Assignment: Felicity Dress

Today’s garment finish is the Jennifer Lauren Felicity Dress. This post is part of my garment sewing project (you can see past posts here). There’s a sew along going on, on Jennifer’s blog, and it just started. I think it’s great that indie pattern designers are doing sew alongs for their patterns; it is a bit of hand holding for those that need it, and I’ve seen some that offer pattern hacks along the way, which are also very helpful.

Okay, let’s get right on into how I fit the pattern! My high bust is 31″, bust is 31-1/4″ (difference of less than 1″, which puts me at an A-cup; B is 2″, C is 3″, and so on), and my waist is 25-1/2″ and hips 34-1/4″. This puts me at a size 6, with the waist leaving me between size 6 and 8, but I like a snug fit so I opted to cut all pieces at a size 6. I read somewhere that this pattern designer drafts for a D-cup (I don’t think it was in the pattern instructions); I’ve never had to adjust down from so high, and I was a little concerned at the beginning, but it all turned out great with the help of several muslins.

Here is a photo of the first muslin that I made. I did a small bust adjustment by 1/2″ (which is normally what I would do for a pattern drafted for a B-cup, but remember this is for a D-cup pattern), and as you can see by the area *underneath* my bust, there is still some pooling fabric, which is to be expected, so more fabric would need to be removed from this area. And see the top of the bodice that I circled in pink? Granted that the top of the bodice is gathered, but when I made the muslin, this looked like way too much extra fabric at the top (which makes sense, since I knew I would need to remove some fabric for the bust adjustment).

Here is the pattern piece after I made the small bust adjustment to a B-cup (and after that I adjusted still further by another 1/2″), noted by the pink circle on the left. I usually reference this Craftsy class when making bust adjustments. The pink circle on the right is what I decided to remove (which ended up being 1″, tapering down to nothing) due to the extra fabric in the top bodice area. After I made the adjustments to the pattern piece, I made muslin #2 and #3 to check that my changes were on target. The third muslin ended up being just right with the changes that I had made, so I felt confident cutting into my fabric.

For my dress, I used a cotton voile by Frances Newcombe for Art Gallery Fabrics from her ‘Utopia’ line. I think I bought this print from The Intrepid Thread. I used Superior polyester Omnithread. As you can see from a side view of the finished dress, I think I was successful with my fit modifications.

Here’s a close-up of the bodice area. The bodice is comprised of two halves, sewn right sides together and then gathered along the neckline. The pattern piece comes with a neckline template, so that after you gather the fabric, you hold the template up and adjust the gathering so that the fabric fits within the paper template. Since people with D-cups usually have different shoulders than people with small busts, I made adjustments to my paper template, which was very simple and comprised of me holding the paper up to my body and just pinching so that the shoulders of the template were in line with my actual shoulders. That was really easy. The neckline and armholes are later finished with bias binding.

The pattern has pockets in the sides of the skirt, and the pattern gives options for either a gathered skirt or a circle skirt; I went with the circle skirt, but either option would be lovely. I know tons of people *love* the heck out of pockets in a dress or skirt, but I don’t know if I have a preference either way.

The pattern gives instructions to insert a back lapped zipper, but she noted that if you’d like to insert an invisible zipper instead, it would not compromise the finished garment. I was not confident in my lapped zipper skills, so I just went with the invisible zipper. I used Pellon knit seam tape to interface the center back area of the dress before I inserted the zipper.

I’m very happy with the outcome of this dress and I would make it again. There were very few pattern pieces to cut out, and the instructions and illustrations were easy to follow. The part that took me the very most time was binding the neckline and armholes, lol. For me, this was good practice in fitting a bodice that wasn’t straightforward (darts or princess seams), and I feel that the design of the bodice pattern pieces is very flattering and super quick to sew once fitted with a muslin. This is the second Jennifer Lauren Vintage pattern that I have made, and she has some other cute designs that I’d be interested in making as well.