Wednesday 24 June 2009

The importance of non stretchy material

So I decided that I was going to make a sloper for a bodice. Patterns are so expensive in the UK and according to their sizing I am well into plus sizes which makes them hard to find. I cut a basic shape out of a sheet and had my boyfriend pin it in place so it fit me. In the end this involved 6 darts, 2 back, 2 waist and 2 bust. He used bulldog clips rather than pins which was ingenious!!! I sewed along all the darts and seems and then wriggled into it. Now it was a little bit tight as I hadn't included any zips or buttons but I could get it on and it was a perfect fit. I transferred the pattern to lining paper and then used that to cut out my pieces on the lovely red material (also an old sheet) that I wanted to make my top out of.

Disaster struck. After sewing I went to try it on and couldn't get it over my bust. The material I had used to make my pattern pieces out of was slightly stretchy. The cotton I was making the top out of wasn't! So I put a zip and 2 hooks in the side. It took my 3 attempts to get the zip in a place I was happy with it. This has lead to me no longer having any fear of zips hehehe. So now I could get it on. However my bust looked awful in it. So I redid the waist darts and one bust dart. However I still look awful in it! The reason for this is that because it doesn't stretch at all it is squishing my bust slightly at the top and it just looks hideous.

Back to the drawing board on this one methinks. So I heartily advocate using a similar material to the one you intend to use in the end to make any practice ones out of!!

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