It all started with this dress on Pinterest:
Pretty, right? I fell in love with the navy blue and emerald green combo - a look I know looks great with my coloring. I have 2 weddings to attend this summer and right away I knew I wanted to try and recreate this dress to wear to both.
That's where this dress came into play, and where things took a horrible turn:
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| Colette Patterns "Mararon" |
The "Mararon" from Colette Patterns was another dress I was dying to make, and I could see how to transform it into the navy & green beauty pictured above. I would use the bodice as-is, making the top part in navy blue lace, and adding a fuller skirt to the bottom with some more navy blue lace trim around the hem. Easy-peasy. Since it was a new pattern and I'd be working with some relatively expensive fabrics (read: not found on the $1.99 table at Vogue Fabrics) I decided to make a muslin mock-up of the bodice to make sure I had a good fit before I cut into the good stuff. Thank goodness I did, or I'd be writing this with an empty bottle of wine and a box of tissues next to me right now. Also, thank goodness I had more fabric than I needed - I'll explain later.
When I tried on my first muslin, it was what the kids today would call a "hot mess". The bodice was way too short, ending a good 4" above my waistline; and the bust darts were too high, making it look like I had the saggiest boobs ever. Grrrrr. Pattern make Hulk mad.
Now let me explain something - I'm tall, but not THAT tall. I'm 5'9" which is technically 4" above the average US height of 5'5", but I know a few women that are even taller than me, and 5'9" isn't really that unheard of for a woman these days. I also have a longer than average torso - 18" from my neck to waist instead of the 15-16" which most people have. But I know this, and I know how to fix it on patterns. I always add 1.5" to the bodice length on everything I make, and it usually fits just fine. Which is what I did on the Macaron. And it was STILL 4" too short!!!
At this point I was getting a bit frustrated. But I took a look at the problems, figured out what I should do to get closer to fixing them, and made another muslin with the changes in place. I also made it a size larger because I'm a DD cup instead of the C cup this pattern was made for and I figured some extra space to work with in those crazy bust darts would help. (Side note - most commercial patterns are made for a B cup, which drives me crazy. Women with B cups can just buy clothes off the rack, they're not worried about making clothes because they can't buy anything that fits.) I took my new muslin to a friend to help me pin it half to death to get it fitted properly, and skipped home with the confidence that my dress was going to fit now, and look awesome.
You can see where this is going now, can't you?
I cut out my fancy fabric using the properly fitted muslin as my new pattern. I made a very slight change to the shape of the neckline because it looked like it was going to be just a smidge too low-cut in the front, so I added some length to the top of the sweetheart shape to make sure I'd be covered up properly. Wedding rule #1 - never show more cleavage than the bride. I'll just make this part short and say that I put a lot of work into my final product - flat lining to give the bodice fabric some extra weight, boning for some nice vintage-looking support, etc. etc. Then came the moment where all the pieces were put together and I tried my bodice on to see how it looked.
It was a disaster.
I'm having trouble even coming up with words to explain how horrible it was.
Even though the fit itself was decent you could see almost all of my bra above and around the sweetheart neckline. The neckline that I raised to avoid this very problem. Sigh.
THIS is where I stopped composing my blog post yesterday, with plans to re-do the muslin and back the lace fabric with the green taffeta used for the rest of the dress - which I decided was okay because it would really look closer to the original pattern. I hoped to follow up with another post next week about how triumphant I was in overcoming the dreaded Macaron pattern and how cute and modern-retro my new navy blue and green dress was. Dude - I had even planned how I was going to do my hair and accessories to wear with my awesome new dress that would be the envy of everyone at the weddings I'm going to attend.
Once again, you can see where this is going. Admit it though, you can't look away. It's like a car crash on the highway with lots of flashing lights and someone being rolled away on a gurney.
I got that damn bodice fixed, darts in the right place, adjusted for my full bust and long torso, with pretty green fabric behind the navy lace to cover "the girls". It was beautiful. Even my husband was impressed. Until I put it on, that is. Funny how something that fits can still look so horribly wrong. It was just so unflattering. And I felt like a giant taffeta-wrapped stuffed sausage. Just how you want to feel at a family wedding where you know everyone will be judging you, amiright? After that fitting I didn't even bother attaching the skirt. The dress will be an official UFO (unfinished object), and I may pull it out in cooler weather but right now I'm surfing the interwebs looking for a dress I can buy before June 15th.
On the positive side, I did learn (or re-learn) 2 things:
1) High necklines are not my friend. Scoop neck and V-neck are the way to go. Bonus points for a cross-over V-neck. The lower necklines seem to show off my long neck and distract from the fact that I'm super-tall on top. With high necklines I'm just all torso with midget legs.
2) Princess seams are a MUST! I strongly believe big part of my fit problems came from the fact that this bodice had a traditional waist & bust dart configuration, and that just doesn't fly with a full bust. Princess seams are easier to adjust and more flattering.
This lesson also means my dreams of making more Macaron dresses have been squashed. C'est la vie. Anyone want to buy a lightly used pattern?
Even though the fit itself was decent you could see almost all of my bra above and around the sweetheart neckline. The neckline that I raised to avoid this very problem. Sigh.
THIS is where I stopped composing my blog post yesterday, with plans to re-do the muslin and back the lace fabric with the green taffeta used for the rest of the dress - which I decided was okay because it would really look closer to the original pattern. I hoped to follow up with another post next week about how triumphant I was in overcoming the dreaded Macaron pattern and how cute and modern-retro my new navy blue and green dress was. Dude - I had even planned how I was going to do my hair and accessories to wear with my awesome new dress that would be the envy of everyone at the weddings I'm going to attend.
Once again, you can see where this is going. Admit it though, you can't look away. It's like a car crash on the highway with lots of flashing lights and someone being rolled away on a gurney.
I got that damn bodice fixed, darts in the right place, adjusted for my full bust and long torso, with pretty green fabric behind the navy lace to cover "the girls". It was beautiful. Even my husband was impressed. Until I put it on, that is. Funny how something that fits can still look so horribly wrong. It was just so unflattering. And I felt like a giant taffeta-wrapped stuffed sausage. Just how you want to feel at a family wedding where you know everyone will be judging you, amiright? After that fitting I didn't even bother attaching the skirt. The dress will be an official UFO (unfinished object), and I may pull it out in cooler weather but right now I'm surfing the interwebs looking for a dress I can buy before June 15th.
On the positive side, I did learn (or re-learn) 2 things:
1) High necklines are not my friend. Scoop neck and V-neck are the way to go. Bonus points for a cross-over V-neck. The lower necklines seem to show off my long neck and distract from the fact that I'm super-tall on top. With high necklines I'm just all torso with midget legs.
2) Princess seams are a MUST! I strongly believe big part of my fit problems came from the fact that this bodice had a traditional waist & bust dart configuration, and that just doesn't fly with a full bust. Princess seams are easier to adjust and more flattering.
This lesson also means my dreams of making more Macaron dresses have been squashed. C'est la vie. Anyone want to buy a lightly used pattern?
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