Darling Ranges Dress - The final stash project

The Darling Ranges dress was one of those patterns I started started seeing all over the net and loved on everybody.  Months ago after buying the pattern I excitedly mocked up a muslin only to decide that the style didn't look all that great on me. I stuffed the muslin in my muslin graveyard and moved on with other projects.  After entering the pattern stash contest this month I was inspired to pull out that muslin and give it another look.  My new conclusion was that the bodice needed more fitting work and that the dress would look better on me sewn up in a lightweight fabric like this stashed silk georgette.

Due to my large bust, sway back, wide upper back and stomach pooch I needed to make a lot of adjustments to the pattern.  Here's a list of everything I did along with pictures of my final bodice pattern pieces.

1. Did a FBA adjustment of 1" and then dropped the bust dart an additional 3/4". Decreased length of dart about 1". The Darling Ranges dress already has a rather large dart so the FBA made a monster one. I took the extra dart intake and rotated it into the shoulder to compensate for the additional width added to the back. This still made the front bodice shoulder too wide so I just cut off the extra, basically cutting a new neckline as it were. This shouldn't have worked but it did.

Final front bodice pattern. I should buy some scotch tape stock.

2 Increased width across the back 1".
3. Increased length of front and back bodice 1 1/4".
4. Added 1" wide darts to back bodice.
5. Forward shoulder adjustment a rather large 1".
6. All this messing about with the front and back bodice seemed to make the back neck too scooped. I filled in back neckline 1" at CB blending into the existing neckline.

Final Back bodice pattern.

7. The side seam was too far to the front on me so I added 1 1/2" to front bodice side seam and reduced back bodice side seam the same amount.
8. Did the same rebalance of the side seams on skirt front and back.
9. Increased length of dress 1 1/2".  Also did a narrow shirt tail hem to keep some length.
10. Did not gather sleeve hems but added sewn on cuffs.  Cuffs just seemed to be something that would look super cute with this style.
11. Left off the back ties since I'm planning on wearing this with a belt.
12. I added fashion sewing supplies tricot interfacing to the facings and to my cuffs.
After 3 muslins sewing this baby up was going to be a breeze right?  Maybe if I'd grabbed some trusty cotton, but no I had to pick the silk georgette. 
I used the cutting trick of putting the fabric on top of some muslin which had worked so well with my crepe de chine blouse.  Sadly the georgette was not so accommodating.  The cut out pattern piece would look great on the table but as soon as I picked it up the fabric would shift all over the place.  In hindsight I probably should have used that trick for chiffon of washing the fabric in some gelatin.

Sewing was also challenging especially since most of my pattern pieces where not the correct shape. (Thanks to my shoddy cutting job)  I had to do some recutting and little bit of crazy easing in places.  After resewing the bias binding on the neckline about 5 times I gave up and decided the neckline was not going to lay flat in this fabric.  Getting the hem line semi-straight look days since I have no dress form or close by friend to sucker into pinning the hem while I was wearing the dress. Basically my husband was wondering why I was ranting about sewing for a couple of days.  Sorry honey, I really need to bone up on my georgette sewing skills.

Despite all the self made aggravation I really like this dress in georgette, the pattern just seems to mesh well with the design.  The dress it's self is very cute with it's V-neck, handy skirt pockets and 3/4 length sleeves (I love my little addition of cuffed sleeves.)  The gathered skirt is probably not as flattering on me as a darted one but with a belt I can pull it off.  I'm planning on wearing it with some gray tights in the fall and maybe a little blazer if one happens to get sewn up by then.  So thumbs up to Megan Nielsen for an awesome pattern. Maybe I'll make another one in some fabric that easier to handle. :)

Flickr set here if you want to see some inside shots of the dress.