I decided to try the princess dress - shoulder, standard ease (yes I have a good sloper) the only thing I changed was the depth of the square neckline to 6" (oh yeah and chose square neckline)I wanted to show my friend how quickly I could sew a nice dress up. Firstly the shoulders did not match. the back was much wider so I took off the amount that was on the center panel of the front. That problem solved! I wanted 20% flare so I printed up a bunch of godets that were from the waist down and 4 inches wide. I cut them in half length wide and glued them to each side of the panels- this worked out great...laid nicely on grain.
BUT. then I tried on the dress, expecting it to fit and the front was HUGE. from the neck to the under bust it was so large I could almost fit a football into the front, ok maybe not a football but something big. The center panel was at least 2 inches too wide and the front side seam needed to be taken in by about 1" on each side. The princess lines aren't in the right spot now but at least it fits much closer. This was only to the underbust area!!! the back fit beautifully, and from the underbust down was well fitting.
I have made many princess tops (with previous versions) so I expected to be fine with the dress...
I have the newest update, pro and most of the fitting tools and am totally stumped.
PS. my friend was not impressed...
Jacqui G

Hi Jacqui,

About your princess dress, the square neck front thing not matching the back neck thing has been brought to Bob's attention and he said he would fix it. It is an old problem that reared its ugly head again.

About it being big from neck to underbust. I have made the square neck princess before for a top and depending on your bust span the square neck opening can be wide. I no longer post my personal numbers, so I won't go there. But until Bob fixes it, that opening will be the width of your bust span, unless you can use the neck tool to adjust it, but I have not tried that.

About it being big in the underbust area, there is an article in a back issue of Threads Magazine that talks about "S" darts and specifically for the underbust area to get princess lines and waist darts to fit closer to the rib cage. This would be an ideal time to use it.

You could probably fix it if you are symetrical by putting the dress on inside out and having someone pin out the excess, curving in under the bust to create a "s" curve like dart. I know on the armhole princess tops I have made that they do not hug the ribcage, but that is the way I like it, it hides everything else that is down there.

I have made a couple of princess armhole tops and the center panel has fallen right where it should with the lines falling over the bust point. Maybe you might want to check your bust span number?
HTH,
Linda Flint

I decided to try the princess dress - shoulder, standard ease (yes I have a good sloper) the only thing I changed was the depth of the square neckline to 6" (oh yeah and chose square neckline)I wanted to show my friend how quickly I could sew a nice dress up. Firstly the shoulders did not match. the back was much wider so I took off the amount that was on the center panel of the front. That problem solved! I wanted 20% flare so I printed up a bunch of godets that were from the waist down and 4 inches wide. I cut them in half length wide and glued them to each side of the panels- this worked out great...laid nicely on grain.

Ok I have tried this shoulder princess dress with square neck,reference lines on, altered neck depth to 6 inches.

Version 6.10
ALL the shoulder is on the front side panel as the neckline diappears into the princess line.
IF the back was a square neck or a default width to meet the front square the back shoulder at a defaults doesnt match front width as the width isnt wide enough to drive it into the princess seam.

Reported that the wide necks are not behaving at shoulder width.. at least not the square.

Jewel, and regular V ,were spot on, the scoop had an almost 1/4 inch difference with the back center panel being slightly wider than front center. ( I would adjust the back neckline with a pencil but I always change the back neck shape slightly to MY preference)

The bust width at apex maintains at chart plus .5 inches..do not have one clue what happened with your front at bust level but standard fit is generally in the area of less than 1 inch bust ease depending on your chart size.

With a pattern that requires 4 intersecting pieces to match perfectly pattern preparation makes total sense. After making sure seam allowances are true overlap front side to center then back side to center and then all 4 at shoulder to perfectly match at that very critical connection point. (***NB match at stitch lines NOT cut lines - adjust cut line).

Kaaren