A REAL Update on the Safari Dress

I have made some significant progress on the Safari Dress, and thought I would give an update on the fitting process. What I have left to do is all the buttonholes on the front band, the hem on the sleeve and skirt, and the collar stand and collar. I have finished the main body of the dress, done all the topstitching, and finished all the embellishments (which are now ready to be sewn on).

As for alterations, I started with a size 20. I traced that directly from the pattern and then went and added some additional ease at the hips, about 2 inches total. I then did tissue fitting and it looked like this was going to work fine, so I went ahead and cut the fabric.

Because I never entirely trust tissue fitting, I also fit as I sew. Once I got the body of the dress together, it was clear that I needed a couple more alterations. First, I took in the waist at the side seams and the back seams, grading out to the hips. At the natural waist, this took out a total of about 4 1/2 inches between the side and back seams. I also took out 2 inches underneath each arm.

The alteration in the back was a little more drastic than the sides. The back of the dress is completely flat. I would say that what I did was a swayback adjustment, but that would imply that there was some kind of curve to the back seam to begin with. The back of the dress was so square and flat that the back piece could have been cut on the fold, even though it was not. So did I do a swayback adjustment? No. I just did an "I don't have an ass like a plank" adjustment. I started at about the shoulder blades and brought the seam in to the waist and then graded back out towards the hip. You can see that there is a little crease across the top of my bottom that could indicate that I need to work on that curve (although it is not there if I take the belt off, so go figure):


Here is the dress from the front, without buttons, without embellishment, but gives a good idea of the fit. I also put a belt on for the photo to see where the belt loops should be placed:


In other news, my husband has taken up fabric shopping. Today I got an email from Fashion Fabrics Club that my order was ready to be picked up (the warehouse is in my neighborhood, I just drive over and get it, I don't have it shipped). And I thought "Oh my god! Am I so obsessive about fabric hoarding that I can't even keep track of orders that I make anymore???"

So I went to pick it up and it was a whole stack of 2 1/2 yard lengths....exactly the size I had told my husband was what was needed for a man's shirt.

Here is what he picked out.....

This one is a gray striped cotton that is sooo silky, it is just gorgeous, and has a bit of a sheen:


This is a cotton gauze with a little zig-zag embroidery on it. I darkened the photo so that you can see the embroidery, but in real life it is bright white:


These are two batistes with tone-on-tone dots. He THINKS he got the black one for himself, but he may be mistaken:


Finally, a multicolored striped cotton:


I'm actually kind of excited to get to work on some of these, but I think that for the gray stripe I need a REAL shirt, not a camp shirt. One with long sleeves, a yoke, and a pleat in the back. The batistes should be airy, short-sleeved shirts though.