So, you may remember that almost 2 months back I was in London for my birthday, and I got some fancy fabric from Liberty to make a nice Lonsdale dress with.

It is Liberty Tana Lawn fabric, Marco C variation. Marco was originally a scarf design from 1970 that was recreated using a pattern of tiny trees, re-traced from the original and printed on tints and deep dyed grounds to create almost solid blocks of colour. It was good for this project because the print is bi-directional and super small, so pattern matching is no concern!

I made a practice dress to check the fit, a wearable muslin if you will:

I graduated the fit from a 4 in the bust, out to a 6 at the hips, but as you can tell, there was a bit of excess length in the bodice, which resulted in some unattractive folds of fabric above the waist, so I took the zip back off, removed the bodice, and cut half an inch off then put it back together again.

(yep, the rubbish selfie pictures return…. please ignore a) my strange pose, b) my horrendous toenails)

This solved most of the problem, but there was still a bit of extra length on the side seams, about an inch. I was concerned to cut into the nice stuff before I had the pattern right, and so left it to one side and ignored it for a bit…… But the deadline I had set myself was to make it to wear to a wedding. Which is next weekend. Yep, it was time to suck it up and get on with it!

When I looked at the pattern pieces, I could see that the bodice pieces curve down to an extra inch-ish at the side seams… suddenly it all becomes clear! So I made the pieces more straight across at the waistband, and took the extra 1/2 inch out also, and used these modified pieces to cut my proper fabric.

Ta dah!

Perfect fit!

Now I just need some shoes to go with it……………….