A Quick Update on the Tops

I haven't had time for much today, for obvious reasons, but I wanted to post the progress on the ladies' tops for the "Be the Wonder" contest at Foxwoods. I managed to make two of the four tops. I'll review them later. Both of them are based on patterns from Burda World of Fashion. First up is Julia's top. Hers is a bandeau style halter. I didn't get a picture on Shelley before DH took it with him to rehearsal last night. But he snapped a quick picture on her.

I also finished Nancy's top. She plays tenor sax and wanted something with a v-neck and cap sleeves. So I modified a raglan sleeve top.

Two down, two more to go...

Happy sewing!

Skirt is Finished!

I'm pretty tired, so I will keep this short. I finished my skirt today. I made it into an A-line skirt. Looking at the fabric, you can see that it's really more attuned to making a straight skirt, but I thought this would work better for my wants. To get the side seams to cooperate, I made a stay of the underlay fabric, 1/2 inch wide by 22 1/2 inches long. I eased the side seams onto this and voila - a conversion to A-line!

Construction notes: I used an invisible zipper in the side seam. I interfaced the waistband with ProWoven interfacing from Sew Exciting. I hemmed the underlayer before I sewed the side seams. It's hidden by the embroidered overlay. Other than that, I just serged the side seams, attached the waistband and, ta daaa! Here you see it on Shelley.

I'm trying not to nod off as I type this so I'm going to call it a night.

Happy sewing!

$&*@!

She hates the drape.
Loves the neckline,
Loves the skirt,
Loves the bra top,
Hates the drape

S#!&
Back to the f*cking drawing board.

Pattern Review - Self Drafted: Tatiana's Latin Competiton Dress

If you are just joining us, let me give you a little background. This is a competition Latin dance dress for DS the Younger's ballroom dance teacher. She found out that I sew, and asked me to make her a couple of outfits. Ballroom and Latin dance dresses, if you buy them, can cost anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars for a relatively simple design, to many thousands of dollars for an Open level competition costume. After making them, I can understand why. There is a lot of engineering involved in these dresses.

Pattern Description: This is a Latin dance competition outfit. It's a two-piece dress, consisting of a skirt with a scooped hem and attached halter blouson, worn over a bra. The skirt is built on a panty that I based on Jalie 2801. The rest of it is self drafted.

Sizing: One size. Teeny!

Fabric Used: Lycra Serious-as-Hell Powernet for the panty and bra back. Bright turquoise lycra jersey for the dress. Turquoise holographic sequined stretch net for the bra, collier, belt and skirt flounce. Stretch net for lining the sequins, also in a matching turquoise.

Needle/Notions Used: 1/4 inch elastic, clear bra straps, clear bathing suit bra hook, two silver waistband hooks, falsies.

The lycra, especially the S-a-H Powernet, was brutal on needles. I bent or broke five, count 'em, five needles on this project. Big shout out of thanks to Nancy K., who has worked with this type of lycra before and pointed me towards Microtex needles. I wish I had known about them earlier in the project. Next time I work with this kind of fabric (next time?), I'll make sure to use Microtex.

Did it look like the photo or drawing when you got through? Um, well, no, but that's because I had no clue when I started out what this was going to turn into.

How were the instructions? Hah!

Construction Notes: Phyllis asked me during construction how much of the dress was done on the serger vs the sewing machine. All the seams were sewn on my industrial serger. I don't have an industrial zigzag machine. I think that's the next industrial on my list. So I did all the rest of the stitching on my home Pfaff. I did some basting on my Juki straightstitch, but it didn't see much action. Because of the way this dress is built, I didn't use my coverstitch at all. The only places I would have used it were on the necline and halter hems. I didn't want a double line of stitching there, so I decided to forego using the Beast. Oh, now that I think about it, I suppose I could have used the Beast on the elastic in the legs. Oh well. Next time. (next time?)

When making a dance competition dress, you really need to take as much ease as possible out of the pattern. As with the Smooth ballroom dress, I took the panty pattern down by about 1.5 inches at the waist. I had done a test run back in November, which was (IMO) disastrous. That was based on a McCalls pattern, and the pattern actually had positive ease (you need negative ease for a dance costume). Tatiana tried it on and was clearly not pleased with it. I think the way I described it then was a "How can I tell her it's heinous without hurting her feelings?" kind of look. So I dropped back to punt. I took time away from the Latin dress to focus on the Smooth.

The Bra
In the first iteration, I attached a flesh toned leotard to the bra. This time I decided to go for the two piece. Latin dance dresses are all about showing off the wearer's body.The bra is a commercially produced one that I took apart and covered with the sequine fabric. When Tatiana tried on the first dress, I noticed that the bra tended to pull away at the top when she bent over. That's not a good thing when dancing. So to help alleviate the problem, I sewed a length of 1/4 inch elastic into the top of the bra, stretching it to fit (it was 1 inch shorter than the length of the bra top). That helps the bra cup the top of the bust.

I also bought a set of silicone bust enhancers, and sewed pockets into the bra cups to keep them in place.
These give the, um, necessary components to fill out the bra properly. The sides of the bra are made from the nude S-a-H Powernet. This particular tone matches her skin almost perfectly. The shoulder straps are commercially purchased clear elastic bra straps.
(she's smaller than Shelley, so while the bra is tight, it isn't this tight on her)

The Skirt
The skirt is a formfitting straight skirt with a circular ruffle flounce at the bottom. It's built on a leotard panty made from the S-a-H Powernet
The ruffle is made from the sequined fabric and is lined with the turquoise mesh
I attached a decorative belt of the sequined fabric, also lined with the mesh, at the waist.

The skirt has an attached halter with a blouson drape. The neck of the halter is made from the sequined fabric and hooks in back.

Embellishment or, How I Learned to Embrace My Inner Tacky Girl
I found the lack of transition from the sequins on the flounce to the turquoise fabric to be too stark for my taste. So I decided to add some embellishment to it. I decided to stick with sequins, so I pulled individual sequins off scraps of the fabric. I've been consulting back and forth with Sewing Diva Phyllis, who has been kind enough to draw up some schematics for sequin placement on the skirt. I think I'm going to do placement of the sequins so they start at the top spaced several inches apart and gradually get more encrusted the closer you get to the flounce. I've started (and you will see here) with a simpler pattern, to give myself a frame to work within. Plus, if I run out of time (the kids are out of school this week, so it's highly possible), I have something for the dance competition and can add on to it later. Applying the sequins is tedious. I glue each one individually at markings on the skirt. I apply the glue with a toothpick to the back of the sequin, then I position the sequin with the other end of the toothpick and press onto the skirt
I'm using Aleen's non-toxic bridal glue. I started out using Fabri-Tac but after about 5 minutes I was feeling like Michael Phelps at a frat party. Wooooo! The non-toxic fabric glue has no odor and you can get it on your hands without worry. It was time consuming, but not difficult.

Likes/Dislikes: I often say that I hate sewing for other people. It's a true statement. But I have actually enjoyed this and the Smooth dance. These are so far out of my comfort zone it's funny. And my sewing studio looks like a bomb full of sequins exploded in it. But I really like the problem solving and the engineering involved in making these dresses.

Would you do it again? Would you recommend it? I might do it again. I haven't decided. Apparently there are people lining up for my services at the dance studio. I encourage anyone who has thought about making outfits like these to go for it!

Conclusion: An interesting, and ultimately, very rewarding project. I have conquered one of my last unknowns (sewing wicked activewear) and I have found that I actually enjoy it! Here's a picture of the dress as it stands right now:


I am going to try to put more sequins on the skirt and I may put some on the halter. But for now I'm going to sleep on it and make up my mind in the morning.

Happy sewing!

What is it About Deviled Eggs?

We had our annual "We're Sick of Winter Party" last night. It was a blast. Everyone showed up dressed and ready to party like it's St. Croix. We had enough food to feed an army and I'll be going through leftovers for the next week.

DH wanted to make deviled eggs. So we did, and they were really delicious - we made them with Indonesian spices. And you know what's the funny thing? They were the first thing we ran out of! Seriously, people descended on them like locusts. This happens every single time we make deviled eggs. What is it about deviled eggs, does anyone know?

On to sewing. Today I spent much of the afternoon at the sewing studio, and I managed to finish all the major construction on Tatiana's dress. Hooray! I'm going to make a belt from the sequined fabric and apply the sequins over the next couple of days, but here is the basic dress.

Here are a couple of pointers for working with this kind of fabric. If you have a home machine, be ready to go through a lot of needles with this. I used some heavy lycra in dark nude for the bra sides and back. It is a pretty tough fabric to sew through several layers. My industrials had no problems, but my home Pfaff zigzag machine did. I think I bent or broke 5 needles during the course of making this dress so far. The sequined fabric is even harder on the machine. I also ended up turning off the IDT (differential feed) on my Pfaff. The feeder would catch on the stitching for the sequins.

I'm done working on it for today. I feel like I might be fighting something off, so I don't want to work on it when I'm tired. I don't want to get this far only to screw something up irrevocably, KWIM?

Happy sewing!

Foxy Brown!

Eureka!!!!

Tatiana came over today for a fit check. The bra and skirt fit her beautifully - hooray! I talked with her about the drape, and we came up with what I think is going to be perfect. A halter with a slight blouson effect to it. That's so much easier than what I was thinking about. I'm also going to make a belt from the sequin fabric and sew that to the skirt, then sprinkle the sequins on the skirt in between. Very Disco-Pam-Grier. I may end up going back and doing some on the halter. We'll see. Let me get the rest of the dress done first.

Woo hoo! Now we're cooking with kerosene!

Happy sewing!

Uncertainty and Doubt Have No Place in my Universe

Sequins it will be, then. After talking it over with Phyllis, and sleeping on it, I think I'm going to stick with sequins from the ruffle/bra fabric to make the transition. I've had a couple of suggestions for hotfix crystals. I know they are standard bling on dance costumes, but I don't have the time right now to track down the right color (clear is not an option) and the sequins are here and available. So I'll finish the main construction of the dress and start working on the placement of the sequins. More later!

So Far...

The main construction of the skirt is done. I need to take it up to the studio and finish the waistband with the Beast (my coverstitch). The lack of transition between the sequins and the lycra is jarring to me, and I've asked Sewing Diva Phyllis for her suggestions on embellishments to ease that transition. I'm thinking that maybe I'll take some of the sequins off scraps of the fabric and glue them on in a sort of cascading effect. We'll see. Tonight, I'm working on re-covering the bra. I'm going to change the back strap of the bra, too, to make it all flesh toned, I think.

My biggest worry is that I don't want the dress to look stupid. I'm operating way out of my comfort zone with this kind of design and embellishment. At a competition I watched last spring, I was horrified at some of the dresses on the dance floor. I really want this to look good, and it's so easy to step over the (very thin) line from looking good to looking tacky. I also want to see if I can convince Tatiana to go with the mesh for the drape, instead of the original solid blue lycra. I think that will soften up the whole look.

Well, tomorrow will tell. I'm going to try to have the bra and drape finished so she can do a preliminary fitting on Friday. Fingers crossed!

No Such Thing as Subtlety

At least not when it comes to Latin Competition dance dresses. I will say that the second incarnation is going more smoothly than the first, but this is the dress that scares worries the bejeezus out of me. I decided to make it a real two-piece, rather than covering up her midriff. The skirt is going to be considerably less solid lycra and considerably more sequinned than the original version. It's also going to be a lot shorter than the original. Not Edyta short, but short. I've got the skirt/panty combination together. Today I cut out the ruffles. Tatiana wasn't really happy with the original ruffle, which was not quite a half circle.

The original ruffle was graduated in length, from about 4 inches in the front, going down to 8 inches at the center back. When she put it on, I thought it looked a little too "Mermaids on Parade" - like one of Bette Midler's backup singers. Not what I was going for. So this time I made two circular ruffles, each about 7 inches wide. To make the ruffles for this dress, the circle was 14 inches in diameter, with a 5 1/2 inch circle cut out of the center. Two of those are the perfect size to fit around the hem of the skirt, which measures 37 1/2 inches. Yes, I calculated it out beforehand. Finally I put my college math major to use!

Now, I have to ask you, how tacky is this material? My tack-o-meter is flying off the scale.



But, being the trouper that I am, I bucked up and got in the mood by watching Episode 2 of "RuPaul's Drag Race" (thanks, TLo!). There's nothing like a bunch of drag queens competing in girl-group lip synch contests to amp up my tack quotient. Well, that or maybe a couple of Mojitos. Anyway, the back of the sequinned fabric really needs some backing to cover the exposed stitching, so I cut another pair of circles out of some perfectly matching lycra mesh that LindsayT picked up for me.

Right now, the mesh and the sequins are sewn together and I'll apply them to the skirt tomorrow. Then I'll get working on the bra and the drape. I'd like to have this finished by the weekend, so Tatiana can try it on and we can make adjustments. The competition is the weekend of the 21st. So that's where it's at. Hopefully I'll have more to show tomorrow. You know, for all that I tell everyone that I hate sewing for other people (and I do), I'm actually enjoying these two dresses. They are different from anything I've ever done before, especially this dress, and it's nice to have a challenge.

Happy sewing!

Two Simultaneous Projects - Latin Dress and Burda Jumper

Okay - now that the Smooth Dance is done, I'm going to spend this week redoing the Latin Dress. I think that I'm going to make it a two-piece instead of a one-piece with a flesh-toned midriff. I mean, she's got the body for it again, why cover it up, right? Besides, I didn't get the feeling that Tatiana loved the dress in its first incarnation. Now that I have a leotard that works I'm going to build the bottom of the dress on the panties from it. I'll also rework the bra so it's skin-tone in the back, rather than sequined.

And while I'm doing that I think I'll make myself this little Burda Jumper:
I've admired this since it first came out in Burda World of Fashion magazine in 2007. I went out and bought the premade pattern when it became available, but I can not for the life of me find it anywhere. I need to do a serious Craigslist of old patterns. I've hit my SABLE (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy) threshold. But I digress... Back on topic, since I can't find the pattern, I traced off the size 40 from the BWOF magazine yesterday. I'm set to cut into it, but I'm pretreating the fabric, which is in the dryer right now. I'm going to make this out of Designer Bamboo Blend Jersey in Asul.

For a top to wear underneath, I'm going to make a turtleneck from Get Ziggy With It Jersey.

The pairing was pure happenstance, and a happy happenstance at that! I had the jersey on my table and I was looking for something else and dropped that fabric on the bamboo, and it was an "Aha!" moment. The blues are exactly the same color. I think I'll use Kwik Sew 2740.


That gives me a to-do list for the week. The other "fun" thing that happened this week is that my dishwasher decided to give up the ghost after 11 years. Technically, I think it hasn't actually died yet, but it's not cleaning the dishes. Pieces of the racks are also starting to snap off, and the cutlery holder has big holes in the bottom that let silverware fall through. Sigh. So we went to Lowes and bought a new dishwasher, which will be installed at some point in the next two weeks. It's always something, eh? And we haven't been able to replace the shed yet because of the two feet of snow in the back yard.

Sigh....

Anyway, enough of that. I think the fabric is dry, so I'm off to the sewing room!

Happy Sunday!

It's More of an Engineering Problem

Tatiana's dress is done! I finished it yesterday late afternoon and she wore it at the showcase last night. I have to tell you, it looked beautiful on her. Now for the frustrating part - my frickin' camera battery died on me right before I was to take her picture!!! Believe me, I uttered every expletive in the book with my full-on Boston accent as I stomped up the stairs from the green room to the ballroom. Stefan, another of her students, took her picture in it, and as soon as he sends me the photos, I'll post them. In the meantime, here's the review.

Pattern Description: This is a morph of two patterns. It's based on Jalie's Open-backed skating dress. The bottom is a self-drafted six-gore skirt.

Notes about this pattern/design choice: Competitive ballroom dance is divided up into two basic groupings: Smooth and Latin. Smooth, also sometimes called Standard, includes Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Viennese Waltz and Quickstep. Latin includes Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive. This dress is for the Smooth portion of the competitions. Generally speaking, Smooth dresses are ankle length, with a tightly fitted bodice and flaring skirt, good for showing off the position of the body and for higlighting turns and gliding motion. Latin dresses are much more, um, body conscious. I'll do a post about Latin after I finish that dress.


Sizing: All sizes, from girls to women's. Based upon Tatiana's measurements, I used a size R, and I tapered the waistline to a size N.

Fabric Used: Panné burnout velvet for the dress, matte nylon-lycra for the leotard.

Needle/Notions Used: I made the outfit on my industrial serger and sewing machines. On a home machine, I would use a Stretch 75/11 needle. The notions I used were 1/4 inch elastic for the leg and back openings, and two waistband hooks for the neckline closure. I used standard poly-core thread. I debated about using horsehair braid in the hem, but when she came for the final fitting, we decided against it. I used 1/8 inch elastic for the finger thingies (I'm sure there's a technical term for them. They are the loops you slip over your middle finger so you can look good when flipping the bird at a couple who blocked you in a corner to hold the sleeve in place). I also sewed bra cup inserts into the leotard.

Did it look like the photo or drawing when you got through? As much as it could. The leotard part definitely looks like the pattern.

How were the instructions? Jalie's instructions were great. Really, they were crystal clear. And obviously the skirt went together easily - the instructions in my head were perfect! This was easier than I thought it was going to be. As I say, it's more of an engineering problem than a dressmaking problem, but the engineering is pretty straightforward. It's really a matter of understanding how much ease (or not) a dance dress needs to have. That's vastly different from most of the garments I have sewn before, and once I figured it out (on the disastrous first take on a Latin dress), it got much more obvious to me.

Construction Notes: I used the Jalie as the basis for the dress after having a disastrous first-go with a McCalls pattern (I was using it for the base leotard for a Latin dress, not this one. But I learned my lesson quickly). The Jalie has much less ease built in than the other did. As it was, I still had to remove some ease (more about that later). I also really liked the fact that the Jalie had a dropped waistline and the keyhole back. Tatiana has the perfect ballerina's body - very long through the torso, and this pattern fit her torso length perfectly out of the package. Jalie makes note of this in their instructions, and I'll reiterate it here. When making a leotard, or a dress built upon a leotard, there are two critical measurements: circumference and length. Circumference is straightforward, and what we do for any gament we make. The length measurement I took was from the shoulder seam at the neck, across the bust point, down to the crotch seam for the front. For the back, measure from the crotch seam up to the shoulder seam at the neckline. This will make sure your garment doesn't give the wearer a wedgie when moving in it.

As I said above, I started with a size R. While the pattern has negative ease to it, we needed even less ease than it started with. So I tapered from an R at the bust to an N at the waist, and back out. To put it in numbers, I took about an inch and a half out of the waistline.

The leotard has three basic parts to it: bodice/panty/sleeves. The panty is made of the matte nylon lycra. The bodice is made of the burnout velvet underlaid with the matte lycra (for modesty), and the sleeves are the velvet with no underlay. The skirt is unlined.

I didn't embellish the dress at all yet. I wanted her to wear it at the showcase so I could see what needed to be done. If I do put any embellishment on it, I'll probably use black Swarovski crystals at the neckline. Tatiana and Christine (another dance instructor, and half of the #4 ranked dance couple in Canada) were going back and forth about whether the dress needed it. I'll let them decide. If the answer is yes, I'll try to bribe Sewing Diva Phyllis to help me with the placement of the crystals.

Any changes? As I said, I changed the skirt to be a 6-gore, flared, ankle length skirt.

Likes/Dislikes: I really, really liked this pattern. I don't have any dislikes.

Would you do it again? Would you recommend it? I've already been asked by several dancers if I would be willing to make them a dress like it. I haven't decided if I want to do that. But I do recommend the base pattern heartily.

Conclusion: Tatiana's happy - she walked up to me with a huge smile on her face last night and said, "Everyone loves my dress! And I love it too!"

Yeah, I'm happy with it. :)

Here's a picture of the then-mostly-finished dress on the hanger. As I said, as soon as I get the picture from Stefan of Tatiana in the dress, I'll post it here.

Happy sewing!

Next Up, a Ballroom Dance Dress

My Jalie Patterns arrived yesterday. Hooray! I have to say, ordering from Jalie.com is really a pleasure. They are efficient and fast. NAYY, just a happy customer.

So I received my patterns, and I am going to make a ballroom gown for Tatiana using 2801, the backless skating dress, as the base:


I'll change the skirt to a floor length, 8 gore version. I'm making it from this fabulous burnout velvet I bought in New York back in the fall.

It's really rich looking, and I like the way the panné effect of the velvet reflects the light. I think I'll make the gores from sheer black fabric, though I'm not entirely decided on that yet. This needs to be complete (and so does the Latin dress) by February 7th. Good thing I have so much free time... Hahahahahahahaha! Snort!

Stay tuned and happy sewing!

Oh. My. God - This is FANTASTIC!

Photo: The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

You have got to check this site out: The House of Dior. Click on the link to The House of Dior for the really good stuff.

I was looking for a reference picture from the first collection that John Galliano did for Dior (not the one above, but that's pretty great too), when I stumbled across this part of the Dior Site. I had not seen this before. What a wonderful treasure trove. Pour yourself a cup of coffee, sit down and enjoy the videos. I especially love to watch the embroiderers in "The Birth of a Collection". And watching the snippets of activity in the atelier is so fun! Don't miss Galliano's tribute to Dior. M. Galliano. "I had some fun with that one." Boy, you can tell he has fun with all his collections! M. Galliano has a new fan in this girl!

Enjoy, happy inspiration, and happy sewing!

Here's What I'm Thinking

Here's the dress so far:


I punted on the original color scheme, which was turquoise dress with silver holographic sequined bra. It was tacky with a capital TACKY. Originally, Tatiana had nixed the turquoise sequins, but I prefer the tone on tone effect. We decided to do the skin toned power-lycra body suit leotard, and she wants a cowl drape in the front. I did it in the turquoise lycra, but after putting it on Sharona and showing it at the Stitch 'n Bitch yesterday, we all agreed that it was like looking at a wall of blue. So LindsayT, if your offer is still open, I'm going to take advantage of your being in New York tomorrow and ask you to run by Spandex House for me.

Summerset looked at it and suggested a sheer drape, with a cowl in the back. She also suggested that I do a second layer of the skirt flounce in the sheer, under the sequin flounce, to tie the whole thing together and give a little more flow to the skirt. What do you think?

Here's a parting shot. DS and Tatiana at the dance exhibition. They did two dances: samba and cha cha. This is them dancing the cha cha to the "Peter Gunn" theme. It was really cute, and they got a standing O when they were done!


Happy sewing!

Playing with the Pattern - Jalie 2806

Yesterday I decided to make another version of the Jalie 2806, which is fast becoming a fave-rave of mine. For this iteration, I made it as the ruched neck version. I wanted to use a very cool Wool/Rayon Jersey Doublecloth from Gorgeous Fabrics. And I wanted to make it reversible to take advantage of the fabric. Here's how I went about making it.

The first thing I did was serge the seams together as usual. After serging, I used my sewing machine, set on the narrowest zigzag (.5 mm) with a stitch length of 3 mm. For this shirt, I put gray thread in the bobbin and white thread in the needle and topstitched along the seam lines. This flattened and finished the serged side. I could have done the same with my coverstitch machine, but I decided to try this way. I topstitched each seam right after serging it. It's very straightforward with the straight seams.

The only tricky part was the sleeves, because you have to stitch in a hole. Sorry for the blurry photo - I suppose I need to learn about depth of field and how to set it up on my camera at some point. But I think you get the drift.
I attached the neckline piece as a binding, leaving the raw edges exposed on either side. Again I used the narrow zigzag stitch set on 3 mm length.

For the hems, I simply stitched 5/8 of an inch from the raw edges. I'm hopful that when I wash it (hand wash in Eucalan) the raw edges will curl.So overall, this gives me a fun top for casual wear. The gray side looks more "finished", and the white side looks more deconstructed. I can wear it either way, and it will make a comfortable (and warm) top for cooler weather.

Happy sewing!

People? Can I Ask You to Gather 'Round?

Okay folks, Rachel just posed a great question, and I'm going to throw it out to all my über-fashionable friends in Cyber-land. Here's the query:

"love your website
(Thanks sweetie! Love you too. Really)
and I wanted to email you this question but I could not find an address.
(If you want, you can always contact me through the gorgeousthings.com contact page.)
Anyway, I am in love with this Nanette Lepore dress seen on this website:
Nanette Lepore jumper
In case the link breaks, and since the original photo from eLuxury is no longer available, I'm going to put it here too:




Do you have any suggestions as to a pattern I could use to make it? Thanks."

Oooooh, I love a challenge like this! Scour your brains, and let's see if we can collectively come up with a pattern that would work as the basis for this jumper. It's a princess-line sleeveless dress with a flared skirt, a back-waist tie, and a surgically enhanced - er - removed bodice.

Me? I would start with the HotPatterns Classix Nouveau Indispensable Dress:


It requires major surgery, a la what I did to my McCall's Jacket. Also, since the design is sleeveless you might be better off starting with a sleeveless dress, perhaps a sundress. I am going to ruminate on this one. Anyone have any suggestions?

Happy pondering!