fitting the SweeTarts dress

Two posts in less than a week, that's unprecedented!  I really do mean to keep up with this blog better, because I'm sewing quite a lot and getting better at it all the time.

I finished up the purple dress and wore it to work the other day.  But as the day went on I felt that there were problems with the way it fit.  It sort of sagged in the front above the bust, and when I sort of pulled and pinched at it in different ways I concluded that it could maybe be fixed by adjusting the sleeves. 

I had to take up the sleeves where the sleeve cap meets the shoulder in another dress I made recently, a tiki themed thing with a mandarin collar (here's a picture of me in it at the Tonga Room; it was made for that occasion in particular and I really like it even though people thought I was a waitress!). 

I'm starting to think that it may be the kind of alteration that I'm going to have to make regularly.  I haven't had the time yet to see if it helps with the purple thing though because there was another big issue that I'm working out first.

That issue is with the pleats in the skirt.  I've decided, pleats are not for me. 

 They are not flattering on me at all.  They pulled weirdly to the sides, and pooched out right where I need poochiness the least: over my belly, ugh.  I felt good about the dress in general, but the pleats were a dealbreaker, and in fact I'm never going to made anything with skirt pleats like that again for myself, they never work out right.

So I needed to do something else with the front skirt, and I undid the side seams and detached the bodice from the top of the skirt piece and took the pleats out.  Then I got the skirt front piece out of another dress pattern that I thought would work ok and recut the purple skirt front to match it.

I think it's going to work out all right except that I haven't yet gotten the dart placement quite right--the darts need to line up with the curved seams on the bodice.  As soon as I make that happen, I have high hopes for the fit, especially because I'm really loving the collar.  It's kind of mod and surprisingly comfortable for being so wide.

This last picture is of my next project.  I have this stretch cotton camouflage print with the camo shaped like flowers that I love, and I finally decided to use it for this cute Vogue 8319 dress.  

I really like the idea of using casual looking fabrics on dressier looking dresses, or using traditionally dressier fabrics on casual looking designs.  Doing this gives a good mix of elements that is really wearable for me, because I'm hardly ever actually required to dress up for anything but I love to wear dresses.  This way I get to dress up a little without being overdressed.  I don't generally mind being overdressed a little bit, and I like being different, but it would be overdoing it if I didn't do something to make my clothing more everyday suitable. 

As soon as the purple thing is done, I'll get started on this, probably later tonight. I already cut it out and I've got some ideas on how to sew it up without the lining that the pattern calls for.  I almost never feel like I need a lining and I didn't think to buy lining fabric to go with this camo print anyhow.