Make a Garment a Month March Complete

I've made another shift dress. To be honest I'm on the fence about this one but only because of the colour.

I popped it on quickly and am not sure about so much grey, especially close to my face. But we'll see. It is delightfully cool and since we are forecast for an 'unseasonably warm' 43 degrees celcius next week that might be all that matters.

So this is KS2627 again. I made a couple of changes and probably should have tried them one at a time. So first I rotated the bust dart to the shoulder. There is lots of info on this but I found this one to be fairly informative about darts in general. It does warn that this may result in a little more room in the bodice and I'd certainly agree with that.

In this pic you can (just) see the shoulder dart (yellow) and because it does add extra room in the bodice the extra tuck I had to add at the neckline. (also yellow). Both of these are just stitched down about 4 cms (including seam allowance) to prevent them popping out too much. So I guess they are more pleats or tucks than darts.

I think the extra in the neckline was exacerbated by the square neckline. Again there is lots of info out there on how to draft this. I didn't use any one in particular (and largely just looked at google images). It turned out wider than I had expected but I suspect that there was probably some extra fabric in the original round neckline anyway that is just made more obvious when it is square.

Overall I was happy with how the neckline turned out. I drafted a facing, understitched it and also stitched over the front tucks and shoulder seams through the facing to be sure it stays put. I also think that a crisper fabric would have suited the square neck better. This cotton (available here) is very soft and almost a crinkle cotton - which looks like meaning it won't need ironing, so that's a win.

I'll get some better pictures (hopefully with me wearing it) soon and we'll see how it goes. If I really don't like it, I'll probably cut an upper bodice from V8805 in navy to add a better colour closer to my face.

But I will definitely use this pattern again and with shoulder darts and a square neckline but maybe not both of them together. I'm also going to try gathering or easing the bust darts sometime soon as well.

Do you have any tips re bust darts and their manipulation? Good tutorials or experiences to share?