Sharon Sews

Thanks for the comments on my previous post on doing an FBA on the bodice for this dress pattern. They were extremely helpful (um, maybe not yours Stacey ...LOL) Dawn posted some thoughts that I'd like to respond to. Why did I think the waist dart was too large? I thought it was too wide because the bust tip ended up with a very pronounced point. What if you rotate some to the side? I was afraid it would ruin the design of the dress. What if you make an armsyce princess dart? Never thought about this, and I've never done this. I'll need to practice this one to see how it works. The middle photo looked like there was more length above the bust and perhaps it would be better to have the extra length below. Good point - I hadn't noticed that or thought about that. I'm going to play with that adjusted pattern piece and see what happens when I move the extra length. You referenced page 158 of Fast Fit for Real People and suggested doing the alteration inside or or

McCall's 5466 is the next dress I want to add to my wardrobe. Even though this is a new pattern from their fall collection, in the part of the country I live in I need to sew it now so I can get a few months of wear out of it before the cold winds blow in. I'm having a bit of difficulty with the FBA. My first attempt (middle altered pattern piece) I enlarged the waist dart and rotated some of it into the neckline pleats. This added too much "poof" at the neckline. Next I tried just enlarging the waist dart but that resulted in one dart that is too large. I'm wondering if I'm going about this the right way? I'm going to pull out my copy of Fast Fit for Real People and see if I can find any guidance. Or maybe I just need to sew a muslin for the bodice and determine the alterations that way. Has anyone else begun this pattern and if so did you need to do an FBA?

If you've been reading my blog for a while you know that I'm on a roll with McCall's 5330 skirt pattern. Four skirts have been added to my wardrobe using this pattern - and all four of them were sewn using remnants. Using remnants is possible with this simple slim skirt as each view takes less than one yard of 60" wide fabric for sizes up to 18 (which is the largest size for this pattern.) This latest skirt is view B, the one I had decided not to waste my time on as I was sure it wouldn't look good on me. I decided if I could find a suitable piece of fabric in my remnant stash I would give this one a try also. The skirt has a waist yoke, three inverted pleats in the front, darts in the back, a small walking slit in the center back seam, and a skirt shape that is full through the hip narrowing at the hemline. Surprise! I love the shape! I honestly did not thing I would and was pleasantly surprised when I tried it on. However, I'm not certain what to pair it w