Wedding Dress Wednesday: bodice fitting

I feel like I should apologise in advance for the decidedly unglamourous backdrop for the photos in this post. Unfortunately the only mirror in our current home is in the bathroom, so you’re going to get lots of lovely views of toilet paper.

I spent the weekend working on fitting the bodice to my dress. As much as I was keen to keep working on the skirt, I realised I couldn’t appropriately figure out the length of the skirt until the bodice was sorted.

I took my measurements and, being a Japanese book, I sat somewhere between the medium and large. Thinking that I’d be pretty miserable if I cut out the medium and it was too small, I decided to go with the large.

It positively swam on me. Also, it made it clear that the gathering wasn’t going to work with my plans to embroider the bodice. Fortunately the front lining in this pattern is provided with darts, so I could use that. I cut out the medium accordingly, and this time I basted in a zip so it would be easier to fit myself.

(The cat isn’t a very good fitting assistant.)

This was a much better fit around the waistband – in fact it’s a little on the small side here, but I’ll see how that changes with a softer fabric. The upper section was still way too large, though.

My next attempt was to cut out the small in the upper section, grading to medium in the waistband. I was feeling a bit better about this version, so I took the time to press under all the seam allowances, and insert the zip properly.

Getting there! At this stage I was beginning to think I would have to add side darts or some sort of princess seam, which I was a bit nervous about, especially as it would make the embroidery more complicated. But first, I thought I would just try taking in a bit extra at the shoulder and side seams.

I was so happy with this! You can see it’s still a bit gappy on the back, but the other side was much better – it’s not just because I’m holding up the camera. It’s also a lovely fit around the arm. So it looks like I need to take in an additional 1.5cm at the shoulder and side seams – I’m not sure what’s going on here, and just how weird my proportions are.

The Mister comes home tonight (sadly it looks like he’ll only be here for a week), so I probably won’t get any work done on the dress this weekend. But we’re having our engagement shoot done on Monday, so hopefully I’ll have some pretty pictures to show off!

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