Fitting the Qipao / Cheongsam dress
This was an epic fitting journey with lots of trial and error, going down long pathways with some backtracking. I consulted lots of resources along the way, and hope you find it useful to see what I tried, why, and the effect of the changes I made. You can see my review of the pattern itself here.
For the toile, I cut the front and back bodice pieces up to the hip line, and the front flap piece (although I then realised later that I didn't need to cut the flap and could just cut the front bodice on the fold instead).
First toile
Going by the size chart, size 6 was closest to my measurements so I cut a toile in this size. This was the first pattern I've sewn where the seam lines are marked. It does make for a busy-looking pattern piece, but when marked on the fabric is really useful.
Having compared the bodice to an existing bodice block I had, the waist needed to be raised by 1cm and so I folded out a tuck here. I was trying to work out how to adapt the pattern further according to my bodice block but with the different darts and asymmetric shoulder piece, it was too complex for me to work out so I went with the rest of the pattern piece as is.
The shoulder flap on my toile sits on my left side instead of the right as it should be, as I had marked the darts and seam lines on the right side of the fabric and so found it easier to pin and sew this side.
Observations
On first glance, the garment fit much better than I had anticipated. This was a relief given the complexity of how all the pieces fit together. I noted the following:
The dress was just too tight all over.
The front waist and bust darts were 2.5cm too high.
On the back, there were draglines from the upper back to the underarms and a very slight gaping at the top of the back armhole, possibly indicating tightness around the upper back.
On the back, there were horizontal folds and waviness of the zip around the lower back, possibly indicating excess length here, or not enough width for the hips and buttocks.
The shoulder seam was too far back, particularly at the neck.
Alterations
I made the following adjustments for the second toile:
1. Dress too tight.
I cut the second toile in size 8 instead of 6. With hindsight and with all the adjustments I subsequently made I wonder whether I would have been better off keeping with the size 6 and making adjustments to this instead.
2. Front waist and bust darts too high.
Waist darts - I marked a line 2.5 cm below the top of the existing dart, blending in from the waist.
Bust darts - I traced over the dart and moved it bodily down by 2.5cm. The general advice is to cut out the dart and move it down but I didn't want to do this in case I wanted to make further adjustments, so I used the advice from this website which involves drawing the new dart onto the existing pattern. I used the same method but traced the dart instead so it could still be easily moved.
The eagle eyed of you will notice that I redrew the dart as if it would be pressed up instead of down so this was something I later corrected.
3. Draglines from shoulder to underarms on the back and back armhole gaping.
This indicates I may need more room for my upper back, so I did an upper rounded back adjustment (RBA) of 1.5cm, often recommended as the maximum here, with any further adjustment being done as a lower RBA. I thought I would assess this first before considering a lower RBA. I did an upper RBA using the technique here by Sew Sew Live from timestamp 4:26.
After I spread this piece apart at the hinge so the centreback line was 1.5cm longer, I realised I would have to cut off nearly another 5mm to make a right angle between the neckline and centre back. I therefore opened the hinge larger to compensate, so that after making a right angle, the adjustment at centre back was still 1.5cm.
4. Horizontal folds at the lower back. I left this as it was for the time being.
5. Shoulder seam too far back. In case the upper RBA changed this, I decided to assess it again on the second toile before making changes to this.
Second toile
Observations
Front bust and waist darts are in a better position but bust volume is slightly too large
Side seam is pulling to the front at the waist
3. On the front, there are diagonal lines from the side of the waist down to the waist darts.
4. On the back, there are diagonal lines from the side of the waist down to the buttocks.
* Points 2, 3 and 4 made me wonder whether I had excess length above the waist, where the waist constriction was too far down relative to my own waist.
5. There are some diagonal draglines radiating from the upper back to the waist, indicating tightness around the upper back, and possibly excess width in the mid-back.
6. As before the shoulder seam was too far back, particularly at the neck.
Alterations
There were a few things to figure out here, but I just stuck to two adjustments before assessing again.
I did a small bust adjustment for 1cm on the pattern piece using the technique from this page on Seamwork, the third technique described "Small Bust Adjustments for Bodices with Bust and Waist Darts".
Here was the adjusted piece:
2. I moved the shoulder seam forwards, by 2cm at the neck and 1cm at the armhole. To keep the shape of the neck:
a. I butted up the shoulder seams of the front and back bodice pieces, folding under the seam allowances.
b. With extra paper taped on, I extended the back bodice piece by tracing out the neckline and armhole cut lines.
c. I marked on both front and back pieces where the seam would be if adding/subtracting 2cm at the neck and 1cm at the armhole.
I drew the new seam lines in, and then added 1cm for the seam allowance.
I then traced this onto the front bodice piece and removed the equivalent section.
Things I wanted to check on the third toile were:
Whether the small bust adjustment had reduced width on the front bodice at the waist too much, which already seemed to be pulling on the side seam. If so, I could release the side seam and provide additional width or reduce the waist dart.
Whether pinning out a tuck just above the waist would improve things if I felt the waist constriction was too low on me. I wanted to assess both the diagonal lines from the waist as well as the fit around the buttocks.
I was tempted to do a swayback adjustment to remove some of the excess fabric in my lower back. However, I came across this article from SBCC which convinced me otherwise for the time being.
Third toile
Observations
1. There was excess width in the back around the waist and so I pinned this out in the waist darts (as shown in the photo above)
2. The shoulder seam was now in a better place
3. The fit around the bust was better
4. There was some gaping in the back arm hole. I felt this was because I might need a lower rounded back adjustment as well as the upper RBA already done.
5. I could see the side seam was still pulling to the back around my buttocks and so as recommended in the SBCC article, I added some width to the waist and hips at the side seems of both the front and back bodice.
Alterations
I kept the front bodice piece as it was, but re-sewed the darts on my left side to see if I could reduce the puckering by finishing the dart slightly further away from the apex.
Back waist darts increased by 1.5cm.
Side seams released by 0.5cm on each side of each of the front and back bodice from the waist downwards.
To deal with the gaping back arm hole, I pinched out a shoulder dart, and then used this technique from Alexandra Morgan at timestamp 10:18 to distribute this into the surrounding seams at the armhole and neck.
This was the pattern piece after this adjustment. The lines radiating out to the armhole, shoulder seam and neckline indicate where the dart was distributed.
I kept the front piece as it was and re-cut the back piece. When sewing this together I realised I hadn't added to the length of the back shoulder seam having pinched out the dart, so this was something I made a note of to add later.
Fourth toile
Observations
1. There was less puckering around the bust on my left side, having finished the darts further away from the bust apex
2. There was excess width in the mid back
3. There were drag lines on the back from the waist to the buttocks.
Alterations
I pinned out the back waist dart to increase the intake from the waist upwards towards the shoulder blades, and downwards towards the buttocks, extending the length of it at both ends. I sewed these dart alterations onto the existing toile which looked pretty good. I cut back the back arm holes a touch more near the underarm seam as it felt like my arm was pushing against the fabric still.
I then sewed on the sleeves. I wanted to use the short sleeve as it had a straight hem and I thought I could use the scalloped edge of the lace here. However it did stick out a bit and I didn't have much time to fit it properly.
Fifth toile
Sleeves
I cut a full length toile to check the length of the dress and I tried the cap sleeve which looked much better but from the back I felt the back armhole could come into the garment a little further.
I sewed both sleeves back on using a larger seam allowance (1cm larger at its widest) on the back piece as if to bring the sleeve further in towards the centre back, and also lowered the armholes. This looked better to my eye and so I adapted the pattern piece accordingly.
The pattern alterations were a little more complex than I initially thought. Since the front armhole was lowered, I still needed to adapt the front flap piece that would sit on the right side, to match the left side of the bodice.
The front flap is essentially a mirror image of the upper part of the left side of the front bodice. I started by tracing the left part of the front bodice piece as if it were on the right side.
I then lay the flap piece on top and traced around the area that jutted out from the centre front and the lower border. I matched up the side seams and made a mark where the flap piece ended, and then blended this in to the original line.
I then matched up the front neckline and the top of the side seam before tracing the curved line that indicates where the flap and the front bodice are sewn together, indicated by the dotted red line in the photo below.
However when I was coming to cut this out in the lace, I realised there was a narrow clearance between the edge of the flap and where it would be stitched to the front piece and so I added extra length here.
I then made the front bodice into a full pattern piece by tracing this out. It attaches to the original piece at the waist line since there was very little change below this, just some easing of the side seams.
At this point, I reeeeeeally needed to get on with sewing the actual dress and so this is as far as I got. During this process, I deviated to see if I would be better off keeping the centre back seam straight and adapting the side seams and waist darts. In the time I had, this became worse and so I reverted to this version with the swayback adjustment.
Further alteration ideas
Other things I may have tinkered with if giving myself more time on this:
I felt there was some back neckline gaping, and that the neckline in general was pulling towards the back. In the side view it is very close to the front of my neck, and this was without the collar attached. I made a note to check this again once sewn, thinking I may need to curve the centre back seam into the neck more.
I would have fitted the sleeve more as it felt tight around the ball of my shoulder, and I'd give more room for my forward shoulder. There are draglines pointing to my underarms which weren't as obvious prior to the sleeves being sewn.
Played with the fit of the back around my lower back and hips, although this may have been better with keeping the centre back seam straight and adjusting the darts as mentioned above.
Fabric fitting
During the actual construction, I did some final fitting after basting the side seams with a chain stitch to check the fit.
There was still room to take it in at the waist and so I increased the back waist darts and took in the side seams by about 1 cm on each, making a total reduction of 4 cm. I basted these changes and checked again.
I was happy with this and so made the changes to the paper pattern and sewed it up. See my full review of the pattern here.
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