The Shirtdress- An Update

I guess the issue is pretty obvious looking at it now... 

If you remember, I had to draft a pattern from scratch for the top of my shirt dress.  It was a fairly simple process to draft a blouse with just 3 pieces (back, front left, front right), which I figured should be fine.  Now, looking back, it's pretty obvious from the pattern what's going to happen, but I followed the tutorial so I guess I just assumed it would work.  It didn't.  I'm not sure if it's my figure, or if I've made a mistake somewhere in drafting, but the sharp curve at the bust doesn't work in a side-seam.  My guess is that its a combination of my larger bust size and the slightness sharp curve from bust to waist shaping...

Unfortunately, I didn't figure this issue out until after I had cut it out in my nice fabric.  I worked a little bit trying to save it, but, eventually had to admit that it's a lost cause.  So, lesson learned, make a muslin.

That's as high as I can lift my arm...

Back to the drawing board, or drafting board I guess.  My first thought was darts instead of shaping at the side seam.  So, away I went.  I made a fairly straight side seam and then used a dart through from bust point to hem to create the shaping.  I added a second dart from bust point to the arm scythe to take out some of the extra fabric there.  This resulted in a bodice I'm fairly happy with.  I'd add a touch more ease in the side seams, and it's ready to go.

The difficulty is that apparently, I can't draft a sleeve pattern to save my life.  So, I've found this pattern from Burda Style for a blouse.  It already has a nice sleeve pattern, so I working on sizing the rest of the shirt up to fit me.


So, I wanted to make this a progress report.  But, since I've pretty much lost progress since my last post, that seemed a bit misleading.  Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the update.  I'll hopefully have another progress report, hopefully with actual progress, soon.