Rooibos fitting

I've been rewarding myself with some sewing time this week after a tremendous push to get some stuff done last week, and as a result I've been able to finish my Rooibos muslin! I decided to make a "wearable muslin," because the idea of using all that fabric only to later wad it up and chuck it annoys me. What do people do with their muslins when they're done? Make rag rugs? I don't know. I'm not exactly the most eco friendly dresser what with my penchant for buying new fabric and all, but I still can't get behind the idea of making something that I know I'm going to throw away.

I opted to make a muslin using a combo of things that I had in my stash (the bird fabric from Ikea) and $3/yard black broadcloth from Fabric.com. At least this way I'll probably get some wear out of it instead of just chucking it at the end of the day.

So, fitting. I'm really glad I did a muslin of this first, because I definitely had some fit issues here. First, the body ended up being too big for me. I cut a 12 and ended up taking it in by 1 inch on each side, so I figure that means that I probably should have cut a 10 and will do so for the final version. Even with 2 inches out, it's still plenty roomy enough to not be clingy. So yeah, I think we're good there.

The top on the other hand, now that's a whole different story. Looks cute enough when I'm just standing there, right? But it's really too big. This is definitely obvious from the back, where you can see I've got some gaping and some off the shoulder issues going on.

From the sides, it's even more obvious that something just isn't quite right. One side looks not too bad, but the other side (my right, the left photo on here since I'm taking this in a mirror) has some major gap problems. You can see my bra when I'm just standing here hanging out, let alone when I'm actually moving around. You can also see in the right photo that the neckline jumps away from my body a bit in the front, although not as badly as in the back. Big siiigh there. These fit problems are exacerbated a bit by the fact that I probably used a little bit too much interfacing here and so the fabric isn't conforming to my body so well, but the issues remain.

























I would say that all signs point to this top needing a full bust alteration. I was hoping that I would be able to get away with not doing an FBA in this pattern, since Colette patterns are supposed to be drafted for a C cup and can fit a D cup. Now to be fair, I'm a D or a DD depending on how you measure, so maybe I was pushing it a bit, especially in such a fitted pattern. I think I'm going to try to start with the size 8 pattern piece and alter that one. Now, here's a really radical idea -- I think I'm going to try to do a two sided FBA, meaning that instead of adding 1.5 inches to each side, I'll add 1 inch to the left boob and 2 inches to the right, to compensate for the fact that I'm a cup size larger on one side. I'm not sure how well this will work. It could end up just drawing attention to my lopsidedness, but I *think* that it's actually going to work out well. We'll see. Obviously more muslins will be in order (although I'll just make up the bodice this time).

For the back, I think the sensible thing to do is just take a little tuck out to bring the shoulders closer together. Unfortunately sizing down in the bodice won't help this problem, since the size 8 shoulders are pretty much the same as the 12. Normally I would applaud this since it means that the pattern maker recognizes that just because you have a big bust you don't also have football player shoulders. In this case it's working against me, though. Fortunately I think it's an easy fix. I tried tucking some of the extra fabric out just quickly with some pins, and it looks much better. This pic has about an inch at the top tucked out.

Since this piece is cut on the fold, I'll just angle it a little bit to get rid of that extra fabric, and le voila! Hopefully it will all work well.

I also started cutting out my Beignet skirt this weekend, and I'm already done the lining and the facing. Woot!