Vogue 1183: Help Please?

I had such high hopes for this dress. I was hoping to get lots of wear out of it during the summer. However it has been shelved because, so far, it looks like this:

I was going to ask my sister to take another photo of me seeing as I half blinked in this one but I thought that it was quite in line with how the dress turned out. Also, yes, I haven’t hemmed it yet, it’s just too disheartening.

Where did I go wrong? It is baggy in all the wrong places and too tight in others:

And the fabric is definately not strong enough to hold that upright cross-over shape in the bodice (I pinned it together in the photo at the top).

What a disappointment. I was going to shelve it away and ignore the fact that it didn’t turn out at all, even vaguely wear-able; put it in a drawer somewhere and never look at it again.

Then I thought that’s not what this blog is for. This blog is for learning (geeky, I know). So here is my question – how do I fix this dress? Where should I pull it in? Or let it out? If I take it in at the sides then will it make the front even more gape-y? Or is it just too late?

All suggestions muchly appreciated.

Editing the Pattern

This dress has not been at all easy to put together, that I’ll tell you for free.

One of the many problems that I encountered on the seemingly perpetual journey to completing it was that when it came time to attach the midriff to the skirt I could not, for love nor money, sweat nor tears, get the seams to match up on the two piece. After to much gesticulation I thought that perhaps it might be better to do it a different way to the instructions:

 

 

I wonder if anyone else has had the same problem with this pattern?

Vogue 1183

I saw this pattern and instantly liked it. It’s fitted, has a great shape and is a bit formal. At first I thought it could be a work dress but looking closer it has two layers in the bodice which overlap. So it could be a bit cleavage-y. Oh well I’ll make it and we’ll see.

Again the sales assistant at Centrepoint helped me to pick the fabric. Because this pattern has a lot of top stitching and edge stitching I again decided to go with a dark fabric (I’ll try to pick something more exciting next time!)