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Friday, December 29, 2017

A quick way to lose 10 pounds (on your dress form!) and V1233 - Another fav dress pattern!

I have finally finished Vogue V1233 - a Pamella Roland design and couldn't be happier with it.  I actually made a muslin for this dress to make sure the fit was just right which is where my dress form's extra poundage was causing me problems.



I cut out my usual 12 thru the bust/shoulders/waist and tapered to a 14 at the hips yet when I put the muslin on the dress form - I couldn't get the center fronts to match thru the hipline.  "Well that's odd" I thought.  So I put the muslin on myself and bingo - the center fronts matched all the way down.  Hmmm, I thought - the DH must be right!

I should back up here...  A few years ago, I went to a class to learn how to pad my dressform so it would look exactly like my shape.  In the class we took multiple measurements of ourselves and using batting, you would then "pad" out your dress form until those measurements were the same as your own.  Then you make a flesh colored cover that zips over the form and the extra padding and voila - your dressform looks like you!  Well - as soon as I brought my new body double home from the class, the DH said "Your a## doesn't look like that!" and of course I didn't listen to him.  Bless him!  The muslin though proved him right!

Determined to get the two of us looking the same, I unzipped the cover, and removed about 1/2" layer of padding from the backside from hip to hip (along with a few other small adjustments), put said cover back on and now, NOW, two years later,  it finally looks like me and the muslin fits the dress form too.  I tried to get the DH to compare our bums with a little hand cupping, but he wouldn't do it (Chicken!).  Oh well, I did and they pretty much felt the same to me now.  No wonder my clothes have been running a little on the large side lately!


I did make a few changes to the pattern based on other sewists comments on PatternReview.com.
  • Fellow sewist's mentioned the front covered placket area seemed to gap when sitting down so I decided to eliminate the placket all together and continue the line of buttons down the front instead.  I prefer the look and continuity of the buttons this way too so that was a win/win for me.  To eliminate the placket, I just cut out the left front facing piece twice and eliminated the right placket piece.  It was super simple!

  • I also eliminated the sleeve.  I figured that small piece they call a sleeve would end up annoying me and seemed to serve no real purpose so I just left it off.  Because of this change, the shoulder line was way too long so I ended up cutting the top of the shoulder seam 1.3 inches shorter and tapering around the entire armhole.  I finished the armhole with bias tape.  


  • The front upper princess seam was taken in 1/8" each side from the bust to the armhole.
  • The back upper princess seam was taken in 1/4" each side from the mid-back point to the armhole.
  • I used size 12 thru the bust and waist and tapered to a size 14 thru the hips.  Here's the muslin after all of the changes:
  • My buttons down the front vary in size by 1mm, starting at the waistline but can you notice?  As they say "If you can't see it from a galloping horse - don't worry about it!".  After all, the buttons on the pockets are smaller than the rest too!

I love the collar on this dress - isn't it fantastic!  


Don't think it can be worn up though - it's just too tall!

I forgot to mention the lining fabric.  It's a cheap polyester print that I purchased at the sewing garage sale too.  It matches quite nicely though!


I can see another one of these dresses in my future - in fact, I have the fabric already selected and ironed.  It's just hanging out on the back of the couch until I can get it cut out.  It's a fabulous cotton that I purchased at Robert Talbott's outlet in Carmel Valley a few years ago.  It has been in the stash patiently waiting for the right pattern to come along and it has finally presented itself!  I actually had the fabric in the "For Sale" pile for last year's garage sale, but took it out at the last minute and thank goodness I did.  I think it will look FABULOUS sewn up into this dress!  Here's a preview of the fabric.  The pattern definitely makes your eyes go crossed when you look at it so I may need to sew this dress in small increments of time to save my eyes!  It was hard to look at just on the ironing board!

Ok, so on with my stashbustin' stats for 2017.  As this is probably my final garment for the year - let's see if I hit the 100 yard mark.....

Yardage for muslin = 2.375
Yardage for dress = 2.75
Yardage for lining = 2.375
Total YTD = 100.66 

Whoo! Hoo!  I barely stitched my way passed 100 yards, but I made it!  Whoo!  Hooo!

So - What's next on the cutting board? 

My next project is going to be a simple one since this dress took me quite a long time to sew.  I'll be using up some scraps to hopefully make a wearable muslin of Butterick 6377.  You may recognize some of the fabrics from The Bristol Dress I made a month or so ago.  I only have small amounts of each fabric left and just couldn't bear to throw them away so I'll see how this combination turns out. 


Until next time - Happy sewing everyone!


8 comments:

  1. Had a good chuckle about your dress form situation. I have one that needs some "surgery" also. She has a bubble butt and I have NO BUTT. LOL Been meaning to take the cover off and get the electric knife to the butt, but just can't seem to get motivated. Actually, I think some of the butt part needs to go into the tummy area.

    Your dress is beautiful--great work!

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    1. You should get that knife out and start slicing and dicing! I can’t believe it has taken me so long to finally do mine!

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  2. It looks FANTASTIC on you!!! It fits you absolutely perfectly!!! I love every single detail.

    And congrats on 100 yards sewn!

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  3. Beautiful dress and it looks wonderful on you.

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  4. A bit of a## feeling certainly paid off... this fits a treat!

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