I am thoroughly intrigued by Mindy's suggestion of making a duct tape dress form. That would be awesome! I might have to give that some serious thought. (Unless, of course, Santa wants to bring me a dress form for Christmas. Ahem.)
My mom had suggested basting the top together to make sure it fit before actually sewing in all the seams. But when I started reading the pattern instructions, there is all sorts of facing and armhole stuff that has to be done before the major pieces get put together, so that didn't really seem practical. Because it would all have to get torn out, no matter whether it fit or not.
So in the end, I took Eilis' suggestion of pinning all the pieces together. I wasn't looking forward to this because there were four sets of three pleats each that I would need to pin in place in order to get the four major pieces of the shirt to fit together properly.
Have a mentioned patience is not a virtue of mine?
Anyway, I sucked it up and took one for the team (Team Make Your Own Clothes?) and pinned the darn thing together. Then I oh-so-gingerly slipped it over my head.
And did I mention there were 12 pleats pinned in place? And four pieces pinned together? And lo there was much jabbing of boobs and armpits.
I know, whine, whine, whine. But I knew there would be much bitching (on my part) if I finished the whole thing and then discovered that it didn't fit.
So I didn't get it to lay exactly flat, on account of the fact that so many pins at the empire waist seam got stuck in my bra that I eventually gave up.
But the point is, it fit relatively well. Crose enough, as Labatt Blue says. I think that once it is done it will fit, but I think I'd still like to give it a little leeway. I think I'm going to convert all the 5/8" seams to 1/2" seams. It seems like that ought to work well as long as I do the conversion across the board. Has anyone ever tried this trick before?
So here is the top pinned together:
Here is the pattern. The one I'm doing is the hip-length pink one in the bottom left corner.
Now the other risk here? It's quite possible this shirt might make me look pregnant when I'm done. I'm hoping that the softer cotton fabric I have (as compared to what the model's wearing in the photo) will be a little more floaty and soft. Because if it's not, I might need to find a pregnant lady and make a gift of a blue tank top. 'Cause we can't be having any of that over here.
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3 comments:
I look at those shirts in the stores all the time but totally look pregnant every time I put one on. My question is, however, couldn't you just take the sides of the flowy part in a bit if it makes you look preggers? I keep wanting to buy one and do that, but then can't really justify spending $25 on something I could probably make at home...which is what you're doing! Once you get it all done, if it flows out a bit too much on the bottom part, just rip open the seams to that part and take them in. Yes? Will that work?
Empire-waisted things don't, as a rule, make me look pregnant. It's the things with gathers or pleats under the bustline that make me look that way. Because it's the gathers there that would, theoretically, make room for a pregnant belly.
So, rather than taking the sides in, if it looks that horrible on me, I will first try taking those pleats out that are just under the bust. Then it will lay flat against my rib-cage and there will be no doubt that there is, in fact, NO baby bump hiding under there!
NICE BLOG.
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