Well after many days of procrastination I have finally finished the top muslin made from this Kwik Sew pattern.I have to say after mucking around with it for so long I am actually quite disappointed with how it turned out. This is by no means the actual original pattern's fault- as I have always found KwikSew patterns to be easy to use and make- but rather is most likely due to the fact that I am very inexperienced in doing full bust alterations.
Plus I kind of "winged" it with this one, not being totally sure what to do.
The main issues are:
- Lack of room in the "bustal" area. I think any extra space I added was taken away again by my extra wide darts, putting me in no better place than I was to begin with.
-The darts themselves: looking at the photo I can now see that the side dart is too high up, and both are too long. Also I got funny wrinkles/ "poufs" at the dart tip which didn't go away no matter how much I pressed them!
- The way in which I did the FBA caused the seamline under the bust to curve upwards, thus making the fabric underneath puff out in a rather unflattering way underneath.
-The lining fabric for the bust (sheeting) has absolutely no give whatsoever. Which is unfortunate as the seersucker floral does.
One thing that I did like was using a tip I read from an old back copy of Australian Stitches to put elastic inside the straps. This stops them from slipping off your shoulder when wearing the top. I used clear elastic for this, however I think I pulled it a little too tight-the straps now dig in like Wonderbra ones! Next time I will cut the elastic only slightly smaller than the strap, not a good inch or so.
All in all I think I can chalk this down to a learning experience. I am not too keen to try and work out the kinks in my alteration as I am pretty sure there must be a better (and easier) way to do it.
If I feel tempted to use this pattern again I would probably look at using a fabric with some in-built stretch, plus follow these guidelines put out by KwikSew on making bust pattern adjustments.
