Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Fitting - part 4 - muslin

I still was not sure if the sloper was fitting correctly. I feel there are issues around the upper chest and armhole - have I raised the armhole too much?

There seems to be pulling across the front in the upper chest. And scrunching of fabric under the arm.


The back has slight folds suggesting the pattern is too wide. Also some bunching of fabric above the waist (and below).

As the general feedback has been good I thought that maybe I am over analysing. So I decided to make up a muslin today. I chose a very basic Burda WOF blouse. I made my length adjustments as follows:
Take out 3cms in the back above the waist
Take out 1cm in the front below bust and add the extra 2 cms to the bust dart.
Raise the armhole 2 cms and take same amount out of the sleeve cap.
Shorten below the waist by 3cms.


The problems that were in the sloper now are in the muslin. See the horizontal line across the upper chest. Do you think this could be because the chest is too wide and is pulling into my arm?


I think the shoulder point looks too far down. Actually I have no idea what any of the pulls etc mean...I think I had better go back and re-read Fit For Real People!

Ok, I am going to sleep on it and hope the fitting fairies come and visit overnight!

10 comments:

Ann Made Studio said...

Vicki your persistence is paying off, because I truly feel over all that your muslin looks great. I agree with your observations and if that is all you have to fix...well you are "there":) It's nice to see the same fit transferred over to the muslin, I was wondering what the difference would be. Thanks for posting your progress.

Sew-4-Fun said...

Hi Vicki, still at it I see. Can't you find a bridge? LOL!

Firstly, I'm going to be completely honest and say I don't think trying a Burda at this stage was the best idea. While Vogue and Burda are similar in many ways there are differences. I think you would have been better doing a muslin using a Vogue pattern.

Having said this, the same wrinkles are showing up, so here's my two cents. The back ones look like you need a sloped shoulder, same as you did on the Vogue. The front is harder to diagnose but I think they are saying the same thing, sloped shoulder.

To fix this, draw a box around the *entire* armhole and move it down the required amount. I know you moved the bottom part up already :) , but you can get to combining adjustments later. HTH

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure, but the front wrinkle could mean that the sleeve cap is too narrow. The bodice front seems wide enough, so the 'pull' is probably coming from that very tight little sleeve.

Good luck!

cidell said...

I can't help because I know nothing about this, but I just wanted to say I'm really learning a lot watching your process. Thank you!

BCN - UNIQUE designer patterns said...

Vicki .- Uff. You are going back to "crazy" among all. Jajaj. Well, this is good. With sincerity, I think that the explanation you have given "sew4fun", she is right in terms of the correction you need to do. I agree. A big hug. Paco

JuliaR said...

The book I bought years ago before I realized that I really don't need to alter patterns (much) was "Fantastic Fit for Every Body" by Gale Grigg Hazen for Rodale Press. I fear I am a lazy sewer and if a pattern doesn't fit right, I get another pattern.

http://www.amazon.ca/Fantastic-Fit-Every-Body-Patterns/dp/0875967922/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203606822&sr=1-2

Anonymous said...

You're doing great- kudos for hanging in there! Since you don't have a front shoulder dart, I'm not quite sure how I would fix the horizontal line. But like you said, it may be that the distance is greater than the cut bodice. It could be my imagination, but it looks like your collar bone is protruding. I have observed that in my fittings; whenever I get a fold like that, if I let out the fabric, it generally disappears. I think that may be happening on the back as well- the distance from your shoulder blade to the side waist is greater. I would try removing the sleeve, letting out the side seam (and the dart) and study the back. Nothing beats draping it on your actual body :-) keep it up- you're so close!

Ann Made Studio said...

Vicki I posted,on my Flickr,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/annsfashionstudio/sets/72157603956485052/detail/
some adjustment pictures I found that I thought might help you. If you compare the narrow back pictures, they appear to be like yours, the adjustments to do are also included.
If you go by the sloping shoulders pictures - you do not have a sloping shoulder problem? Not sure if this helps but thought of you when I saw them so thought I'd post them.

dawn said...

If you put pins along the shoulder seam, taking up about 1/4" to 1/3" near the sleeve end of the shoulder seam, do the wrinkles go away? Seems like a lot of people have that problem. Might even be able to move the shoulder point inward a bit more (higher on the shoulder). Overall it looks great and I look forward to more!

Marji said...

You are getting really close Vicki.
I seem to be the only one here who thinks maybe you don't need a sloping shoulder adj, so maybe I'm wrong...but
it appears to me that the amount of excess on the front between the bust and the neckline is even all across - which just indicates that you have too much fabric there. If you pinch a line horizontally, evenly, all across, what happens? Do the pull lines go away? If so, then that's all you need to do - if not, then I'm wrong and you can try the sloping shoulder adj.
And I agree with everyone that the back is still too wide.