Butterick 5814- Making the Bodice

I'm in the mood for couture, darlings! It has been such a long time since I have made a project, taken my time and done anything really special. I have a wedding coming up this month, and with this Liberty silk from my stash it was the perfect opportunity to make something fabulous.

I bought this fabric from Fabric.com, months ago, when it was on sale, and I used something like an extra 15% off it, so I snatched up four yards. Plus, I used ebates so I got 3% back!  I love hydrangeas, and I thought it was the most dreamy print ever. I was expecting the Liberty tana lawn magic to be translated into silk magic, but it is only a regular silk. It's not especially dreamy like Liberty cotton. Oh well, I'm still crazy for the print. 

I've been searching the internets for the perfect pattern for this fabric, nothing was the right floatyness, or the right style or whatever. This wedding is fast approaching so I decided to muslin the bodice of Butterick 5814, a pattern by Gertie. I like the bodice, but the skirt is not what I was picturing so I have to think of something to do for that. 

I started with the size 18 for the bodice, and just made it just like the pattern, expecting scary results. Woah that baby is low, like REALLY LOW. Not suitable for anytime. But other than that, the fit is ok. The sleeves are a little tight on my giant guns, and my bra straps show in the front. 

The first thing i did was to raise the front pieces so the neckline would be about 3" higher. Then I did a 1" FBA. But I didn't want a bust dart, so I would stick to the original look. My pattern looks a little crazy in the end but I swear it works. 

I cut the silk out backed with a roll of unprinted newspaper. Cutting through the paper and the silk helps it from wiggling all over the place. The silk doesn't have enough body to drape on it's own so I knew I had to add underlining. It was a bit of a debate of what fabric to use. Silk organza was too still, just plain muslin wasn't quite right either and then I remembered about rayon! Fabricland has plain white rayon, which had the perfect amount of body and is something like $7 a yard, score! I hand basted all of the bodice pieces to the rayon pieces. I also stitched twill tape to the neckline pieces, like Gertie demonstrated on her blog. 

After I was done with all the hand stitching, the actual machine sewing came together quickly. I pinned it to my dressform to have a look. Still have some hand-sewing to do, and then I can move on to the skirt. I've already drafted it, and will explain in another post.