Tuesday 20 April 2010

Walkaway dress alterations: Post 2 - The Frankenstein dress

Hey folks. It's another exciting installment of the Walkaway dress saga. Today I introduce you to Frankenstein dress. To make all those alterations I discussed before I have added several pieces of fabric to the original pattern to make room for the alterations. I could have started from scratch but that would be awful wasteful. So I merrily began tacking extra bits on. I took in the shoulder, lowered the neckline, extended and raised the front and back armholes.

Now this first picture is still not the most flattering of things. It just doesn't pull in at my waist quite like I want. I could alter the darts but Spadger had a cunning idea involving long ties attached to where the closures should go so I can wrap it around me several times like an Obi belt and tie it where ever I feel like that day. This will allow me to cinch it in a bit more.



Now lets ignore the fact that I have the middle pinned very badly and admire my bust instead. The dart that is. What a difference it has made. No more weird bagging. Also no odd little cap sleeves (apologies if you like cap sleeves, they've never really done a lot for me. I'm broad enough in the shoulder thank you without drawing extra attention to it!) Plus a slightly lower neckline. Now I know it's not much but I think it sits in a much better place on me.







Lastly another gratuitous armpit shot. If you look real close you can just see the edge of my bra. Just. Much better than the gaping hole we had before.



All in all a success I think. What I will do now is pick this apart, cut the darts out so I can draw them in directly and cut the "good" half of the front piece off. These will then form my pattern pieces. The only other alteration I would like to make is to extend the front pieces so they actually meet at the back. At the moment I would have to use a tie to close it up which I think might me more visible now it's higher. However this will depend on how much material I have to work with.

1 comment:

  1. Looking good, I'm impressed at the effort you are putting in to sort this out. I'm always too impatient to do this and then find the wretched thing doesn't fit and have to consign it to that pile that will never be touched again!! I'm inspired to try harder!!

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