On the Verge...

Hello again,

It has been quite a week of progress for my 2017 Renaissance Dress.  This is good because October 14th is fast approaching.  Now let us see if I can remember all of the details.

In my previous entry, I mentioned that my next step was to work of the sleeve again since the un-adjusted one from last week was too tight that I couldn't zip up my bodice.  So I went looking on the internet on how to perform an upper bicep or Full Arm Adjustment for my sleeve.  Thanks to Sewaholic, I found a visual and easy to understand break down on how to do this adjustment (http://sewaholic.net/widen-sleeve-full-bicep-adjustment/).  I modified this a little by using an ironing board to push the sewing pins in (I forgot where my push pins were located at the time).  Then I created an adjustment for 1 inch.  Afterwards was a simple matter of cut, pin and sew.  This time I was able to zip up my Bodice completely.

However, the upper arm was still snug.  When I did my "Wonder Woman" power pose, it was also snug in the elbow.  On the whole the wrist was fine, but it was quite clear that I needed to revise the pattern at least 1 more time.

I felt that my original draft was too sloppy to revise, so I redrew the original pattern, and adjusted the new copy.  The adjustments that I completed were...

1. Adding a grand total of 3 inches to the length of the sleeve for the sleeve gather that I initially did not see the point of.  I did this because of my concern regarding the snugness of a pent elbow.
2. Adding 1 inch width to the whole sleeve.
3. Making the Arm Fullness Adjustment for 1.5 inches instead of 1.

In short I made it larger.  As my Costume Construction teacher once said."You can always trim excess fabric away, but you cannot reattach it."  The Mock Sleeve #2 was close enough for me to gauge the adjustments so that it would not be completely necessary to do a Mock Sleeve #3.  As can be seen from below, I simply used the floor and used paper hinges instead of pins.  I did not have anything large enough to push pins in.  Good news is that I only had 1 hinge break, but the rest of the adjustment went well.

 

At this point I needed a reality check.  I was psyching myself out that I needed to add more length to the bodice.  So wearing my 1 sleeved bodice, I went and found my mom.  She said that I am short waisted like her and that the bodice hit me right except a little looseness in top which may be remedied by stabilizing the neckline.  This is what I needed to hear in order to move on.

The next order of business for me to tackle was to clean up my final drafts of my adjusted patterns that I had worked on, only the Back Bodice and the Sleeve needed to be cleaned up.  This is where I remembered my freezer paper that I had purchased to make patterns with because I was getting tired of taping a lot of jumbo square sheets together to be large enough for the pattern.  I still required tape (which naturally had a mind of its own during this) for adding width, but I controlled the length.

With being on a roll with the patterns, I decided to go ahead and draft the skirt pieces.  The only adjustment required was to add 2 inches to the waist line.  I took care of this at what was the center line.  The skirt pieces were so massive I had to draft them on the floor.  This has been the only time that I thought it would be nice to have a light-up disco floor that I could control.  Isabelle assisted me in combating the enormous pattern and paper, while moving them around my light board.

 

Now all of the Grand Finale Pattern Copies, with the exception of the eyelet band, have been copied.  And I am finally on the verge of beginning with my real fabric.  Yay!

Until next time...