Sewing Retro! B4790 #4: Fitting the Front

As I posted in my last post B4790 #3 I opted to alter the front. I have a much meatier front than back, so I'm hoping this will help the dress hang nicer and won't tug. Here are the minor alterations I did to the front to be sure to allow for enough coverage under the armpits. This is piece #1.

When I studied the pattern and studied the reviews, I became concerned about gaping under the armpits for a plus size woman. The dress definitely needs to be fitted across the chest and armpits to keep it from looking like an apron. The importance increases with a disproportionately small or large busted woman. I brought the section across the chest and armpits over about 1/2". This translates to an inch more coverage under the arm. If I find this is the right idea, I may add more as I am 20" across the back and 25" in the front. As I wrote above my back proportionately smaller than my front both cup size and extra flesh.

I would also like to be sure to note that I did not make the shoulders any wider as might be expected when adding a size to a pattern. I phased the alteration for what would be something like a size 24 in the chest into the portion of the pattern that did not need to be altered. I like the effect of the shoulder peaking a little beyond the true shoulder, (see the picture above) but at the same time, I don't want the fabric to droop in the humidity or with wear. Upon measuring I found that the shoulder width for the size 22 is going to be about 20 1/2"! That just seemed so wide. I am going to bring the shoulder back to the size 16 mark which is about 19". For me, with a true shoulder width of about 16", I think the extra two inches should give it a closer effect to the picture and less like and oversized apron as discussed in some of the reviews.

I also wanted to include a note that I cut off #1 at about four inches below the "waist". You can see this in the photo above. I will tape it back to the pattern when I'm ready to do the whole thing. I'm not concerned about fitting from the waist down and didn't want to be tangling with the whole dress front while I was trying to size the bodice only.

This was an extremely fun portion of this project. I love the fitting process as this is what makes creating your own clothes worth while. When working with a new pattern and new fit, this should NEVER be rushed. If there's time, I like to allow a day or at very least a few hours to "think on" the changes I've made. I love to create clothes that actually fit and look nice. No matter what size we are.

Depending on the fit of the bust--remember my 38DDD--the last thing I may return to is to make the cup size bigger. This will inrease the fitted appearance of the dress. That is for another post.