I really really really need a dress form that is a duplicate of my body. I have a dress form but it is not a duplicate of me. What's funny is I had one and refused to believe it was my shape and never used it and eventually threw it away. It cost me all of about $25 bucks. With a friends help we made a duck tape dress form of me.
I really needed that dress form for this dress. After 3 muslin's I still could not get the fit correct and I am not sure why. I had put it away a couple of times and came back to it thinking whatever I kept doing wrong would resolve itself but it never did. I couldn't or wouldn't move on to another pattern.
It had nothing to do with the pattern and everything to do with me. The pattern is Simplicity 8014. I really loved the shirt tail hem but view A or B would have been a better choice for my shape.
How I Did It
I made my adjustments - my normal add to the waist and hips and had taken 1" away from the back length and then put it back in (big mistake). Here are the adjustments I made. I also ended up adding an additional 2" to the length but I did that on the fabric when I laid out the pattern for cutting.
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| Back with adjustments for waist and hips |
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| Front with adjustments for waist and hips |
I made the pocket but I did not want the raw edges to show even with the serged edges. I used the serged edge to turn in the raw edge 1/4" so all the edges were finished.
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| Right side of pocked |
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| Wrong side of pocket |
The dress called for 10 buttons but I did not have 10 matching buttons in a white color and I was determined to not buy a thing since I knew there was a strong possibility that I would never wear this dress. I found 10 similarly colored buttons and decided to make it work.
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| The buttons I used and how they are aligned on the dress |
So what is wrong with the fit? The torso length is too long and the hip adjustment is too low. The dress fits but on the back there is not enough ease across my butt and the is too much fabric length between my neck and waist. If I want to wear the dress I must wear a belt. I tried to take pictures without the belt to show the fitting issues but I am not so sure they are clear.
I used Sulky 40 wt embroidery thread and a triple straight stitch for the top stitching. Below are pictures with the belt.
I had about 2 yards of 3" wide vinyl embossed belting that I had purchased years and years ago and decided to use it for the belting. I know I bought the belt buckle sometime this year. It was really simple to make. I just put the ends thru each buckle and turned under the ends and stitched them down.
Conclusion
This dress was really simple to sew. The instructions were clear and easy to follow. My fitting - a hot mess. I do think I can wear this dress though it must be worn with a belt to hide all the fitting issues.
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