Because I’m a dirty swot keen to learn as much as I can in these five short weeks, I jostled ahead and drafted a rough bodice pattern to test out the block. All I did was add in waist darts according to the handout instructions – very quick and dirty. You’re not supposed to use those honkin’ great darts from the neck to bust point in a garment. This rough test garment is called a muslin or toile.
It wasn’t great. I knew there’d be some tweaking required but the thing was just too short (which I suspected when I looked at the my nape-waist measurement taken by a classmate – I’m used to adding 7-8cm as standard to commercial patterns because I’m so tall, so the number just looked wrong. Should have double-checked). Plus there’s some truly spectacular bagginess at the armhole – the armscye on the right side of the picture has been pinned to get rid of it… it was great to have this toile at the second class to amend my block’s gross flaws before taking it any further.
Make it 'til you fake it 