Burda 7696: done. A swayback sewist's nightmare

Previously on Vacuuming the Lawn, I showed you Burda 7696, which was too long in the torso and too big overall.

I started over with some delicious Joann's black ponte roma knit, the super soft stuff that costs $12.99 a yard but I always buy on sale.  I had it in stash.  It's probably the best fashion fabric Joann's sells.

I cut a 12 grading to 14 at the hip this time.

First thing to fix was to fix the long torso.  I cut along the "shorten here" line and overlapped 3/4".



I also didn't like the front drape placement, and raised it an inch.   Also the v-neck has been raised as a result of the torso alterations.

I also didn't like how droopy the drape was.  I thought I'd be clever and cut the front drape as a 10.  Joke was on me, that pulled the dress too tight overall, so I sewed the panel in again with a smaller SA, so that it was essentially a 12.  But the top part of the drape was too loose (hello 3 little bears!), so I pulled on the top corners so they would stick out into the dress, to get the fit I wanted.





Here's the dress inside out, with the corners sticking out (I've since cut them off). I like my "sci fi" costume.


Oh, I also decided to ditch the facings.  I folded over the armhole and v-neck and sewed down.  One less thing to worry about, and a dress with this kind of thick knit doesn't need  a double layer.  I HATED how my understitching looked on the facings in the muslin.

But then it was time for the BIG CHALLENGE.  My swayback.


So here's what the dress looked like as 12 grading to 14...in the back.

Horrible, right?  Waaay too tight, lots of horizontal lines going on...

I let out the CB seam to minimal SAs, which gained me an inch. Phew. So I thought I could tidy up my back with some darts, like I did in the Muse dress. Um, that looks even worse:


So I took out the darts. Here it's just minimal SA in the CB seam:


But still pretty ugly.

So I pondered for a bit. I thought about declaring Burda 7696 dead, but I decided to keep on beating this dead horse.

Somehow, Vogue 1250 popped into my mind. It's the "Hot hot hot" dress of this summer, all the sewing bloggers are making it, and it's a knit with a horizontal waist seam in the back which I thought was kind of weird but you know what, it would work with this dress! But I don't own that pattern...yet. So I took the plunge and CUT THE BACK WAIST to create a seam. Oh yes, daring indeed. I played around with this for a bit, but I could have just done a 1" tuck grading to nothing at the side seams.

Here I am with my binder clips, testing the waters. Looking better already, huh (and festive--love binder clips in colors).


Here's the inside with my swayback adjustment (before I cut out the 1" SA for it)

and the outside:



and here's what it looks like on me:


I honestly don't think I can get this any better.
Here's the side view; my swayback is really emphasized, plus the front of the dress drapes out a bit...


And here it is on Emma:

OH, yeah, the drape piece is supposed to use a 2" buckle for the dress, but the shirt view had this loop piece instead. Since I didn't have a buckle handy I used the loop piece and I think it works fine. 

I'm tired.  Counting the muslin I spent 15 hours on this dress, and it's actually pretty simple looking, especially in comparison to the Muse dress which took 20 hours and has many more details (welt pockets, collar, tabs).  It is time for an easy knit shirt, me thinks. 

Princeton farmer's mkt flowers this week:


And my pumpkin vines are blooming:




And here's the bumblebee action for today, with my rose of sharon:


Be well and good night!