Coco came calling

Just because I like a bit of alliteration! It was going to be Blair, Charlotte and Sammi – however only Blair was ready, although both Charlotte and Sammi are close! I happened upon this site by Tilly and the Buttons while looking at the Great British Sewing Bee. Tilly was a contestant on the first season. I just love the look of her Blog and all the great info she has, but most of all I was smitten with Coco. Yes, I just had to drop everything and sew that baby right up. I opted for the PDF version and everything fit together nicely. I used a combination of drafted for sizing and finished measurements to determine what size to start for my wearable muslin.
Ta Da!

Looks great easy, beltless and barefoot – even better belted with heels or boots!
I love this pattern and find it to be flattering for a wide range of figures. My fabric was a reversible acrylic/spandex doubleknit with a sweatery hand on one side and mini-stripe and smooth on the other. It was from my stash and I didn’t have enough for long sleeves – hence the 2 tone sleeve. After joining the shoulders, the waist taper was too low. The easiest way to fix was to cut apart and take in a 1/2″ seam. Love that reversible fabric! I used the lightning stitch on my Juki exceed, and you cannot even see where the fabric joins. Remarkably, it also retains the same stretch factor. I opted to sew most of this on my sewing machine as the double knit lay better/flatter when pressed open. I could have left the hems raw, but ended up with a coverstitch hem. I like the slightly weighted effect it gives. I am totally looking forward to at least 2 more versions after drafting in a few fit changes – I have become very picky about how clothes fit now that I’m sewing them myself!

The fit issues I have are because of my bone structure and posture. I’ve always had an overly erect stance, shoulder to shoulder width of 14, and measuring crease to crease, Front – 12″ Back – 12.5″, then from my short waist down, my proportions are in the “normal” and not petite range. My big goal this year is to learn and document as much as I can about addressing petite bodice fitting issues. I have not found patterns to have the lengthen/shorten lines in the area that I need to adjust. It is strange that a pattern can have the correct total circumference, and still not fit. What I think I need is to remove from the center back, and neck, shorten the armhole area, reduce shoulder width, and then extend back out at the underarm seam. I think I’m also going to have to draft in a bust dart and rotate that out somewhere as I am currently larger than a B and I still want that easy fitting dartless style. Looking closely at the shoulders, they seem to be sitting back a tad and I might want to experiment with lengthening the back shoulder and shortening the front shoulder to maintain the same total height.

It really feels good to be excited about sewing again!
Coco Flickr set