Frocktober: Put a (rainbow coloured) bird on it!

I’m not really sure what to say about this dress…

Ummm, let’s see…oh yeah, it’s RAINBOW BIRDIES!

I have rainbow birdies on my butt!

It’s from Patrones 309, Camisero Mango #18 but I made a few changes.

I chose this shirt dress pattern because I liked the front detailing and especially the elastic at the back which you can see in the line drawing.

The fabric is a cotton poplin from my favourite store that I love to hate: Spotlight – I really should stop goingthere but I dare YOU to walk away from rainbow bird fabric!

I cut a size 44 and put it all together as per the pattern (excluding the pockets) but the back ended up being very puffy around my shoulder blades, not very flattering at all, and the side seams were being pulled around all funny.

I took the elastic out and unpicked the casing, then I took all the seams in by about 1cm to compensate. This wasn’t enough though since more width was drafted into the back piece for the elastic to take up so I also had to add two long darts for more shaping.

When I tried it on the front looked great but I had some weird stuff happening in the back, strange horizontal wrinkles and puckering. So I played with my seams and darts a few times before I gave up and did the dodgiest fitting fix in the history of sewing…

Ready?

I put the horizontal dart across my bum! Oh yes, and it was magic, first problem solved…then I added a second one across my shoulder blades…I KNOW! You should all unfollow me in shame

I know this is the kind of fix that works at the paper pattern stage but I was well beyond that, I’m a fit-on-the-fly kind of girl and all I wanted was my pretty birdie dress to be done.

I don’t even mind and you can’t really see the extra darts in the busy print, you guys only know they are there because I’ve told you, and shown you close up photos

Oh yeah, and you may have noticed I chopped the sleeves off too, there is enough happening on this dress without the need for fancy pants sleeves.

So, happy kiwi and her colourful friends! What’s the dodgiest fitting/sewing fix you’ve ever done?