Making the Pattern for the Bodice

Making the pattern

For this costume I am making a 12 panelled bodice ballet costumes have this many panels because they are more stream line so that they are skin tight. Making the pattern for the bodice has certainly helped me develop my skills at looking at the shape of the body to create curves which flatter the shape of the body. This is particularly important for the bodice because ballet dancers are often very slight and do not have a very curved figure. Therefore, to create more of a curve you have to take the lines of the seams in little at the waist and then gently flick out at the hips.

I found it hard at first to mark at the seams with the dressmakers mark tape because I would flick the curves out too much at the waist as can be seen here it is at too extreme an angle. Also the CF is too narrow I needed to adjust all the seams so that they were equally balanced for the shape looked to oblong. Although the seams at the back where going to be a little bit bigger as long as it’s not to bigger a difference then it doesn’t matter.

The shape of the bodice looks so much better now the curves flick out less severely and the shape around the bust is far more flattering. However, when I started pinning on my calico I found that I had marked out too many panels, but because I had already started pinning the calico to the front so I could only adjust the back panels. However, I do not think that it has made my bodice look unbalanced in the future I will have to remember to count all the panels before I start pinning on the calico.

The next stage is drawing out the seam lines for each pattern piece I found for the last project of draping on the stand that getting these lines neat is hard. So I tried to improve my lines by not drawing where the pins were so that I didn’t get an uneven line. However, when I took it off the manikin I found that the lines where still a little shaky so I tried to even them out a little. This is clearly something I need to develop in my learning.