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Battling Muslin
Jun. 9th, 2008 10:23 pmSo, the effort to start up a Chemise dress started serious this weekend, starting with draping a toile over my new stays on the dummy.
Part of my difficulty with this is that the upper chest on this dummy tends to expand significantly larger than my collarbone area does whenever I put stays or a corset on it. So, I figured the toile would be at best, a starting point. I took that off, recut it, pinned it and started fitting as best I could. Finally, DH assisted me with finalizing the fit on places I could not reach on the bodice. Considering that he had no concept of what I was trying to accomplish (other than "move that pin back, now up!") he was remarkable. He marked the seams with a sharpie, I copied it on to tracing paper, then used it to cut out another with seam allowances. That sewed up nicely.
So far, so good. Then came sleeves.
Using my copier, I enlarged the 18th c. coat sleeve from Hunnisett. A first try with a muslin showed it was too narrow for anything but a seriously skin tight fit. So, I redrafted and added 3/4" ease. I sewed it up, gathered the back of the sleeve...insufficiently...gathered the back more....insufficiently...
By the third time I got the sleeve sewn on. I tried the bodice on. I have way too much fabric in the back of this silly sleeve. It's now fitting too long--the elbow bend is halfway down my forearm. I think the armscye is slightly off, too.
At this point, I went at it with the seam ripper. Halfway through, I looked over at my stash.
I'm out of muslin.
Odd thing...If I get this dang muslin to fit, I expect the rest should be fairly easy. Plus, I'll have a decent base pattern for other 18th c. efforts. But getting there is feeling mighty slow right now.
Time to go to sleep on this.
Part of my difficulty with this is that the upper chest on this dummy tends to expand significantly larger than my collarbone area does whenever I put stays or a corset on it. So, I figured the toile would be at best, a starting point. I took that off, recut it, pinned it and started fitting as best I could. Finally, DH assisted me with finalizing the fit on places I could not reach on the bodice. Considering that he had no concept of what I was trying to accomplish (other than "move that pin back, now up!") he was remarkable. He marked the seams with a sharpie, I copied it on to tracing paper, then used it to cut out another with seam allowances. That sewed up nicely.
So far, so good. Then came sleeves.
Using my copier, I enlarged the 18th c. coat sleeve from Hunnisett. A first try with a muslin showed it was too narrow for anything but a seriously skin tight fit. So, I redrafted and added 3/4" ease. I sewed it up, gathered the back of the sleeve...insufficiently...gathered the back more....insufficiently...
By the third time I got the sleeve sewn on. I tried the bodice on. I have way too much fabric in the back of this silly sleeve. It's now fitting too long--the elbow bend is halfway down my forearm. I think the armscye is slightly off, too.
At this point, I went at it with the seam ripper. Halfway through, I looked over at my stash.
I'm out of muslin.
Odd thing...If I get this dang muslin to fit, I expect the rest should be fairly easy. Plus, I'll have a decent base pattern for other 18th c. efforts. But getting there is feeling mighty slow right now.
Time to go to sleep on this.
