pieces as my FBA didn't add any length and muslin number one was too short.


adding length

This is muslin number 2.  Does it look ok?

No it blinking doesn't.  The FBA created a massive amount of excess fabric at the front so this whole top is basically now a shapeless bag!

Not only that but the FBA also added an extra triangle of space near the side seam when doing the whole slash/spread thing.

In the book states that this spread will be minor, and gives no instruction to alter the side piece to account for the extra length in the seam, however on my piece it's almost half an inch longer than before the FBA, so now matching the front seams to the side seams is really hard, hence all the bumpy bits round the bust. 

I have pretty much run out of time to do anything to sort this out and sew up the actual dress before my holiday  so that plan was a big fail.

I’m not experienced at noticing fitting problems when trying on a muslin and have found tissue fitting impossible so have given up on that.  I don’t know how to fix any problems I do spot, and I am constantly confounded because I feel like the problems I have aren’t shown in books or online tutorials.

I am pulling my hair out, not least because as much as I love reading all the other sewing blogs out there it feels like everyone else breezes through these fitting issues and churns out dresses like there's no tomorrow.  Why do I find this process so hard?

The reason why I haven't made any dresses recently

Boobs! 

Or to be more precise, the cursed fact that patterns are made for a bust size about 100 times smaller than my own.  I actually decided to start sewing my own clothes because all the cute little summer dresses I liked never fitted me, blouses and shirts I wanted to buy always gaped and showed things they shouldn’t, and I resented having to buy clothes that didn’t fit properly or splash my cash on speciality companies' clothes which cost a lot more.  I wanted to make things that fitted me properly!

Now the irony is that my bust is again the thing holding me back from making all the dresses I have bought patterns for, such as the ones below.

To explain why involves 2 examples of things I have made that don’t quite work [in my opinion anyway].

Exhibit A

This is the very first piece of clothing I made, which I completed in the sewing class I was going to at the time.  It’s view A of Burda 7798.

Apart from finishing the neckline it was pretty easy to sew.  The neckline was basically bias bound but the way they instructed you to do it had me totally confused and even both of my teachers were head scratching and furrowing their brows for a couple of minutes before they figured it out.

But anyway back to the problem.  I made no adjustments to the pattern even though I knew the bodice might not fit my bust, but it was my first ever garment so I just wanted to get on with the sewing.

The bodice should end just below the bust (empire line stylee) but in my case it stops about 2/3rds of the way down.  And it isn't exactly roomy for me either.

It’s not massively visible, but I know the seam is there!  Plus it just doesn’t sit right on me; I can feel it even if it doesn’t show that badly.  I wear this dress at home but have only worn it out once.  It just felt too weird and uncomfortable, like I was basically wandering around naked, so it has not got past my front door ever again!

Exhibit B

Now this dress I made all by myself. from New Look 6557.

This pic was taken during the same "shoot" as my reversible apron, and was taken at the point when my boyfriend got bored and wanted to try taking pics from strange angles.  You can see from the expression on my face how much I was enjoying this!

This dress was also actually surprisingly easy to make, apart from a fiddly facing turning inside out weird bit about half-way through.  It's also really nice, and i do like quite a few of the different bodice views (especially view E).

On this dress I knew the bodice would fall far too high on my bust so planned ahead and bought myself a pattern fitting book and did a full bust adjustment (ah ha, take that B-cup patterns!).

Here’s a pic of it, looks fancy right?

Now to also try and be all big and clever I did a toile / muslin / prototype [whatever you want to call it], of the main bodice.

The first one still hit me too high on the bust, but was pretty good in terms of boob coverage.  So I did another, bigger full bust adjustment and tried again.  Now the second prototype was made, and alarm bells should have rung.  The bodice is gathered to make it look all pretty and the FBA made tonnes of extra gathering, too much in fact on prototype 2.  But it fit fine length-wise. 

BTW, The FBA I used was from the book Fit for Real People, by Pati Palmer & Marta Alto.  It gives you width and length but ultimately keeps the side seams the same length so they still match with back pieces, and I think it is a good method to use.

What is should have done now was keep FBA 1 from prototype 1 but increase the length of the bodice a smidge.  Only then it wouldn’t have matched up at the side seams with the back bodice.  So I didn’t do that as it confused me.

So instead the dress was made with FBA 2 and alas, I feel like there is too much bagginess in the gathering.  It makes my bust look at least and inch bigger just because of the extra fabric. 

Well I did wear this dress on holiday (but have no pics to prove it), but wore it only once as again I felt like a weirdo, and was just constantly paranoid everyone “knew” I was wearing a home made dress (as if that is something to scorn and stigmatise someone for)!  In reality if anyone knew it was homemade (but how would they “know”?) I doubt they would have run up to me pointing and yelling and shooing me off like I carried the plague, but I just felt like they would!

And since then I’ve been too scared to make any dresses.  Admittedly both dresses are a bit long so I feel a bit frumpy in them, and should really adjust the hems.  But I hate hemming so haven't bothered yet. 

The whole FBA process has totally confused me though.  I know I need to add a bit more length after doing an FBA, but do I extend the back bodice pieces too, because surely that’ll make the bodice slant backwards.  If I don't make the back longer then how do I match the side seams of the back and front bodice, as the front bodice will be longer than the back?  And what about any waist or skirt pieces (depending on the pattern) that attach to the bodice.  Do I need to shorten them to account for lengthening the bodice?

Oh I don’t know and my head hurts just thinking about it.  Curse you B cup pattern makers, you’ve beaten me.

Can anyone offer advice on this issue?  As it is seriously holding me back at the mo.  I love dresses and to make my own, that I can wear down the road and not feel self conscious in, would be lovely.