Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Toile Take Two

I've made the first round of modifications to my Butterick 2669 toile, the sixties shift dress:


If you read the last post, you'll notice it was a bit of a sack - so much of a sack it was difficult to know where to begin!  I did the following changes:
  • 'Ungraded' most of my grading - I basically brought it back to the initial pattern, but with 2" extra on the hip
  • Corrected the balance - the whole back needed uplifting.  I did this in two places - one at the shoulder to bring up the back bodice, and one at the high hip to bring up the skirt.  This made the horizontal and vertical grainlines hang correctly - my tailor's dummy certainly came in handy here!
So here is the improved-but-still-a-long-way-to-go version:


Now it hangs correctly from the shoulders, and fits closely enough that I can see what other changes need to be made.  I will probably:
  • Lower front neckline 1cm
  • Move bust point on French dart inwards
  • Raise back waist darts - I'm short-waisted
  • Shorten 3-5cm, and establish line of hemband
  • Take it in a bit here and there, although I still want to maintain a semi-fitted look
  • Sort out those shoulder drag lines
I'd like to make the belt, but I'm not liking the image I see:


However calico is the most unflattering fabric in the world, so I am banking on that fact being true. 

On my blog I have larger images and also demonstrate exactly what I did to the back to get to this stage.

2 comments:

  1. What a lovely job of fitting! you really took a sad sack and transformed it into a flattering dress.

    ReplyDelete