Magic Darts

So being someone who does very little sewing of modern clothes, my dart knowledge is very minimal. 16th Century clothes don't use them at all and mid-to-late 19th Century clothes only use them at the waist, so the whole bust dart concept isn't one that I've really worked with.

When faced with the gaping armscye on the Dior dress, I had a vague idea that I could take a dart there and then shift the extra fabric into another dart. Did I have any idea of how to do this in real life? No, I did not. Threads magazine to the rescue!

For Christmas, the Husband gave me the complete set of Threads fitting dvds. I can tell right now, I'm going to get so much use out of these. The DVD made it perfectly clear how to shift the fabric from my dart to the existing bust dart. I took the dart in the muslin and marked it with a pen so that it looks like this:


Then I transfered the markings to the pattern, cut the dart, and taped it closed along the dart lines so the pattern curved from the dart. Then, I cut down the center line of the existing bust dart to release the tension, open up that dart, and get a smooth pattern piece again.

Et voila!



The fact that you can tranfer the extra fabric into ANY dart is going to mean good things for my Victorian fitting too. Hurray for darts!

Dioresque

So I'm officially the worst blogger ever. No new posts in 9 months? What the hell? It's not like I didn't do any sewing or costuming. Just no blogging. I suck.

Anyway. New endeavor. Summer dress inspired by Dior's New Look.

For those of you who don't know, in 1947 Christian Dior introduced his Corolle collection. After years of rationing and war-time starkness and thrift, Dior brought femininity and luxury back with one fell swoop. His new collection, inspired by the clothing of the Belle Epoque according to M. Dior, was all nipped in waists and padded hips and beautiful fabric--lots of it. It was coined the "New Look" by Harper's Bizarre.

This dinner dress from Spring/Summer 1947, called "Cherie", is typical of the New Look (photo from the Metropolitan Museum of Art)



My dress is inspired by Dior's New Look and drafted initially on my Wild Ginger PatternMaster Boutique pattern drafting software. It's the first thing I've drafted with it, so it's sort of my test. Needless to say, the measurements I entered need some, um, adjustment.

The dress will hopefully turn out looking something like this:

For the fabric I've chosen a white cotton lawn printed with blue flowers. I wanted something light, summery, drapey and feminine. Since the fabric is very sheer, I'll be lining it with cotton the same blue as the flowers. The fabric is here:


My goal is to have this done by May 8 when the Husband and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary.

Next up, fitting the bodice. Yikes!