Pendrell Dress - part 1

So I've decided to make the Pendrell blouse pattern into a fitted dress. Why? Because I want a princess seamed dress and the Pendrell blouse is the closest thing I have. 

The inspiration for this comes from one of the dresses I bought last week. It fits surprisingly well, and I love how flattering the princess seams are. 

Excuse the shoeless-ness. I love the shape of this dress, and the neck line detail is amazing (I'm sure there was a tutorial on the Colette blog a while ago, but I can't remember what the technique is called to search for it!). I wear the dress with a belt at the waist too, so it makes my waist look nice and small :) What surprises me most about this dress is that it's a Miss Selfridge dress! It was the most expensive dress that I bought (though I got student discount on it as I bought it from House of Fraser). The dress is a size 14 but it fits! I think a 16 would have looked good too, but I like how close fitting it is. It was kind of an impulse buy, as I saw it in the window as we walked past. I don't usually go in House of Fraser as the floor is all wonky and it makes me feel travel sick after a few steps in there. But I wanted that dress! :) 

So the first thing I needed to do was address the extra ease in the Pendrell blouse. After studying the finished garment measurements, I decided to go two sizes smaller than what my actual measurements. I was pretty sure this would be ok. And I was right! Mostly. Here's the back:

I made no alterations to it at all! Other than to add a zip of course. Though I discovered that I can get in and out of it without the zip, but it's a tight fit and I'd rather not put too much stress on the seams. However, the front obviously required quite a large FBA. I split some of this between the front piece and did most of it on the side front piece. Here it is after pinning out some excess:

As you can see I lowered and re-shaped the neckline. Then there was some excess length in the front that I tucked out. It was also gaping out under my chest so I pinned it out. Looking at the photo I also noticed that there is a little bit of bumpy gaping going on at the sides of the neckline. The stripes also emphasise my boobs which isn't a good look! lol Thankfully none of the fabric that I have is stripey. But I think the general shape is ok, though I think I'll let it out a little in the side to give me a smidge more room in the chest. I just need to add length to make it dress length, and maybe add a bit of flare to the skirt. 

Once I have the shell fitting ok, I'm going to draft a peterpan collar (using Casey's tutorial) which will be a contrast colour in the final dress. I'm also going to test out whether the sleeve from Colette patterns Ceylon will work. If it does, then I'm also going to add a contrast colour cuff to the sleeve. If it doesn't, then I'll add a little capped sleeve and bind the rest of the armhole. 

So how on earth do I go about making my changes to my paper pattern?! And ignoring the optical illusion of the stripes, do you think the fit is ok so far? Hopefully I should have muslin number 2 ready soon once I've worked out how to transfer my changes to paper.

Ashley x