Twila Gets a New Dress

Have you met Twila?

“Hello Twila” Says Cordelia.

“Hello Cordelia” says Twila.

Waaaaaait that’s not a picture of Twila.

That’s a picture of a pair of Elephant boxers I made for a movie.

Sorry Twila, I guess I don’t have any pictures of you on my new computer.

Well Twila is a long time family friend and she has recently been going through a weight loss boot camp and has lost a bunch of weight.

Now that she is looking stunning she has decided to have me make her a dress that actually fits cause all of her old clothes are too big!

You go girl!

We are all excited for you and think you look absolutely fabulous daaaarhhling.

Twila and I picked out a Coni Crawford pattern for the dress and I have to say I was absolutely positively 100% pleased with the pattern.

You can read more about my love affair with Coni here:

My BFF Coni

For those of you who don’t know, the commercial pattern companies are notorious for having terrible fitting patterns. The reason for this is that they make a sloper (the basic building block of all pattern drafting) in a sample size –usualy a 6 I believe- and use it to draft all patterns and then they grade (resize the pattern) from this standard pattern.

the basic sloper pattern

Well that would be all fine and dandy except they use terrible grading techniques and always add too much in the wrong places which means that unless you are lucky enough to fit the standard size the pattern is going to have lots of fitting issues.

Why do they do this you may ask?

 Well because A. it saves time and B. it saves printing cost cause it uses less paper.

Well Coni Crawford believes this is UNEXCUSABLE so she teamed up with Butterick patterns to start her own pattern line.

I have always heard good things about her patterns and everyone claims they actually fit because she...

 wait for this

 it’s such a crazy idea you’ll never believe it

Are you ready?

They fit because she actually makes a sloper (the basic building block of a pattern) in every size and drafts every size separately!

But wait!

 It gets even crazier! She designs the sloper off of actual human bodies!

What a truly novel idea.

I mean seriously. Talk about genius.

So I had to give her patterns a try.

Twila and I picked out this pattern.

I had to alter it slightly because Twila was between two sizes and then I cut out and sewed the muslin together.

Twila came over for her first fitting today and I was all prepared to have to make a TUN of alterations, but then Twila put the muslin on and Dun Dun Dun.

 Guess what happened.

It mostly fit!

Just a few minor changes, throw in a pair of Spanks and Huston, we have lift off!

Err, um, I mean we are in the clear to cut out the fancy fabric.

I would show you the fabric, but then that would ruin the surprise and what’s the fun in that?

I'll give you a hint:

We use 2 fabrics!!!

Oh, ps. The pattern was a joy to work with for reasons beyond the fit. For example, for anyone who has ever installed a Lapped Zipper you may have noticed that you would have liked a little more fabric to work with. Well Coni ADDS extra seam allowance where the lapped zipper will go so you don’t have to remember to do that yourself!!!!!!

 I was stoked.

Twila was happy too.

And Cordelia was happy cause we were happy.

She is such a follower.

Overall I rate this pattern an A+! You go Coni cause I know you were sooo looking for my approval.

Until next time,

~Melisa & Cordelia