Louise's second muslin

I decided to try a different approach on the second muslin for Louise.

Rather than redraft the armholes and bust completely, I decided to start from square one, with the unmodified pattern. On the first muslin, I took 1 1/2" off the top of the shoulders, which caused the fullness of the bust to be in the wrong place. To avoid this problem (and skip redrafting the bust), I did a petite adjustment of 1 1/2", which is the same amount I had originally taken off the straps.

I had originally graded from a size 12 in the bodice to a 16 in the hip, and I suspect that the snug bust in the original dress can be addressed by making the bodice a little bigger. Rather than grading the bodice, I've cut a size 16. If it is too large, I can pin out the excess at the side seams, sew where I've marked it, and have her try it on again, rather than having her come back for a third muslin fitting.

Vogue 2903

On the new muslin, I've also included the inside yoke, to give an idea of how the dress neckline will sit on Louise when the dress is complete. I did not do this on the first muslin. I sewed the muslin with yoke B (the black version), which is a bit less revealing, but can easily switch it out to yoke A (shown in green).

The reason I did this is because shortening the shoulders on the original dress brought the neckline up, and I was concerned that yoke A would be too revealing. I slipped the new muslin over top of the dress though, and yoke B comes up much higher than yoke A, so we'll likely either stick to yoke A, or drop the neckline on yoke B a bit, so we end up somewhere in the middle.

All of this pattern tracing reminds me that I really need pattern weights. I had to raid the cupboard for tuna cans to hold everything still while I traced the pattern, but proper pattern weights would be so much better than tuna cans! Pattern weights can be expensive though, so the next time I'm at the hardware store, I'll pick up some large washers and use them as pattern weights.