Waffle Weave Cotton Princess Line Top McCalls Palmer Pletsch 2818

This is my first tissue fitting exercise, of course I didn't pick a simple t-shirt, but McCalls 2818 Palmer Pletsch princess line tank.  I thought it might be nice to have a few of these for summer.

This pattern is a mini tutorial for tissue fitting, pattern adjustments and general fitting woes. 

There was a lot of slashing, taping and tracing involved in this project.

I've selected this mossy green candidate for the muslin.

The one thing I can say about this pattern is that it isn't fitted, and I have a tendency to over fit everything. It was fitted through the shoulders and back, but once it hit the bust it hung straight down, so there was a lot of ease around the waist and rib cage. The pattern envelope says semi- fitted, so I'm guessing that's what this means.

It isn't all bad though, I added some shaping to the side seams, and I need to true up the bust shaping after all of the adjustments made to the pattern. Because the pattern falls straight down from the bust and upper back, it gave me an opportunity to keep the fullness I need in the front and taper the back.

There are some adjustments that need to be made to the back armhole, I'm finding this is one that I personally need to make on quite a few patterns (marked with white arrow). I'll need to take a dart at the back armhole which shortens the curve, then round out the back bottom armhole curve.

I've read a number of pattern reviews and it looks like the most successful versions of this top were made in fabrics that are stiff, not soft with drape. I have a number of sheer fabrics, or fabrics that need to be lined so I'll use this muslin as a lining for another top in the stash. The more I look at this, the more I think it would look better sleeveless, with another neckline, or split down the center front for a deeper v-neck.

Version 3

I think I'm ready to cut it out of a stiffer fabric.

Here are the changes that were made to the pattern.

There was too much fabric around the back armhole, so the armscye seam allowance was trimmed at the shoulder, and the princess line seam on the back was shaved back about 1/4" at the armscye down to nothing just beyond the notch.

It's darkest before the storm... sometimes you just have to hang in there to get what you want.

I changed the back to insert a zipper instead of having a button closure, so this won't be finished until this weekend when I have the opportunity to buy a zipper for it. It doesn't look so covered up in person, and the neck facing still needs to be inserted, so the neckline will be dropping another 5/8". I may decide to change the neckline to something a bit lower and rounder. We shall see.

Here are some of the adjustments that were made from the very first to the successful muslin.

The side seam shaping is the most dramatic change.

The center back piece had only a small adjustment.

This is as done as it's going to be, after all of the fitting, I picked a fabric that I have fond memories of, and just couldn't bring myself to do all of the understitch by machine, so I did all of the finishing by hand and I just couldn't stop myself, I kept on finding areas to finish off, so there is a lot of handstitching and basting in this one.

It started out as a v-neck with sleeves and then I fitted the muslin, and picked the fabric, and it turned into a sleeveless version (I only had a yard), so I raised the armhole and I made it 1 1/2" longer.

This is one of those garments that looks strange on the hanger because it has so much shaping. Better on the body for certain.

I love it, so I'll be making more of these in the future. Sorry for the dark pics, I was getting artsy and playing dress up :)