Fitting my dress

So, I have assembled the dress and have tried it on.  Notice I've left off the neck facing, even though the instructions say that's the first thing to do.  I find I often have to shorten the length of a dress from the shoulders to the waist, so I didn't want to sew on the neck facing yet, incase I had to change the neckline.  Which is EXACTLY what I am going to have to do. 

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Forgive the bad photo, but I hope you can see that I have pinned up the shoulder seam and pinned in a little in the center front.  I don't want quite that much of a plunging neckline!

Once the dress is off, I can see that I pinned up exactly 1/2" at each shoulder.  BUT, I don't want to make the alteration there, because it will distort the front and back yokes.  Instead I will pick off front bodice from the front yoke and the back bodice from the back yoke and trim away 1/2" from the upper edges of front and back bodice.

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Like this ... 

This is the upper edge of the front bodice.  I did the same thing with the back bodice

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This means the front neckline is now 1/2" shorter than it was, so the front neck facing need to be altered as well.
I have made a 1/2" fold across the neck facing and pinned it with the yellow ball headed pin.  Then when I laid it on my already cut out neck facing there was 1/2" of extra fabric to trim off.  Sometimes an alteration like this can change the shape of a facing so much that a whole new piece needs to be cut, but I was lucky this time. But, I did pin in the front a little, I hope I don't have to change the neck facing anymore.  

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I did promise a fringe and pom-pon tutorial for my new Pillow Pattern ... haven't forgotten ... look for it on Monday June 3.