How low can you go?

I am preparing a bodice to hand sew bias strips to. Like always establish your straight of grain from the salvage and pin the muslin to the mannequin along the bust line and then the side seams. Now you are ready to play with some darts. I have decided to only work one half of the bodice so I had to pin down center front to insure it doesn’t move. I have created a princess seam by pinching and pinning the fabric. You may need to release some fabric from the side seam if you don’t have enough to make seam allowance on the bust.

     

Now you will want to draw on your center front, side seam and hem. You can create any shape for the neck line, although if you are only working with half it will be symmetrical. If you want to do something that isn’t symmetrical then you must work with both sides of the bodice. Mark all your seams and darts.

Because I have created such a low neck line I have cut down center front to manipulate the fabric I couldn’t access before. I was able to create a small dart to help shape the bust.

Next we must take off our muslin and add seam allowance to our pattern. First we must mirror the pattern. Fold the muslin along center front and pin your fabric together like crazy. Then we get to cut it out and sew it.

          

Here are the pieces!

Now we must fuse the pieces and sew them together. Sew the darts (if you have them), then the princess seam (if you have them) and finish the bodice by sewing. Press the seams open, use a ham to help shape the bust while ironing.

                   

Now we make a facing. Pin the fabric down the muslin on center front and smooth your hand along while pinning. Allow the fabric to move naturally or you will get a funny shape. Draw the shape of the neck line and mark 5 cm down. Cut out and serge the bottom edge of facing.

        

With right sides together, sew facing to bodice. Clip in the curves and then trim. This will make it easier to flip and give you a cleaner shape.

Iron and shape bodice on ham.