I thought I would do a different kind of post today and instead of reviewing the Sew Over It Lois dress pattern that I have just made, I decided to focus on the pattern adjustments I made to make the dress fit me. …. there were quite a few!
I ended up making about five toiles of this dress (not the full dress in some instances, two full dresses and three bodices!). So, it was quite a trial, and I very nearly gave up but I’m so glad I didn’t as Lois is such a lovely dress. So, let's get to it…
Adjustment 1 – the waistband on the dress is cinched in just on the back so you have to insert a piece of elastic into the back waist seam to do this. The pattern says that for a size 10, which I was making, the elastic should be 37.5 cms. After making my first toile, it was obvious that this wasn’t enough for me and didn’t pull in the waist as much as I hoped. Therefore I played around with the length of the elastic whilst wearing the dress and looking in a mirror until I got the look that I wanted and it turned out that I could reduce the length of the elastic by 1.5 inches.
Adjustment 2 – the skirt on the dress is fairly straight which is a style I like but my toile showed that it came out really baggy for me around the hips and down into the thigh area. So I put the dress on inside out and pinned out the skirt until it fit more to my liking in that area. I tried it on again the right way round to check it was ok and then took my toile to my pattern to transfer the markings, ending up taking a graduated slice out of both side seams.
Adjustment 3 – My toile showed that the sleeves of the dress were too long by about 1.5 inches. The sleeve pattern piece has a helpful ‘lengthen / shorten’ line already on it, so I just cut down that line and moved the bottom section of the sleeve up by that amount and taped it back down. After that easy adjustment the cuffs of the sleeve then sat in just the right position.
Adjustment 4 – The bodice of the dress was where I had the most trouble! My first toile had a really gapey neckline, so firstly I did an adjustment on the pattern to remove that. That did seem to remove the gape but I then realised that even without the gapiness, there was still lots and lots of unnecessary room in the bust area making that area look really unflattering. I did lots of research online and in my fitting books and realised what I needed was a small bust adjustment. I’ve never had to do one of these before so it hadn’t crossed my mind previously. Different pattern companies draft their patterns based on a certain bust cup size. I found that Sew Over It’s patterns are based on a B/C cup. However this has no bearing on the cup size you normally wear in underwear. Its all based on the difference between your high and full bust measurements. That difference for me is one inch which puts me into the A cup category. Therefore if Sew Over It draft based on a B/C, it made total sense that I would have to reduce the size in that area. So I firstly ‘un-did’ the previous gapy neck adjustment on my bodice pattern pieces and went ahead and did my first small bust adjustment and it made a massive improvement in the fit of the dress in the bodice area. It removed the excess fabric around the bust area and made the wrap section of the dress sit so much better around my chest.
Adjustment 5 – Finally once I had done the above, I realised that the waistline of the overall bodice was sitting too high – not on my natural waist. So, the last adjustment I made was to the length of the front and back bodice pieces by adding in one inch at the lengthen /shorten lines on the pattern.
So, as you can see from the above, the fit of this dress wasn’t easy but I’m really pleased that I persevered because I now have a dress (and a pattern) which I love
and which fits me. I also learnt some things along the way! Have you made the Lois dress? What adjustments, if any, did you make?
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