I promised you more stitching and here it is, well sort of, I have cut out a new dress, the fabric is a nice cotton, purple with white polka dots, bought from Kayes Textiles here in sunny Southend (technically it might be Westcliff but wet Westcliff doesn’t sound as good a Sunny Southend)

I haven’t made this pattern before, I got it as part of a job lot on ebay, it is a bit weird though, I am missing a pattern piece (the gusset) but I have a left front pattern piece extra. of course it wasn’t until I cut out the skirt pieces that I realise that there was a bit missing, when I looked at the bits I checked for the skirt pieces, the bodice and the facings, check, check and check. it wasn’t until I was cutting out the bodice that I realised there was an ominous slit under the arm.

I’m going to try the print enlarging technique from last year, failing that as long as I can work out how long the under sleeve part is hopefully I can work my way back to getting a shape, I think if it had been a long sleeved dress it would have been easier, because you have all the variables, but with a pentagon you are a little bit stuffed.

This Pattern is actually a size too small for me a 32 rather that 34 which I usually use, but as I am small busted I can sometime get away with it, to combat the missing 2 inches I’ve added roughly 2/8 inch on the sides of the patterns and will hope for the best.

I actually wrote this post last week, since then I have recreated the gusset peice and attempted to fit it, needless to say, it didn’t go well, what hasn’t helped is that while putting it on my dress makers dummy, I have realised that my fabric choice is so wrong so very, very wrong. I’m not sure that the dress will actually be wearable even if I manage to fit the gusset.

What? I hear you say is wrong with the fabric choice, you can’t go wrong with polka dots, you can if the pattern is quite boxey to start off with and then you have the dots going straight across, making it look even squarer, if I had put them on the slant it might have been alright but I’m not convinced.

A polka dot skirt might be nice and I can use the top half for perfecting the insertion of the gusset.