Small bust adjustment - Part 2

Finally, part 2 of my SBA tutorial series is here! 

You can find introduction and illustration on my Lisette Traveller in part 1 of the tutorial here. Part 2 follows very much the same principle, but I wanted to show you what I did for Vogue 8278, as the pattern is a pullover one, which does not have any darts in the front piece or a waist seam. 

Just because it is a loose fit doesn't mean it should fit badly - so I made some alterations to make it fit my small frame better. The problem is that without the waist seam and the darts, it would be hard to follow the first tutorial... So I hope the second part of the SBA tutorial would be of use to you :)

Step 1 - As this pattern does not have a side seam, I chopped it up at the lengthen/shorten line. 

Step 2 - On the bodice part of your pattern piece, draw a line down from the bust point, which should be parallel to the centre front line:

Step 3 - draw the stitching line around the armhole, so we don't get confused by the seam allowance.

Step 4 -  measure the stitching line around the armhole, and pick a point that is approximately 1/3 way from the bottom (side seam rather than shoulder seam). This is marked as a little circle on the picture below. 

Step 5 - Link the point identified in Step 4 to the bust point, intersecting the first line. 

Step 6 - cut from the bottom of the first line to the bust point, then continue to cut to the little circle on the armhole, without cutting it through (i.e. leaving a hinge). 

Step 7 - Pivot the bottom left piece upwards and rightwards, overlapping on both of the lines you have cut in step 6. Here I would try and keep the vertical line, well, vertical, so that it is still roughly parallel to the centre front. By pivoting the pattern you are of course remove the excess ease that is built in to the pattern, which we do not need. 

Once you are happy with the adjustment, tape the lines in place. And your SBA is done! Wasn't that super easy? All you need to do now is taping the bottom half of the dress front pattern to the bodice, which you have just altered, assuming that a SBA is all you needed to do. You are likely to need to blend the side seam in a bit around the waistline, so that there is so sharp turns. 

However, I carried on here as I also wanted to make a small waist adjustment (as we are going with abbreviations here, we may as well call this "SWA"). I know that I don't suit clothes that are too loose, and as V8278 is a pullover dress, and it only goes down to size 6 (and I'm usually better off with a 4 when it comes to sewing patterns), I wanted to make sure that there is not a lot of ease around my waist. 

A SWA is also very straightforward, and I followed the method in the Colette Sewing Handbook (see recommendation here). If I continue with my numbering of the steps:

Step 8 - Find your waist line on the pattern, and draw it as a horizontal line. Mark the point where this line meets the side seam, excluding the seam allowance. Let's call this point 1. 

Step 9 - Do the same for your hip line. Let's call the point on the hip line side seam point 2. 

Step 10 - Draw a line (any line, pretty much!) across from point 2 to the waist line. 

Step 11 - Draw a line from point 1 to the new line that you have just drawn in step 10

Step 12 - Cut the two lines in Steps 10 and 11, and start pivoting again, inwards, which will result in one line overlapped (from point 2) and a small gap from point 1. This is because we are trying to keep the waist line pretty much horizontal. Here I took in at the waist enough to give a smooth transition when the skirt part of the pattern is taped back tot he bodice. 

That's it for the SWA! 

I then taped the two pieces together, and the adjusted dress front pattern piece now looks like this: 

Et voila! We are all done with V8278. I'm sure these two tutorials won't cover all the possible variations of all the bodice patterns out there, but I hope you have found them helpful :) This is of course to be continued, and I shall report back once I have done another SBA on a different bodice. 

But for now my dear readers, have a lovely week!