Ava Update: Tests, and pattern redrafting

This project is making me feel a little bit like goldilocks. I have made up two muslins for this top so far and neither have been quiet right. But on a positive note, I have picked out my fabric which is a lovely spotty black net for the top portion and some black and white striped cotton poplin for the bottom.

I made the first muslin following the pattern and it turned out, as others found with similar issues to mine, to sit a little but high in the waist and just made me look all boob, without accentuating my natural waist line.

So I did a bit of searching and found a version made by bubala where she describes extending the body by 10 cm to get over the problems I mention above. Her version is stunning wouldn't you agree? I also found that the back was a little bit loose at the top so following some advice from the version made my Shona I extended the length of the darts on the back bodice piece and this seemed to work very well. The problem with this version is that the body length was now a little bit too long.

So I have resided that I am just going to extend by half, 5cm and that should (fingers crossed) be juuuust right. (Can you tell I really like Shona's version as my fabric choice is very similar to hers!)

So I have just redrafted the bodice pieces ready for the final version. I am not sure how other people go about this, but I decided to hack the pattern piece in half on the 'line' for shortening/lengthening, and then taped it down on to my cutting board to make sure that I was getting the same extension across the piece. I then lay my tracing paper down on top (does anyone else just use greaseproof? I am so cheap I know!) secured it with some tape and traced round the pattern again. The good thing about this pattern is the edges are straight so you can easily use a ruler to line up the pieces between the gaps.

Something I found with this pattern was that I got really worried the back was going to be huge when I was testing it to fit. However once you have sewn the upper bodice pieces on the fit changes considerably and you loose all that horrible bagginess. I have also discovered that one thing I really need to learn is how to make an FBA (fuller bust adjustment). I think this is something I am going to come across a lot, so I really should learn how to do it properly.

By Hand London are doing a sewalong for their Georgia dress and as part of this will be looking at doing a FBA for it. I might give this a go to see how I get on. I wondered why I had not seen this dress before, but I think the likelyhood is that I probably dismissed it due to the cups on the bodice. 1 thing at a time though, lets get AVA done first!