Merchant & Mills Camber Dress Tips & Tricks Part 2 - How To Cut Out Dress Pattern Pieces

Today, I’m going to cut out the Merchant and Mills Camber Dress (http://bit.ly/CamberDress) in pinstriped wool flannel (http://bit.ly/Pinwool), but first I’m going to do a swayback adjustment to the back pattern piece. When Rachael tried on the tissue, there was a lot of extra tissue in the back, which indicated to me that she may need a swayback adjustment. I’ll include a link to our tissue-fitting video in the YouTube version.

According to the Palmer/Pletsch Complete Guide to Fitting (http://bit.ly/PPFitting), you need to do a swayback adjustment if you have an erect back, a swayback, or a flat derriere. In other words, practically everyone needs this adjustment! To make a swayback adjustment while you're trying on your tissue, take a horizontal tuck at the center back just above the waist until the side seam is perpendicular to the floor and the hem is level. I did this off-camera and determined that Rachael needs a ½” swayback adjustment.

In order to do the adjustment, I pin the pattern piece to a cardboard grid, and draw a line perpendicular to the grainline, just above the waistline. I then cut the tissue along the line, to but not through the seam allowance. I overlap the tissue at the center back by ½”, fading to 0” at the side seam. Then I’ll tape it. My center back seam is no longer perfectly straight, but I can line up the upper and lower parts with the fold, and cut out my pattern pieces. That was the only alteration Rachael needed for the Camber Dress to fit her!

Now I’m going to talk about cutting out the Camber Dress. The wool flannel Rachael picked out for this project has vertical stripes and a nap. The nap means that I want all the pattern pieces to be facing the same direction so they don’t look like they’re slightly different colors on the final garment. I love cutting out striped fabric because it’s pretty easy to make sure you’re on-grain. As per usual, I am cutting out the Camber Dress without folding the fabric, which means I need to trace and flip the front, back, and yoke pattern pieces.

For the front pattern piece, laid it on the fabric, positioning the center front along a pinstripe, and traced one half of the front. I marked the notches and added a tailor’s tack at the tip of the dart. Then I flipped the pattern piece along the pinstripe and pinned it in place. I can now cut out the whole front in one piece.

I have cut out one sleeve with the pattern piece wrong-side-up, and I’ll cut out the second sleeve with the pattern piece right side up. The sleeve is not symmetrical, so it’s important to remember to cut out a left sleeve and a right sleeve. The sleeve grainline is in the center of the pattern piece, so I fold it along the line and position the fold on a pinstripe.

Finally, I’ll cut out the neck binding at a 45-degree angle. I’m a little concerned that the neck hole will be too small, so I’m going to add a few inches to the binding just in case I decide to make the neck hole bigger.

I’ll finish cutting this out, and I’ll meet you back here on Saturday to start sewing the dress!

Originally recorded on Facebook Live 10/14/2020
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