Simplicity 1914 and Ku Mai Ka Hula 2012

Aloha Again!
Today I am excited to be able to share with you the project that kept me occupied for the last month.  I made dresses for a group of beautiful women to wear in their international hula competition that took place this past Saturday at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center.  This annual event is called Ku Mai Ka Hula.  It features dancers from Japan and Hawaii.  Dancers perform traditional and modern hulas, individually and/or with a group.  Besides being impressed with the skill of the dancers, I was also amazed to see that each group or individual who danced had their own live music.  Sometimes it was just one person with their instrument and other times it was a small band.  What a lot of coordination and practice had to be employed to make this 5 hour event come together successfully.  These sweet gals blessed me with a ticket to attend.  Thank you!  I truly enjoyed watching you all perform, and wish I could have stayed for the entire event!

The dresses were based off of Simplicity 1914.

As you can see, this is an Amazing Fit pattern.  It features a princess seamed bodice (with different pattern pieces for different cup sizes), banded neckline (which I found to be the most difficult phase of the construction process, but when done right, does lay down flat), invisible zipper in the center back, raglan armhole sleeves, pleated a-line skirt, and lots of fitting tips in the instructions.  The separate pattern pieces for the different cup sizes were extremely helpful for the eight dresses I made.  With each new size, I began by constructing a muslin.  I was fortunate to only have to make 4 muslins in all.

We wanted these dresses to fit well in the bust and neckline, but they did need to have some room in the waist and hips so that when the dancer raised her arms, the dress would easily slide back down into position.  A dancer cannot be adjusting her dress while she is dancing.  Getting this part of the fitting right was my biggest challenge.  Even though there are three inverted pleats on the front of the dress, the overall skirt portion seemed to be cut too narrow for our purposes, so room was added on all the dresses in the width of the skirt, mostly at the side seam.  The pattern does come with three different skirts pieces (in the back) based on whether one is slim, average, or curvy.  The muslin also helped us to realize that the design of the dress has a short waist.  Nearly all of the dancers preferred that the front point of the bodice come down lower than the original design.  Therefore, the bodice was lengthened by 3 inches.  We also made two other changes including: lengthening and widening the sleeve on View B and lengthening the dress to mid-calf for each of the dancers.  

New Sleeve Shape

Example of lengthened bodice piece. 

And here are seven of the lovely ladies in their dresses!  Hopefully, I will be able to update the blog with a picture of them during the competition as soon as one becomes available.  Unfortunately, the program directors did not allow the audience to take pictures while they were performing.

   Congratulations to you all!!!