Muslin #1: What the Hey

After I determined all of my fitting problems I traced my pattern on tissue paper, marked the seam allowances and did a tissue fitting.  First I handled the back.  All of the excess fabric in the waist area points to a sway back issue but I also have the back bodice that hangs lower than the front.  I didn't do a typical sway back adjustment for this problem.  Instead I shortened the upper bodice.  This type of adjustment is also done for an erect upper back and according to this post this problem can be easily confused with a sway back.  I don't know, do I have an erect upper back??  In any case this adjustment helped tons.  One of the things I learned in Joi Mahon's Fast Track Fitting class was how to measure your body and compare those measurements to your pattern and make needed adjustments. To shorten the upper back I took my back to apex measurement and compared to the pattern.  This measurement starts from your shoulder seam to your back apex area.


I shortened my upper back by 1.5 inches by simply slashing the pattern horizontally on the upper portion and overlapping my pieces the required amount. (the circle on my pattern denotes where the apex area lands on the back, it's a rough guess, doesn't have to be exact).


I then tissue fitted my front and back pieces on my manny to make sure they were both the same length and ending at the correct spot on my waist.  You will also notice on the above picture that I did some adjustments to the armhole and neckline.  During tissue fitting I sloppily traced my armhole seam to match my manny's armhole seam.  Because I shortened the shoulder seam about one inch in the process I had to add this back to the neckline and grade out.
I'm telling you having a handmade dress form that is your exact twin is invaluable in the tissue fitting process.

Now on to the front.  To fix the excess fabric I had pooling around the armpit area I simply pinched it out on my pattern, essentially creating a dart.


I then retraced my pattern because I didn't want to sew an actual dart onto my bodice.  I guess this is what you would call a hidden dart in a pattern ??   Adding this dart will pull your center front all wonky.  I straighted out my center front and smoothed out my armhole.

Muslin #2: Getting Better

Muslin #2 looks way better than the first.  You can see my back bodice is now level with my front.  I did some more minor tweaking to the excess fabric pooling in the front and tweaked my armholes a tad more.  Instead of the 3/8th seam allowance I used a 5/8 seam allowance on my 3rd muslin.

Muslin #3: This is paying off!

I was happy enough with this muslin to move on to some real fabric. After taking pictures  I discovered I still had some issues with my back, excess fabric pooling around the armhole area.


Being the perfectionist I am I couldn't leave well enough alone. I messed with my back armholes some more much the same way I did the front.  I then made my leopard Lady Skater.  It fits really well although my sleeves were rather hard to put in.  Because I had added a hidden dart to the front bodice I also made the armhole smaller in doing so.  I realized that I had forgotten to adjust my sleeve for this when I noticed all this excess ease in the front of my sleeve. (don't ask me how i didn't notice it in my red Skater ?? lack of sleep??)  I somehow miraculously eased it all in.   I did receive feedback on my red Lady Skater post that I wanted to try out and I also wanted to correct my sleeve ease so tonight was muslin #4, you lucky peeps! Helllloooo are you still awake??

Sabine suggested my excess fabric could be due to forward sloping shoulders and to try and pinch it away from the top of my shoulders.
It's kind of hard to see because of the lighting so I traced around my armhole in black so you could better see how the front and back gapes open. This is exactly what is causing all the fabric pooling.
 

I smoothed out the excess and pinned up top and marked my new seam line on my front and back.  Because your shoulders are forward sloping your new seam line will result in an angle.  I added in my 5/8 seam allowance and trimmed away the excess.



My new seam line resulted in me shrinking my armhole 1/2 inch.  This will also affect my sleeve cap.  I shortened my sleeve cap 1/2 inch as well by slashing the pattern horizontally and decreasing 1/2 inch.  I used my sleeve ruler to smooth out the curves.   Now to fix all that excess ease in the front because of my hidden dart.  This was an easy fix.  I simply moved the center notch on the sleevehead to the back by 1 inch.  This redistributed the excess ease from the front to the back.
 

Booyah! I think my final muslin looks pretty freaking good! Feel free to click on the picture to open in Flickr to zoom in for a closer look!!  A major improvement from the first muslin.  Thank you to everyone for their expertise.  I really hope someone finds this post helpful.  I know my way of doing things probably isn't the proper way but it worked and that's all that matters in my little bubble.

Have a great weekend!  Surprise surprise we got more snow so I'll be staying in all weekend putting final touches on my next TNT pattern.  If you stayed with me this long well here's a little treat for you, a video of Vito in the snow.  He pretty much says the hell with this!  And he's not particularly fond of his shoes as they are about to flop off. This dog kills me!