It’s been a busy week, but with not much to show for it just yet!  I completed the skirt for the SONP challenge last Sunday, but the rest of the week has been about figuring out 2 dress patterns.

I started with sheeting material, cut out both dress’ worth of pieces and set to trying to make it fit me.  The things I learned:

• It seems that the measurements on patterns are almost as vague as their corresponding clothing sizes lol  According to the million and one measurements that my friend Jo painstakingly took of me a couple of weeks ago, I was technically one size above the size of the largest size on the pattern.  Apparently I would have been an 18, and given how fitted the bodice was I was expecting a lot of alterations.  As it turned out the 16 fitted fine, albeit with a baggy bit above the bust
• Whoever designed the pattern I’m working with (New Look 6457) must have a bust that comes out and goes up at the same level all the way to her chin!  The top of the bodice was really loose, as in, take in over an inch loose!  It was not a dress where a spare inch and a bit was flattering, so I set to my first alteration
• Although the dresses have the same skirt, the halter neck and square neck have totally different bodices, so of course have to be adjusted in totally different ways!
• Halter necks with 1 piece fronts are more tricky to alter with darts and things than square neck dresses with 3 piece fronts.
• Dressmaker’s dummies are a bit confusing to work out until you remember the measurements were with your bra on, so putting it on the dummy won’t help…

Anyway, I now have the square necked one all cut out of the real material, the interfacing ironed on the appropriate bits and the bobbin wound, so I’m all set to go in the morning on dress #1, and hopefully dress #2 in the afternoon.  We shall see!

For those enquiring about the bears, I have some lovely Japanese alpaca sitting ready to go on holiday with me.  It’s hoping to come back transformed into 2 pandas :o)  We shall see just how much time I can spend with it in sunny Provence before it gets too hot to work with lol

We shall all be at the Lakeland Doll And Teddy Bear Fair at the Lakes School, Troutbeck Bridge, Windermere on 31st July, 10-4 if anyone would like to visit us :o)