I spent this past weekend making muslins for two dresses (Laurel and Elisalex) and realized that due to my limited knowledge on fit my adjustments generally leave me feeling one of two ways, frustrated or ecstatic. It can be SO frustrating to make something that doesn't fit and not know how or where to begin to fix it. On the other hand, that feeling you get after things suddenly make sense and the alterations work is an amazing feeling! That's how it goes with leaning, though.


The Elisalex sewalong is going on right now and before I cut into my wild fabric I want to have a muslin that fits well. Thursday night I started working on the bodice and everything went smoothly, including sewing princess seams for the first time (!), but the fit is off. It's funny, it's easier to pinpoint changes that need to be made on other people's makes, but so hard for your own. I slept on it before making any crazy changes and I think I need to do a narrow shoulder adjustment, does that seem right? Or do I need to make other changes too?

 The wrinkle on the center of the bodice front looks prominent in the photo above because of how I'm holding the camera in my hand. It's not as bad in the photo below.

In the past it has been suggested that I make narrow shoulder adjustments, but I didn't have much success with the method I was using. For my second muslin of the weekend (Laurel) I decided to try a different technique from Gertie's book. I made the shoulder 3/4 inch smaller and reshaped the curve for the sleeve. This meant that I needed to also adjust the sleeve cap, which I did successfully, yay!


The shoulder area no longer has the vertical lines, but now there are diagonal wrinkles :( Do you think it needs a FBA? I'm not sure, as I have never done one before. Or did I get too crazy with the shoulder adjustment and make it too narrow?

Even though Laurel isn't completely ready for its final fabric, I'm pretty excited that I learned a new adjustment (and did it correctly :) )! I'm dying to sew up this pattern, the fit is a lot more flattering that the shift dress I made earlier in the year.

Last weekend Luke, Frankie (my dog), and I went to Mood for some fabric shopping. I felt bad making Luke and the pup wait, so I tried to be quick. Frankie had fun though, she had her first dog celebrity sighting and got to meet Oscar de la Renta, the Los Angeles Mood dog that hangs out in the store ;)


Even though Mood Fabrics is a 3+ hour drive from my house I make the trek when I need garment fabrics. You have more than likely checked out their website, so you know there is a huge selection (and even more in person!), but what really keeps me coming back is the customer service. The last two times I have been lucky enough to be helped by Silvana, she is amazing! Seriously, if you are ever there make sure you ask for her. She was so patient even when I asked a million questions, helpful, knowledgable, and fun to talk with.

Anyway, here is what I bought:

 Silk in a wild print.

This fabric is actually more of a wine color. I messed with the settings in Photoshop, but still couldn't get the correct hue :( The polkadots are my ironing board, fyi.

Another wild fabric. I've been super into fabrics that have a sixties feel to them, so I immediately fell in love with this one.

Well, it is appropriate that this week's topic is on fit because I could definitely use some help with the fit of my Peony wearable muslin! But first let me warn you: this is not a Halloween costume. I ordered some fabric online that was a dark gray color. When I received my order, the fabric was a blueish doctor scrub looking color.


 Don't wear heels on the grass while taking pictures of your scrub dress! You will sink in the mud!

The fit feels fine in the waist, but is a little baggy on top. The horizontal wrinkles on the sides are pretty prominent, so I'm thinking that shortening the bodice a bit may help. What do you think?

I still can't get over the fact that we are on our last project for Sew Colette. Sarah and I thought it might be fun to reminisce over our past projects and vote for our favorite garments. Whether you sewed along or not, feel free to chime in with your thoughts. We will be featuring the five favorites all next week.



Speaking of the Licorice dress, I'm making some progress! My muslin is completed (for the main fit at least) and while it looks a little wrinkly/loose on the form, it fits better when it's on me. I'm such a procrastinator, hopefully I will get this done by the deadline. How are all of your dresses coming along?

I wore my Truffle muslin this weekend. I figured that it was appropriate since the fabric is from the 1960s (I think) and it was the premiere of the new season of Mad Men.



Frankie came out to run around while Luke was taking photos of me.


 Kind of a close up. It's still hard to see the flounce, but it's there. After wearing the dress all day on Saturday I decided that I love it. It's comfortable, can be dressed up or down, and doesn't get too wrinkly. This is definitely going to be a summer wardrobe staple, I can't wait to finish my next dress, so I will have two from this pattern.


The next two projects I made over the weekend are not Mad Men related, but I wanted to post about them anyways. I made a little flannel blanket for my dog Frankie, but Stella the cat decided that she liked it.


The blanket was so quick and easy to complete, it took around fifteen minutes. It was fun using a decorative machine stitch for the edges. Those cool stitches don't get used enough.


My friend Shawntel came over on Saturday night and I embroidered this for her. It was my first time embroidering lettering and it was hard! I need to practice more.


My friend Ariana came over on Sunday night to watch Mad Men with me. She supplied the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and I supplied old fashioned drinks. I made them kind of strong, Ari kept joking that we were growing hair on our chest :) The episode was amazing, by the way. I am so happy that I added AMC to our Dish plan. Plus, it comes on at 6:00 because we have satellite!

Last night I finished my muslin for the Truffle dress. It took me a while, but I can't complain because I learned a lot. It was my first time sewing in a lining (I decided that linings are pretty awesome), my first time using a stretchy, light fabric, and my first time sewing in a zipper the wrong way. I'm glad that I messed up the zipper on my muslin because now I won't do it on my nice fabrics!

The top is a little big, so I may need to do a SBA, but other than that everything fits great. Hopefully I will have my final version done by next week. It all depends on how much work the animals will "let" me do this weekend...

Do you ever jinx yourself when you are sewing? I do all the time! Last night I was working on my muslin for the Truffle dress and I thought to myself, "I can finish this tonight. All I have to do is put in the zipper, sew up the sides, and hem the bottom. Easy." That was when it all went wrong.

I don't think I pressed the zipper open enough with the iron which was the problem. When I was sewing the needle kept going through the actual zipper part (yes, I was using an invisible zipper foot) which is a nightmare when you are trying to zip it up. I pulled the tab so hard that the zipper left a gap between some of the teeth. Luke tried to fix it and pulled the whole tab off. Like I said, "NIGHTMARE." So, I had to take the zipper out and in the end wasted one hour of my time and didn't make any progress.

Have any of you done this before? I'm going to have to be more careful when I'm sewing!

The finished muslin is way too baggy on me, but once I actually install a zipper I think everything will fit better (have to take those seam allowances into consideration). Another muslin is in the works.

I got bummed because I kept looking at the front of the book and noticing how well the dress fit the model, when I realized that I don't want my dress to fit exactly like that. Let's keep it real, I want a slightly looser fit so I can sit comfortably and do fun stuff like eat pizza and not feel like my dress is too tight afterwards :)

Unfortunately, the muslin for the Meringue isn't going as well as the one I made for my Sorbetto. After sewing up the sides of the skirt and wiggling into the muslin it was very clear that some adjustments needed to be made. The fabric was a little baggy below my bellybutton. I double checked with my husband (it's nice to have a second set of eyes) and he agreed that it looked like there were "loose horizontal wrinkles."


After studying my Colette Patterns book it seemed that I needed to "eliminate some ease to make the area shorter." I used the technique suggested (pinched out the extra fabric, pinned it, and used a red Sharpie to mark corrections), changed my pattern to work with the new length, and made a new muslin. I'm still having a similar issue, though it is not as severe as the first muslin. My husband thinks I am being picky and that it looks fine. Maybe I am being picky, but I'm the one that is going to wear it!


What about you, how did it go with your muslin? Any tips on making adjustments? If you have any detailed questions on fitting be sure to stop by the Sew Colette Flickr page.  That's where I'm heading now...

Oh, I also wanted to point out PoppyKettle's great post on doing the scallops at the bottom of the skirt. She even came up with a twist on the Meringue, the Pavlova. So clever!

Be sure to look for Sarah's post tomorrow!

I am so glad that I made the muslin. After trying it on I decided that I wanted to add a few inches to the length. So glad that I didn't realize that after I made the top.

The second new thing I tried was altering the pattern. It was a quick and easy horizontal slash alteration to add extra length. After cutting directly across to split the pattern into two parts I added a new piece of paper that was three inches (the length I wanted to increase) and taped it between the two pieces. So easy!

At the end of the night I learned that muslins are awesome, I will make a muslin each time I use a new pattern, and I should be making pattern alterations whenever I am not happy with the fit. Common sense for some, but new techniques for me to work with! :)

Next up, a muslin for the Meringue skirt.