As promised, here is a little explanation of how I did the full bust adjustment (FBA) to improve the fit of my spotty dress =)
I should start by saying that I got a feel for how to do this from Sandra Betzina's Fast Fit book, as well as from lots of tutorials around the internets (like this one here), but I couldn't seem to find anything that was just exactly what I needed (all in one piece - cut on the fold - and empire waist length), so I sort of just fudged it a bit. I am sure there is a better way to do it, but this worked for me so I'm not complaining =)
Here's my front bodice pattern piece.
I used Sandra's method to figure out where the apex should go, since it wasn't marked on the pattern, and then moved it a little so that I could draw a line (blue)straight down from that point to the lower edge right between the two pleats (shown in green), and also out to about a third of the way around the arm hole.
I cut up through the blue line, all the way to the seam allowance on the arm hole, and spread the pattern to give an extra 1.5cm or so right where the blue and red lines meet, and taped the pieces down on a fresh bit of tracing paper.
Instead of making a third cut to the side seam and creating a side dart (like point C in this diagram) I left the extra fullness at the bottom, and added a third pleat right in the middle (which is why I shifted the 'apex' point a little and drew that blue line right between the original pleats) to take it out so that the length would still match with the lower midriff band - there are more technical ways to draw those curves/points where you are putting a pleat/dart, but I just copied the shape of the existing pleats.
Finally, I cut along the red line and spread to add the extra length I needed in the front, and taped those down too.
And there you go - my adjusted bust =)
Like I said, there are LOADS of really good tutorials around the internet to help with doing an FBA, but if you have any questions about how I did mine please ask - I'm happy to try and help out =)
I should start by saying that I got a feel for how to do this from Sandra Betzina's Fast Fit book, as well as from lots of tutorials around the internets (like this one here), but I couldn't seem to find anything that was just exactly what I needed (all in one piece - cut on the fold - and empire waist length), so I sort of just fudged it a bit. I am sure there is a better way to do it, but this worked for me so I'm not complaining =)
Here's my front bodice pattern piece.
I used Sandra's method to figure out where the apex should go, since it wasn't marked on the pattern, and then moved it a little so that I could draw a line (blue)straight down from that point to the lower edge right between the two pleats (shown in green), and also out to about a third of the way around the arm hole.
I cut up through the blue line, all the way to the seam allowance on the arm hole, and spread the pattern to give an extra 1.5cm or so right where the blue and red lines meet, and taped the pieces down on a fresh bit of tracing paper.
Instead of making a third cut to the side seam and creating a side dart (like point C in this diagram) I left the extra fullness at the bottom, and added a third pleat right in the middle (which is why I shifted the 'apex' point a little and drew that blue line right between the original pleats) to take it out so that the length would still match with the lower midriff band - there are more technical ways to draw those curves/points where you are putting a pleat/dart, but I just copied the shape of the existing pleats.
Finally, I cut along the red line and spread to add the extra length I needed in the front, and taped those down too.
And there you go - my adjusted bust =)
Like I said, there are LOADS of really good tutorials around the internet to help with doing an FBA, but if you have any questions about how I did mine please ask - I'm happy to try and help out =)
well I'm impressed - I just kind of gave up!
ReplyDeleteThank you for this! This makes it much clearer even than Tracey's fashion course notes!
ReplyDelete