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| © Vogue Pattern Company |
The dress has princess seams, sleeves in two lengths, and an inside yoke with two neckline variations. The skirt has inverted pleats and is mid to lower calf length. This dress has a back zipper... In fact, the only notions required for this dress are thread and the zipper!
The pattern envelope suggests using cotton broadcloth, shantung, faille and piqué. When selecting fabrics for this dress, keep in mind that it is unsuitable for obvious diagonals, plaids or stripes.
Also very important when selecting fabrics is to keep in mind that the dress does not have a waist seam, therefore the pattern pieces are the entire length of the dress. Make sure to buy enough fabric - you will not be able to wiggle the pieces into a smaller yardage of fabric than the envelope calls for, and if you don't have enough, you can't just go back to the store and buy another half meter of fabric... In fact,we made a point of buying extra fabric for this dress because I didn't have enough fabric for the red tulip dress and had to buy more.
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| ©Aspiring Threads |
Previous Modifications
These are the modifications we made to the original dress. Louise has a petite frame, but doing a standard shortened waist didn't work with this dress, as her torso isn't where the adjustment needed to be. We needed to take up the shoulders of her dress. This involved shortening the shoulders by 1.5". Unfortunately, this led to shallow armscyes, so we had to drop the armscye by 3/4". We graded the pattern to allow for her measurements at her bust and hip.
Because the sleeves on this dress are very slim fitting, Louise and I decided to make the dress sleeveless, so that she can move better while performing. Leaving her arms uncovered also keeps her cooler while on stage.
The Full Bust Adjustment
Louise found the bust on the tulip dress just a touch snug, so we're doing an FBA on future versions of the dress. I never do adjustments on the original pattern pieces, since making future changes is more challenging if you use the original pieces. I traced the bodice sections of the front pattern pieces. This dress does not have a waist seam, so the pattern pieces are the full length of the dress.
An FBA on princess seams isn't much different than a darted FBA. The biggest difference is that you close up the dart you create and rotate the fullness elsewhere, which means drawing a new cutting line. This tutorial from Craftsy is an excellent lesson in doing an FBA on princess seams.
For Louise's dress, I did a 3/4" FBA. Since the FBA is done on 1/2 of the pattern, the adjustment was 3/8". Louise is coming over today for a fitting.
Other Modifications
The last modification will be to add pockets to the dress. I have a pocket template that will allow for pockets roomy enough that Louise will not need to carry a purse, but will not add unwanted bulk. I added pockets to my wedding dress because I did not want to carry a purse.
I'll be posting about the construction of this dress as I go, so please check back for more!
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