To tackle the fitting issues...

... I decided to get this book that is so often mentioned on PatternReview.com: Fit for Real People by Pati Palmer and Maria Alto (aka FFRP). I wonder why I didn't get it sooner! Like all other fitting books, it goes over common issues and how to fix them. This book goes a step further by taking you through a tissue-fitting process. I'd never gone through a fitting, so this was enlightening. It has lots of photographs and figures - very useful for visual-learners like me.

So I bought Butterick 5726 fitting shell from Joann's for $2 to make a sloper, traced and cut the pieces, went through the FFRP fitting exercise, fixed the obvious problems, got lazy about the muslin, made one anyway, discovered different problems, lost patience, found it while taking a break, fixed some of those problems, refined the lines, and four weekends later - et voila - I have my sloper!

Here's the bodice:

And the skirt:

I skipped the sleeves because I'm not planning to use them any time soon. Well, maybe some capsleeves... but, how hard can those be, right?

Hopefully all this exercise wasn't a waste of time.