A very late follow up post: the MOE Dress 2013

This is the time of the year I start to consider whether I’ll be sewing a dress for the Mark of Excellence Awards, an industry awards ceremony in November that tends toward cocktail/black tie attire. I realized looking back that I pretty much fell off the face of the blogging world mid-MOE sewing project last fall. Many reasons, but I think I owe you some progress pictures and a couple of final shots of the dress I made for the Mark of Excellence awards that were taken but never ended up in a blog post. I love how it turned out.

Layering and basting

Working on the bodice, sleeves and sleeve gussets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-fitting and with the skirt pin-based on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the final product! I’m disappointed that my shoes were cut off in the photo below, so I’m including another photo after, not as professional, but at least the shoes are in the picture. The shoes were beautiful, but unfortunately they rubbed my toes and I had huge blisters by the end of the night. The price of beauty!

2013 Mark of Excellence dress – the maths

Last weekend I spent Sunday grading up the pattern for the dress I am making, McCall 4221, for a formal event the third week of November – the Mark of Excellence awards.

It is a 34 bust, and I am not – my high bust is a 36, regular is a 38. I’ve graded patterns up before, but not one with a bodice-and-sleeve-in-one. There’s also a scallop to the front, which limits where shortening can happen, which I nearly always have to do because of my short torso. The front bodice piece is now a frankenpiece – there are slashes and tape all over the place. Thank goodness for this book – the Bishop Method of Clothing Construction. I had no clue where to start, and the internet had an underwhelming amount of information for a change.

I tried a simple addition at the center front (which would make the dart fall in a strange place) then a full bust adjustment (would have only kind of solved the problem) before I settled on a simple slash and spread method. I had to limit it to two places in the pattern as when I tried a third place in the portion of the bodice under the sleeve, it would have overlapped with the attached sleeve portion, which I assume would mess up the whole cutting out of the fabric thing. So here is what I have, and it appears to work on my dress form:

The muslin is up next!