New Year's Eve Macaron

NYE Macaron: 2 years of planning, 2 days of making!

I'm completely in love with this dress. It is almost exactly how I imagined it!

I've had this dress planned in my head for ever. I started by tracing the pattern in a size 10 last November. Then some time in the spring I muslined the shit out of it. I made 2 muslins and one wearable muslin. The reason for this is that I have come to realize every Colette pattern is too big across the back for me. I have a narrow back in general and somehow the Colette patterns are impossible with out lots of adjustments. So here are the details:

• Cut a size 10 - sort of. when I compare my traced pattern to the actual size 10 it doesn't quite match - it's actually a little smaller.
• Increased the waste darts on the front bodice by 1/4 inch (accounting for reducing the size by 1/2)
• Because shoulders were too big, I took the neck of the top front bodice in by 1/4 inch (angling along the fold from the lowest point of the upper bodice)
• Took in the front midriff by 1/4 inch angling on the fold to make it match the smaller bodice. (Doing this required me to redraw the angle of the midriff, which I never got really perfect.
• On the back I just took the whole thing in 1/4 inch along the fold but angling the back midriff back out to the waist size (and lengthening it like the front). 
• I lengthened both the front and back midriff pieces because I thought the waist was too high
• Made a narrow shoulder adjustment from the Colette book, but here's another version. (Fun to try something new!)
• Then I took the seam between the top back and the lower back bodice and brought it in by about 1 and 1/2 inches, but mostly off the lower bodice (thus undoing the lengthening I did earlier? sort off but off the back bodice really).

Probably none of what I've written makes sense. Maybe my photos help? Hopefully.

All the bodice pieces

Midriff angle and lengthen

Narrow shoulder adjustment

The NYE version of this dress is made in silk dupioni that came from Bolt in Portland ages ago (probably 4 years ago). The upper bodice is some kind of fun netting that I picked up a few years ago at the Cotton Ball in Morro Bay. I think the wearable muslin the fabric is from the Cotton Ball too.

Here's pics of the wearable muslin: