Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Couture dress progress: Muslin




I've been struggling with the muslin on this dress a bit - its so hard to fit yourself sometimes! I made a sz22 with a 1.5" FBA and dropped the bust dart by 2", plus have pinned out some of the bust ease and side seams The fits not bad - I'm having some excess on the straps that needs to be pinned out, and the back looks a bit wonky because of my crappy zipper insertion.
All the seams seem to be straight so I'm going to leave it as this, until I'm ready to cut out my fashion fabric and I'll have another look at it then.

I ordered the silk organza for the underlining yesterday and this is my fabric - the lace will be the main fabric and the satin will be the midriff band;



I haven't decided yet on the lining - has anyone used Silk Habotai for lining? Dharma Trading has plain white silk habotai and its actually cheaper than the polyester lining available locally.

11 comments:

  1. Suzy, it looks great so far! It looks like you might need a swayback adjustment on your back bodice piece, above the midriff seam. Pinch out a bit and see what happens. I can't wait to see what it looks like!

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    1. Thanks Kristin - I'll get my husband to help pin out the swayback :)

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  2. This is going to be one rocking dress!! Can't wait to see it finished. Looks like it will fit well. Fabric look lovely. Sorry - never heard of Habotai.

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  3. I think this muslin looks really awesome! Your finished dress will be so lovely. :)

    Just a small thing- is the grain on the skirt a little off? It looks like it wants to lean to one side...? I tend to double-check my grainline on a skirt like that, to make sure it's perpendicular to the floor...

    Hope that helps, if not don't mind me. :)

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    1. I didn't notice that before - but yes it is leaning to one side isn't it! I did measure and pin to make sure that the grainline on the skirt was even to the selvedge, so hopefully its the cheap and nasty Spotlight calico thats off grain and not me! I'll be double checking it all when I cut the fashion fabric though!

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  4. hi, i saw your burdastyle coat, the one you made for your daughter and it looks very pretty and chic.
    i wanted to ask you a favor. i am trying to stitch Karin's coat from burda H book and i am finding difficulty in altering the sleeve. do you think you can help me out and explain more?
    many many thanks.

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    1. Hi Somi - it's very hard to give advice on the sleeve without seeing it as it really depends on whats wrong (too small, too big, etc). I'm a huge fan of Fit for Real People, but there are quite a few books on fitting available and often your local library will have some. Hope that helps!

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    2. thanks for your reply Suzy, what i meant was i cant understand what Karin is explaining in the book. i have Sort of mixed up the marks and lines!!

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  5. Ooh! I bought this course a while back but have yet to make any headway on it - so nice to see how the dress looks on a real live person!
    I'm a big fan of using habotai silk as lining for skirts - it's quite lightweight and fiddly (you can shine a light through it) and I tend to use a micro-needle as it's tightly woven and the normal larger sized needles tend to create pulls. I havent used it for a dress lining, but can't see why it would be a problem!
    The fabric you have to make the final version is dreamy!

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    1. Hi and thanks for the info about the habotai silk! I'm still not sure if I'll use that or rayon lining, depends on what I can find at the time and I should probably sew the actual dress before I start worrying about the lining too much!

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