Sunday, April 6, 2008

Mini-Wardrobe, Here I Come

I cut a muslin of Butterick 4991 last night. Of course, I encountered my first dilemmas: (1) how to lower the bust apex by 1" when there is no apparent shaping pointing directly at the bust; (2) given that there is no apparent shaping pointing directly at the bust, does it really matter; and (3) why is the back lining identical to the back other than being 1/8" wider at the bottom and given that, why is the front lining exactly the same as the front (other than being shorter, of course).

Carefully sidestepping the philosophical ramifications of #2, and realizing that there actually are darts pointing at the bust apex (but they are a cool design feature and I didn't want to shorten them) I decided to just add my standard 1" above the waist to the pattern pieces, except in this case, I added it below the armscye and above the bust. This put the bust apex at least in the general vicinity of my own. I was a little concerned that the waist darts still ran up onto my bust, but a careful perusal of the photo on the pattern envelope revealed the same on their model.

I'm making View A, the vest. I love vests; with just a few pattern pieces and no sleeve, what's not to love? This particular vest, however, has 14 (count 'em!) darts, 12 of which are top-stitched and so must be perfectly stitched. For my muslin, I'm just marking with dressmaker's carbon, but for the real deal, which will be made of black linen, I think I will need to thread trace. In case you didn't see my previous post about this pattern, this is the fabric I intend to use. Yummy, isn't it?

I am very excited to actually take the first steps toward a mini-wardrobe. I have been completely snowed under with work the last couple of weeks, so hopefully I will manage to keep up with that and still find some time for sewing in the coming week. Happy sewing, everyone!

6 comments:

angie.a said...

This is a very cute pattern! I haven't been looking at Buttericks lately, but I may need this one. I would have altered just as you did to lower the bust apex, if that helps at all. :)

Thanks for the tip about carbonation too! I suspected it was bad.

Dawn said...

Holy schmolly, 12 darts????

Marita said...

Animal farm skirt is just too cute, I reckon some little girl will be very happy:-)

The extra on the pattern is prolly for the little tuck that's often used in jacket backs to accomondate movement and help keeping the lining from "braking" but since you are making a west I think you can do whithout it as well. HTH:)

Meg said...

Ditto what Dawn said! Wow, keep us posted on this. Cute pattern.

Paula Gardner said...

Actually, since the garment is lined, I'll be making 28 darts in all. :-(

Christina said...

That is a great color. And I'm such a fan of black, too bad I did not see that at Joann! Well, I need to move away from black for the summer...!