The Brasilia Dress Part 2 - The Muslin

Hello again my dears, it's time for part two of my Brasilia dress experience....almost sounds like a new age band. Cue the theremin.

After grading up the waist and the hips of the pattern I went ahead and put in some of my normal fitting alterations.

1. Forward shoulder adjustment of 1/2"

2. Wide upper back adjustment of 1/2" with dart to back shoulder added so that the seams match.

3. Changed the angle of the bust dart because my bust apex is much lower.

That seemed like enough fitting changes to start with, especially since I wasn't sure if my grading was a success yet.  Whipped up a quick muslin and had froggie pin me into it. Then we took a few pics to give you an idea of what it looked like.

Front view

Side view

Back view

First off my grading was a complete success!  Woooo Hoooo, I can follow directions if needed.  Secondly the fit is pretty darn good for a first muslin. That always makes me happy. However there were a few more things that needed to be tweaked.

1. There was some gaping at the front armhole so I pinched out 1/4" at the inset seam.

2. I'd skipped a sway back adjustment because I'm in denial about having to do one. I did need one, duh, but much smaller than usual, around 1/2".
3. The shoulder seam was at an odd angle so I redrew it forward to match the outside edge of my forward shoulder adjustment.

4. Decided that I didn't like the change I'd made to the bust dart. Instead of changing the angle to lower the apex, I would cut the dart out and drop it down to my apex.

5. Crew necklines are not that flattering on me so I drew in a more scooped neckline.

6. I liked that length of the dress unhemmed so decided to add 1 1/4 to the hemline.

I figured that all these changes were minor enough that the next step could be sewing up the real fabric. Woot, time for a stash dive!  The stash come through as it usually does and yielded this lovely remnant left over from a Colette Macaroon. It's a stretch cotton pique with large scale tulips printed on top. Mmm yum.

In the next post I'll show you my finished Brasilia dress in all it's glory. Won't that be fun!