I had a little time to myself yesterday evening, so I whipped together the Fashion Sewing Group 1945 jacket muslin. When I put it on, I was surprised at how good it looked in the mirror, but now,looking at the photos DH snapped for me last night, I'm not so sure. It looks pretty baggy in the upper chest/armsceye area. I've already pinched out something like 1 1/4" in that area and my seams are beginning to do funny things, so I'm not sure I can easily remove much more. I think I still need to move the bust shaping down about 1/2"; there's just a little fullness above the bust, although the turned-back collar covers it up.
Length (it will be 2" shorter when hemmed) and pocket placement looks good; the shoulders themselves look good; I think some of the ripples in the back are because the unlined, uninterfaced back fabric is sort of flannelboarding to my knit pants. There's really plenty of room through the hips/tummy. But there are a couple of diagonal folds just below my arms that I'm not really sure about.
Y'know, not so very long ago I'd've been happy with the jacket if it buttoned without straining....amazing how picky I've become ;).
So now I'm trying to decide if it's good enough to go to the test garment stage; how much of that bagginess in the armsceye is just due to the unsupported fabric syndrome...will lining/interfacing help there? Or do I need more altering?
I think I'm going to ponder this for a couple more days. I feel like doing a little frivolous sewing; I guess that's a reaction to all the production work I've been doing.
Perhaps a little Cynthia-style slashing across the upper back will eliminate those vertical wrinkles below your shoulder blades???
ReplyDeleteSlashing muslins is fun!
Hm. I hadn't thought of that. There's just a hint of a horizontal ripple towards the top of the back seam; I wondered if that was an indication that I had *too much* length there. But I could imagine releasing a little could help with those folds. But then...what of the ripple at the top? I wish I'd made this up back in February to have Cynthia tweak for me ;)
ReplyDeleteI do think that some of the excess you see in the front could be due to the single layer floppy fabric. Remember the real thing will be in a firmer fabric, and interfaced through that area as well.
ReplyDeleteWould it help you decide if you actually interfaced this muslin?
Lisa - Maybe put some shoulder pads in and see what they do? It almost looks a little big through the shoulders.
ReplyDeleteY'know, the more I look at the photo the more I think I could shorten that shoulder seam a bit...maybe even 1/2". I actually have 5/8" shoulder pads pinned in; but they're the cheapo-foam rubber things, not real shoulder pads. The pattern does not specify the shoulder pad depth, but I've depleted my good shoulder pad supply and need to get some more. But I have slightly square shoulders; I pulled the pads out and that almost-bump at the top of the CB seam went away. It's just too wide there.
ReplyDeleteI've definitely got some chopping to do on that muslin...when I get to it!