Closet Case Charlie Caftan – a muslin

This was interesting – and it took me 3 days to do it. For a pattern designed for ‘advanced beginner’, this is a bit of a beastie… More on that in a minute, first a look at the pattern:

Really cute, with nice options. View A features front pleats, but it doesn’t interest me at all. Views B and C are the ones that got my attention.

For my muslin, I went with View B, size 10. It has the higher sleeve, no ties, and shorter length.

The shape is very simple, pretty much straight up and down from sleeve to hem.

Changes I made to the pattern:

• First, I redrafted the sleeve. I could tell that the downward slant on top, and the tight curve at the bottom, were iffy. The former because it would impede upward movement of the arms and lift the entire dress in the process. The latter, the curve, because it would be difficult to ‘uncrinkle’ and finish nicely.

  I used the bodice from the Serendipity Studio Diane kimono dress to change both areas (my lines are in blue). I also left off the sleeve hem allowance completely, since I wanted to bind the edge, not hem it.

I love the result – it’s so comfortable.

• My second change was to decrease the width of the area to be gathered by 2″. The original ratio of gathers to front panel was 2:1. IMHO, way too much, and likely to pouf out. I don’t need pouf!

  

• I also drafted a smaller pocket. I wanted to topstitch mine to the front, and the original pocket was huge – it would have interfered with the drape of the front gathers.
• And I added 2″ to the length.

Now, changes I made to the construction of the dress. As background, that front panel is meant to be inserted into the front, much as a single welt is inserted for a pocket. Except that all 4 sides of the panel have to be sewn in. Oh my gosh, I never even considered doing it that way.

• I used a slit in the panel area, instead of the 1/4″ wide cutout in the pattern.

• I gathered the area under the slits, and fused a 1″ wide strip of interfacing over the whole shebang to stabilize it.

• Next, I basted the panel facing in place in the inside,

• And the front panel on the outside. Made a sandwich!

Topstitched to finish, and I really like how it came together. The edges are straight and I didn’t pull my hair out.

I’m considering bringing the front panel in by about 1″ on a future make. I can see how the current width would work well with ties, but without them, it just looks a little too wide. Maybe I’ll just use the panel from View A.

Thoughts: a nice summer dress, a little different, and well-suited for many fabrics and prints. However – that construction business with the front panel is not so nice. The impression I get from the reviews I’ve read (there are only a few, it’s a very new pattern), is that no one is finding it easy to get that panel sewn in properly.

Now that I have a pattern and approach that work for me, I’m sure I’ll sew this again, both long and short. Meanwhile, I’m curious about other sewists’ experiences with the pattern…

Bye for now – Coco