Colette Pastille: WTF

When last we spoke about my Pastille dress, I was doing a mommy-tummy adjustment on the skirt.  The plan was that if that went okay, I would then make one final muslin of the bodice that incorporated all of the changes, sew them together and make one last check for fit.

I made this skirt and tried it without the bodice:

The old, stand-on-a-stool-so-you-can-see-your-skirt-in-the-
bathroom-mirror trick.  I really need a full-length mirror
in the living room where my sewing machine lives.

As you can see, it looks pretty good.  The side seam looks straight although it might be a tiny bit forward right at the waist.

So, I attached bodice muslin 3 to it to see how it looked:

Please excuse whatever was on the bathroom mirror.
Toothpaste maybe?  I dunno, I live with a 3 year old, it
could be anything.

Also not bad.  Actually, pretty good!

At this point, I got really excited and made up the bodice in the same red fabric as the skirt and sewed them together.

Disaster.

First, I thought I would use bias tape for the neckline instead of a facing because facings annoy me and that was a hot mess that I won't be repeating.  But, I figured it was fine, because I didn't really care about this fabric so I could throw it all away if I wanted.  But then, I looked in the mirror and I got so disgusted, I couldn't even take a picture.  The bodice felt funny.  Maybe from the mess at the neckline?  I dunno.  Worse there were diagonal pull lines in the front skirt.  Ugh!

I tried it on again today and this time I took pictures in order to share the horror:

Ignore my hair, I hadn't gotten ready for the day, yet.

I spent a lot of time trying to stand in the mirror in a way
that most obscures the mess on the floor behind me.

It looked like maybe the bodice was pulling the skirt up in the front so I let out the bodice seam in the front.  I overcast the seam allowances together so it's essentially got a 1/4" seam at the waistline:

Better, but I don't get why the bodice is suddenly too short.  I need to take it apart and compare it to the previous bodice muslin and the pattern piece.  At any rate, it looks like I need to add half and inch to the front bodice and front skirt.

There's still some pooling and wrinkling of fabric in the upper back of the bodice while the lower back is now looking a bit too tight (maybe?).  I need to pinch out the excess at the top and maybe fix the swayback adjustment, I think.

Whatever it needs, it's going into time-out for awhile to think about what it's done while I work on the Outfit Along (Bad, bad, bad Pastille!  Mommy is not happy with you!).  I'll pull it out once I've finished the dress for the Outfit Along (so, the end of July?).