Making my blocks for the TVW dress - 1

So I started to watch The Vampires Wife quite some time ago. I am not so sure the dress style is really me, but there have been enough celebrities etc wearing these dresses for me to want to make a version. No way can I afford to buy this so DIY I must, if I want one.

So there are 3 lengths of this dress and really just two styles and other than that the dresses are just variants of each other so more or less frills or different sleeves etc. I am not a fan of over frilly and the Cate dress does not appeal but the others do have a certain charm in their simplicity. The Cate dress has front frills and a princess construction whereas the other styles all have the construction shown below.

Here you can see the bust dart which is, according to Winifred Aldrich, a "french dart" and in this case it pretty much lines up with the side seam.

The different styles all vary slightly but they are all essentially the same pattern. The silver dress has a tie back detail that not all of the dresses have.
 
Now I have a huge collection of sewing patterns and I spent days ( I kid you not!) searching for a pattern with the right bodice and skirt and sleeves and no I do not have one, or even several I could cobble together to get this look, that are right, so this is really quite a unique style.




I had thought it was a basic bodice and A-line skirt but no Burda, Patrones, New Mode or any other magazine patterns I currently own have this particular bodice darts. Neither do I own a pattern with french darts in my envelope patterns. Yes I could move the normal front darts in a  pattern I do own but then how do I ensure the bodice will fit me if I have never used this pattern before. I do have a Burda shift dress pattern with french darts but that has no waist shaping and yes I could have a go at hacking................ but then I decided to do this differently.

I had an issue with fitting a while back  https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2018/03/completed-at-last-peplum-jacket-in.html and have avoided the issue since by not making any fitted tops. It seems to me though if I am going to start manipulating patterns then I may as well start real pattern cutting and just get on with the job instead of being scared and avoiding this any longer.

I bought the Winifred Aldrich book Metric Pattern Cutting. I have actually owned this book twice before. Once as a Fashion Student aged 16  and  I dropped out of the course by age 17. I lost this copy on the bus.

Then again I bought this at about age 26. I only had it a few weeks and had flicked through it but never used it when a friend who was studying fashion asked to borrow it because the library copies were all out. Well I lent it of course. She finished her course a few months later and left Coventry and went back home taking my book with her.

Thanks Jo for nicking my book!

Since then I kind of gave up on pattern cutting and sewing until back in 2010 when I started to sew all over again.  It has ended up that all these years later I am now buying the same book for a third time.

This time though I will use it and attempt to make the pattern I need for this dress.

I may make a mess of this but at least I may also learn something useful so here goes with my first version of a basic bodice block.

I am making this using my own measurement at first draft and not the standard measurements given. I turn out to be a mix of sizes - and sizing is different to a lot of the patterns I own too!

So here is the basic bodice block - in theory in my own size - scissors and washers are my weights for the photo because the paper is blown vinyl wall paper which as it turns out is really strong. You can see quite a few mistakes which are  scribbled out here. The final hopefully correct line is the pink one outside the block.

 

Then the basic sleeve block. I had some issues with this because I could not understand so the version pictured is the second attempt. You need to trace round the basic bodice block before making the basic sleeve block because you use parts of the bodice to refer to and measure from to do the sleeve.

Then I decide all I need now is to make the basic bodice into the basic fitted dress block so I again trace round the basic bodice and then use this to make the basic fitted dress block. Add normal waist dart, then lengthen into a skirt block for my two piece dress (which is what TVW uses)


 Its a floor length block so did not fit on my table hence the overhanging paper!

Again I had to scribble out a few wrong bits.

Do not try to make these when drinking wine. I had some serious issues with understanding which I put down purely to mind befuggling chenin blanc.


















Then cut into pieces to give two bodice block ( front and back) and a skirt block

 And here you can see all the blocks with this wonderful though slightly confusing book:

 So now before I can use this self-made pattern I need to make a toille or muslin to see if it actually fits me. I am not expecting this to work at this point so whatever happens now is perfectly OK.

I cannot do anything else towards my TVW dress now until I actually find out if this fits me.

I am really quite intrigued to see if this even vaguely fits my body and its so far taken me two weekends and a few evenings to make just the basic blocks so I have no idea how long this entire project is going to take me. 

Longer than I expected anyway!

And now I am ready to really do this - check back later for how this turns out!

Bracken