Cut Out Paris Dress Taking Shape

So after much deliberation and thanks to all your comments I finally decided on a design to go forward with! Woohoo! The design I have chosen is ..... drum roll please .......... design number 2!! I liked this one because it will be very flattering as the pattern focuses on the waist giving a nice shape and also hiding any lumps and bumps that all us ladies have!

In this post I will go through the next stages of the design process - finalizing the design and making the pattern. Here goes.

STEP 1: First I fiddled around with the two triangles to try and get the right shape and size. I marked the center if the waist on my shift dress so I knew where the point of the triangles had to hit.

This was my final design. At this point I used some colored chalk and marked around the triangles on the black shift dress so  could get a rough idea of where I wanted them.

STEP 2: I removed the dress from the dress form and unpinned the Paris material. Then I unpicked the side I previously basted closed to get something looking like this...

STEP 3: So I had a rough idea of where I wanted the cut out sections to be I just needed to tidy it up a bit. To do this I first measured on the side seam the top of the triangle from the arm holes on both sides and drew a horizontal line between these points. I did the same with the bottom of the triangle making sure both sides where equal and that the two lines were parallel. Then I marked the middle point of each line and drew and straight line through the points.

STEP 4: Now I have a central point to work around. I wanted the tips of the two triangles to be 1" apart at the center. I drew a line parallel to the horizontal line at the level of the center point and marked off 0.5" either side of the vertical line. Then I just connected the dots! Drawing a line from the top of the side seam mark to the tip of the triangle and then the bottom mark to the tip of the triangle.

STEP 5: At this point I needed to add some seam allowances before I cut out the pieces. I usually use 3/8" but you can use whatever you want. I marked 3'8" inside each triangle for my cutting line.

STEP 6: Rinse and repeat for the back! And your ready to cut.

Now for the pattern.

STEP 7: Basically you just need to follow the steps you used to get the cut out triangles on the material. Making the two horizontal lines and marking the center point. You can use the cut out sections to check you have done the pattern right. Remember they will be your seam allowance smaller on every side so don't panic that you have done it wrong!

And that's it!

Hope you found the tutorial useful. You can use this technique for any shape you want so get creative! Would love to hear your thought and comments are always welcome!