There is a theme in my life. I have a strong and almost violent reaction against something, then something happens so I forget exactly what I hated, the pain fades, and then I reintroduce the hated thing back into my life, and begin the process all over again.
In this case, the healing process was aided by a lucky thrifting find: a 1970's coat that I knew would be perfect with Evil Woman's dress (and would make it actually wearble this winter.) It was overpriced, torn in the underarm, and missing a button, but I fell in love, found it was 75% off, and found the button in the pocket.
And so, after a few days apart, our reunion was not so bad. It seems that McCall's 3733 (also known as McCall's #@*!) might not be so evil after all. (Especially after the extensive repairs I made.)
I actually tried to look evil as I modeled but I ended up looking slightly deranged and horribly aged—probably because I was in my cold alley with no fog machine or ELO. Thus, you just get me in my quasi-natural, freezing state.
I am sort of annoyed that I didn't make the stripes chevron on the bodice, and that I cut the length a bit too short. Who knows? Maybe now that I know the pitfalls with this pattern I will make another version and correct the problems. (I can't believe I am saying that. See what I mean about my memory?)
I recently checked out Fit For Real People from the library. The whole method is based on tissue-fitting the pattern and then using the adjustments to alter the pattern. I have done this before with decent results, but this time it didn't work at all. I am guessing it is because this soft fabric behaves so much differently than an unyeilding piece of tissue. Actually, the authors mention this in the book, "During our research for this book, we compared tissue-fit to fabric fit. In nearly every case the fabric ended up bigger than the fabric." And yet, there is no discussion of how to use this information in fitting!
In this case, I think the bias front grew quite a bit before (and while?) I stay-stitched it leading to my bodice fitting woes. Also, the bodice has gathers instead of darts, and I don't know how one would tissue fit gathers. And there is no way a tissue sleeve would ever seem to fit. The book does have a lot of great alteration ideas, but I think that just making my standard alterations would have worked a lot better. Has anyone else used this method with success?
I used an underlining in the midriff and that seems to really stabilize it, so that is an idea worth repeating. Now I really need to make something sensible. Really, I mean it.
The Sewing Facts
- This project was 100% from the stash
- Pattern: McCall's 3733 (1973 or 1974)
- Fabric: Rayon Challis
- Notions: metal zip, fabric for underlying and interfacing, thread
