After writing about my feeling of exposure given the length of the front “ruffles” on Katherine Tilton’s Vogue 8691, I went back to my sewing table and gathered up all my scraps. Alas, there was not enough fabric to cut new, longer panels.
So I pulled out the pattern piece for the two front panels and cut a second panel to be attached to the bottom of the first panel. The piece started at the bottom edge of the front panel, extending down 2″ and up 1″—a total height, if you will, of 3″, with the bottom of the first panel extending down 1″ over the top of the second panel. Make sense?. That gave me enough length topstitch the first panel over the second with a double needle and wooly nylon in the bobbin.
Then I went out slipped the top on and went outside, interrupting the Jazzman’s mowing to ask his opinion. Still not right.
The back was good. The front was now good. But the side—not so much. We looking at the angles where each panel met its neighbor and decided I would start at the side seam and angle down to where the side panel meets the front seam. (The side panel—double wide—is attached to both the side front and side back. But the side back didn’t need any alteration.) I drew the pattern piece to start even with the bottom of the side panel at the side seam and drew it down to meet the bottom of the front panel at the side front/front princess seam.
Et voila!, as they say in France. I wore the top half-an-hour later to our friends’ retirement party, and heard lots of compliments. And I didn’t feel overexposed!
