Saturday, August 17, 2019

Dressing the teen: what I learned up to now



Sewing for our eldest has become a little challenging, a very rewarding challenge because it gives me new insights about fitting garments. A few weeks ago, I showed you the shortened Vallis women dresses that I sewed her. Today, I am giving you the teen body take on the Optimum and Litore woman.



After getting such a huge succes with the women Vallis by simply shortening the bottom of the bodice, I tried to do the same with the woman Litore. This was not the same instant success. The finished bodice was gaping a bit at the chest. The fix I did to make it perfect was easy though, I simply shortened the straps at the shoulder about 2 centimeter, one centimeter on each side. This way I did get a perfect fit. I used the A line skirt from the pattern but had to remove the entire hip curve. If you make a woman Litore for your teenage daughter take a good look at the high hip measurement.




The blue dress with flowers is the first Optimum that I made. Because she is between child and women patterns, I dared to see how the dress would fit her. The Risu child version fits her very nicely. The Optimum without adjustments was not a success. Her developed chest was showing too much from the side. I tried to fix it with adding a dart inspired by this hack from the Sofilantjes page. I had done that in the past with a Solis with a similar problem and then it was the perfect solution. At first it seemed to work (it looks great in the pictures) again, but after wearing it for a few hours the Art Gallery fabric that I used seemed to behave differently. It widened a bit, again giving some gaping.




The perfect way to make the Optimum teenage proof is doing the one layer Optimum light hack, the bunny dress with red is my first version. This hack can now also be found on the Sofilantjes page. The band under the arm pulls everything nice and tight but still very comfortable. No gaping what so ever. because of the success with the hacked Optimum I decided to redo the light blue dress. I added a band only around the "armhole". It worked perfectly, no picture though. She had to pull on the dress 5 times before I decided to fix it all with a band and we had already made perfect pictures, so she was not up for that again. Maybe later on Instagram.



What I have learned so far is that bands seem to work very well with developing chests. A small summary regarding Sofilantjes dresses. Risu, and probably all child dresses with sleeves fit fine. The woman Vallis only shortened at the bodice is a winner. The Litore women needs some strap shortening as well, but it is best to test this on your model. Taking in the straps is easy, just cut off the first seam and resew. The Optimum child dress fits best on our teen if I use the Optimum light hack.