As a lot of my sewing books and patterns have been boxed up I spent some time flicking through my Lutterloh books and downloads I found a pattern I thought I would quite like to try. This is a lesson in if you are going to make a muslin use a fabric close to the one you are going to use eventually.

I actually made this up originally before going to Disney but put it to one side so I could make my light summer dress. After tracing it off and adding the seam allowance I made it up in my usual muslin, which was a mistake, I could see just by looking at the drawing that the fabric was a lot drapier. So I left it on the dummy and used the neckline for my light summer dress.

After getting back from Florida I made some changes to my dress makers dummy, I’d noticed while draping my dress that the proportions weren’t quite right, so I took the cover off drew some lines on it and put it on myself and measured around the lines, then put the cover back on the dummy and re-did the bust, underbust and hips. It isn’t perfect but it is a lot closer. After making the dummy alterations I put my muslin back on to check the fit, as it had looked rather big which confused me somewhat as the Lutterloh system should make that impossible, I knew it would be too long but too wide? With the alterations done the fit was much better.

With a couple of changes I decide to make it up in a cotton lawn, I had taken ½ in out of the bust piece, which I put back as it didn’t appear to be long enough, I took ½ in out of the under bust piece instead. I actually practiced the neck welt before attaching.

The dress looks lovely however it is very see through and there are a couple of things I should have done after the muslin and before the fashion fabric.

1. I should have lifted the front neck slit as it goes down past any bra I might want to wear
2. I should have smoothed out the waist curve so that it wasn’t so sharp
3. Most Importantly I should have lined it as I went along.

The dress, with a bit of tweaking will be a beautiful summer dress but not this particular version of it.