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.