I received my Ceylon pattern from Colette Patterns in the mail about a week ago and have been working on the fitting. I decided to try a test run out of muslin with no changes to the pattern to decide how it fit and where I would need to make adjustments. So far, so good. Since I don’t have a dress form, and I have never made a dress other than my renaissance faire costume, I’m feeling my way through the dark. But, it’s going very well. The pattern’s directions are clear and easy to understand, even for beginners although the suggestion on the pattern recommends “Intermediate” experience. I do have a lot of quilting and other general sewing knowledge, so that helps some, but clothing is a whole other beast.
I started this journey by transferring all the pattern pieces needed on red dot tracer. There are many sizes in this pattern, 0-18, and I want to be able to make this dress over and over, perhaps in many different sizes. Using the red dot tracer, I can trace all the pieces needed, cut out the pattern on that, and use that for my desired size, rather than cutting through all the other sizes on the actual pattern paper.
Once I had all of my pattern pieces marked and cut, I layed out my muslin and cut according to the pattern directions. I started to sew my pieces and am, so far, very pleased with my progress. I would say that if I were able to work on nothing else but this dress, I would have it done in a day. I have some fabric on the way from Fabric.com that I am planning to use for this dress, but I have to make sure everything fits correctly before I begin on pretty fabric. ^_^ That is a great use for muslin! Although, it saddens me to think that I am spending so much time on a muslin garment that I won’t ever get to really wear. Who knows, maybe it will become an art piece to cover my dress form, if I can ever get one.
I’m also planning to make a belt for the dress as the one shown on Casey’s blog, or at Colette Patterns. We’ll see. ^_^
Melissa's Kre8tions 
I am eager to learn how this one turns out! I love the Ceylon pattern, but looking at it I am concerned that it could easily look very bad if it doesn’t fit perfectly.
I can tell you from experience that doing the muslin is very important. As wasteful as it seems, it is MUCH worse to cut a bunch of expensive fabric and then find out that you can’t make the pieces work. It’s especially important when your final fabric doesn’t recover well from being unpicked.
I am almost finished with the muslin, finished enough to try it on anyway. I love the pattern and the simplicity in the directions, however, I’m very glad I did a muslin first because the dress is too small for me in the hips. I will need to do some adjusting before I can start again. Thank you for your comment! They are always appreciated! ^_^
Melissa