pushing daisies & a vtg mccalls

Do you know what Netflix is most especially good for? 

Snow Days.   And catching up on tv shows you forgot about or never had the chance to meet.
We've been off all week here what with our little blizzard and all.  (It's snowing again today.)   Lu & I have been watching Pushing Daisies on instant play.

I am SO in love with Chuck's entire closet!  I've been busy compiling screencaps to plan my spring and summer wardrobe.  Some of my favorites...

 

I love the full, feminine, swishy skirts and fitted bodices.  And the abundance of yellow.  I just bought several shirting and lawn prints from Fabric.com, at least 3 pieces in yellow, so this was pure serendipity. I also have saturated greens and blues, mostly stripes, checks and simple florals.  I was channeling Chuck and I didn't even realize it!

I have plenty of patterns to choose from, including this gorgeous McCalls:

And I'm ready to muslin my square neck sundress (bodice only) one more time after the last few changes. Then I'll be cutting out my first Pushing Daisies dress, I think a bright green check first.  I'm digging through stash but so far I haven't found a cute 50s shirtdress...odd.  That seems like something I should have in stash! Etsy time! 

I am also digging around to find a suitable fabric for this lovely:

It is also very "Chuck-like", don't you think?  I have a size 15, so I had to grade up and do an FBA first.  Here is my first muslin:

Note the snazzy knit pj pants. ;)  The fit was pretty darn good.  The sleeve is a tad too tight, so I did a simple slash and spread on front and back sleeves to add a 1/2" to each.  Up there on my shoulder you might be able to see a "dart" I have pinned out.  With this type of cut-on cap sleeve, that bunchiness is inevitable, but I did attempt a small fisheye dart here to remove some of that.  I had to rotate it into the waist darts. 

I also lowered the waist darts another 2".  Whoops.  Forgot to do that on the traced/graded pattern I guess!  The neckline lies perfectly against me (I keep experiencing this with vintage patterns which makes new patterns less appealing, let me tell you!) in front and back.  There is a tiny bit of pulling at bra level in back, so I did add a bit there, as shown in my last post I think (the Rasband book). 

Lastly...a swayback adjustment.  I really don't have much of a swayback, I have a short waist and usually petite patterns in back.  Sometimes in front too, but I typically need additional length over my bust anyway, so in a weird way, a swayback adjustment works better on some patterns than petiting.  If that makes any sense.  I'm not even muslining again, this one's ready for fashion fabric! 

I leave you with pretty snow and visitors outside my window...