Costuming Update
My laptop is now back in my sewing room. I have my camera handy and I'm ready to start documenting my costuming progress. Today I worked on drafting a new bodice pattern. Just a quick aside, I'm currently working on my dresses for the renaissance festival. These are full court gowns. Anyway, the green dress is finished but I'm not entirely thrilled with the fit of the bodice. Margo Anderson's patterns have been very helpful over the years, but the bodice just doesn't fit very well, even with a lot of tweaking. I'm sure if I were to keep at it, I could make it work, but I'm tired of playing with it right now. Thankfully the folks responsible for the Custom Corset Pattern Generator also have instructions for creating a custom bodice pattern. I love the fact that it is one piece just like the corset. I started with the pattern I tweaked to get my corset and worked from that. It took two tries but I'm pretty happy with the results so far. I'll just have to see how it looks once it's fully made up. Here's a pic of the back after my first try:
You can see how it bows a bit in the middle. While I want a nice wide gap since I'm losing weight, that's a bit much. I also noticed the straps in the front were too close together and the armhole came too far forward (unfortunately you can't see this because I didn't get a front pic). So I taped some paper back onto the pattern and adjusted it some more. I move the front strap back another inch and rounded the armhole to fit. I also decided to make the back a vertical straight line (instead of angled). After cutting this piece I decided to add boning to the trial lacing to get a better notion of where the top would fall. I'm much happier with this attempt. The only thing I noticed was that the downward curve of the waist at the lower back was completely unnecessary. I took it out of the final version and trimmed it off the current mock-up since I intend to use it as the interlining. I didn't feel a need to put it on again however after that trim so you won't see that adjustment until the bodice is put together. Here are the picks of my second fitting (before the final trim):
So yeah, everything is looking good. I think I'm going to cut the black bodice first since I want to get that summer weight gown finished and the green is technically wearable as is. I'll keep you all posted here. And later I'll show you a few progress and finished pics of the green dress and my new corset (which I absolutely love). Now it's off to bed since my bedtime was technically 5 hours ago. ;p
You can see how it bows a bit in the middle. While I want a nice wide gap since I'm losing weight, that's a bit much. I also noticed the straps in the front were too close together and the armhole came too far forward (unfortunately you can't see this because I didn't get a front pic). So I taped some paper back onto the pattern and adjusted it some more. I move the front strap back another inch and rounded the armhole to fit. I also decided to make the back a vertical straight line (instead of angled). After cutting this piece I decided to add boning to the trial lacing to get a better notion of where the top would fall. I'm much happier with this attempt. The only thing I noticed was that the downward curve of the waist at the lower back was completely unnecessary. I took it out of the final version and trimmed it off the current mock-up since I intend to use it as the interlining. I didn't feel a need to put it on again however after that trim so you won't see that adjustment until the bodice is put together. Here are the picks of my second fitting (before the final trim):
So yeah, everything is looking good. I think I'm going to cut the black bodice first since I want to get that summer weight gown finished and the green is technically wearable as is. I'll keep you all posted here. And later I'll show you a few progress and finished pics of the green dress and my new corset (which I absolutely love). Now it's off to bed since my bedtime was technically 5 hours ago. ;p