Darling Ranges: bodice fitting notes & queries

I mentioned when I posted my Darling Ranges dress that I would be back with details on fitting the bodice. I personally love to see how other people approach their fitting and muslining, and, well, this is a post for my fellow process geeks :-)  It's also partly to remember my own notes, partly to share them in case others are reading up on fitting this pattern (something I found really helpful), and partly - but very far from least importantly - a plea for your help. As you'll see, I still have not satisfactorily fit this bodice, and I am a bit stuck for where to go next. 

Behold the rose tinted picture whence I began...

This was my first, freshly-traced front bodice piece. But before we get down to the adjustmental nitty gritty, how about some vital statistics? Here they are, with the corresponding pattern size each one falls under (see the pattern envelope here):

• High bust 86 cm (XS)
• Full bust 96 cm (M)
• Waist 81 cm (L)
• Hips 99 cm (S-M)

As you can see, I span quite a range. Usually, I pick my dress/top size based on my high bust and then do an FBA to add ease in the full bust. This generally results in a bodice that fits fine across the shoulders and back, with enough room for the bosoms too. However, in this case I strongly doubted that beginning with the XS would be a good idea - for a start, I am way out of the other measurements for that size, and I had read that the shoulders in this case are narrow to begin with. So I plumped for the S, graded out to an L at the waist, and did an FBA:

Now I had seen many, many comments about the placement/size/shape of this bust dart and the difficulties of fitting it. As I have rarely come across a bust dart I actually liked, I had decided a long time ago to deal with this by rotating it to a french dart instead, which is supposedly more flattering on fuller busts in any case. (Megan has good tutorials on her blog on how to do this). I'm now not so sure that doing so immediately was a good idea, but we'll get to that later.  So, my first bodice front pattern piece then looked like this:

And here is the resulting bodice muslin (almost stomach flashing on the internet, oh my goodness!):

I'm not sure how obvious it is, but this was basically so tight I could hardly move - despite being too big at the waist (it falls above the natural waist which I suspect accounts for that in my case. I am what you could politely call "thick" in the stomach area). You can see some excess fabric gaping at the neckline at my right shoulder, so that already jumped out as a thing, and from the back you could see bra lines. For a dress made in woven fabric, that closeness of fit is definitely not what I call wearing ease.

Thus, on to the next size up. Here I faced an unusual situation: the pattern's bust measurement for the M is 1cm larger than my full bust measurement.  I don't think I've ever made a straight up bodice without an FBA, at least not in non-stretch material. As I had decided to go down a size at the waist from my first muslin, the only change I made to bodice pattern piece #2 was therefore to rotate the dart again:

Here's the result. Clearly already a much better fit, and it felt more comfortable too.

However, do you see those bubbles at the end of the darts, just sort of sitting there on my boobs? That's no good! (Please ignore the drawn-on nipples where I had been experimenting with the location of bust points). Again, there was some gaping at the top right of the neckline, and also some armhole gape, which you can see pinned out on the right armhole above. I pinched out a small armhole dart and rotated it into the main dart:

But it didn't help. No pictures of muslin #4, it was late and I was fed up. At this point I gave up muslining and spent some considerable time Googling things like "bust dart fabric pooling". I'm not sure how conclusive this was, but my conclusion was that the large size of the dart probably had something to do with it, and splitting it in two might work. My next pattern piece was the M again, with no FBA, the bust point lowered 3cm, and the dart split equally between the waist and the side:

And that, oh persistent readers for making it this far! That is the pattern piece I used to make my dress. I did do another muslin, decided it was the best so far, and that I was going to get on with the thing I actually wanted to be making, instead of obsessing about making it fit.  And yes, I do truly believe that it's OK for things to not fit that well, as long as you don't mind wearing them - after all, that's how I wore shop-bought clothes for years. I mentioned before that I can live with this one. But, I want more of these dresses, and I want them in plain fabric - which doesn't camouflage like this print does.  So, please, cast your expert eyes over these pictures and tell me what needs to change!

First and most importantly: that fabric pulling towards the armhole over my bust:

Do I need to add some ease with an FBA after all? Or should I just have left the bust dart where it was originally (maybe shortened slightly?), with the fullness therefore at the high bosom level instead of nearer the waist?

A side view of the same thing - but here you can also see, on the right, that the neckline doesn't actually lay flat at my shoulders. Do you think I could just shorten the neckline a very little bit at the shoulder seams? (Does anyone know what I mean??)

And then there's this weird bubble of fabric between the darts. I guess this is like my boob-placed bubbles from muslin #2, but moved, and moved to a location I can live with in fact. I just sort of wonder about it, and whether/how this 'excess' can be moved to somewhere I want it rather than somewhere I don't.

I don't want to fall into the trap of overfitting, but at least that pulling from centre front to armhole must go. I don't really want to convert the dart to princess seams as I like the lines of the pattern as it is. Any other ideas, from those with full busts or none? A dart cluster like this? Or do I just give up? Can you tell that I'm really quite determined not to?

Any and all suggestions will be welcomed and very likely acted on. I will happily document my next series of muslins if that's any encouragement to you!

And THANK YOU fellow sewists and sewcialists - at time of writing I may be stuck, but I'd never have made it this far without you :-)