Saturday, July 17, 2010

Post-fitting Adjustments to Foundation Part IV - July 17, 2010


Today was more successful than Thursday.  After my confusion Thursday, I asked for help from the folks at Pattern Review, and they pointedme in the right direction (THANKS!).  In addition to reinforcement of the ideas of waist and bust stays, I received several tips.

Tip number one: no center seam needed. 
Tip number two: a horizontal dart in the center front to get the fabric to lay against my skin.  (I do not yet get how this works, but I believe it)
Tip number three: put in cups.  I had some soft cups, but they were too small, so I bought new ones today. 

So, I took the advice I received and also went off in my own direction, too.  I decided to split the front and side front pieces into torso, lower bust, and upper bust sections.  So, one front, two side fronts, four pieces for the lower bust and three pieces for the upper bust.  Now, the foundation doesn't bunch up nearly as much in back, fits in the chest, lies flat in the middle, and maintains the neckline (necessary to attach to the dress.  The pictures are shown with no boning or underwires added.  The molded cups are pinned to the dress form (do dress forms HAVE a chest?)

Oh, and I just sewed the muslin "cups" wrong-sides to the right side of the torso muslin.  I think this might be unconventional (hopefully not just plain terrible), but those curves were a bit formidable and I wanted to be able to easily undo and redo the seams if necessary.  I'm also thinking of more or less doing this for the final garment, using the fabric to make the channel for the underwires by sewing two parallel seams.  Sewers, please let me know if you think this is a bad idea!

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