Monday 9 January 2012

Muslin Fitting #2

Finally managed to pin Anna down, in between moving trailer loads of stuff to her new home.
I used light-weight sew-in vilene to draft the pattern. I cut off a piece of my normal paper and pinned the vilene to the paper to add stability and it worked a treat. The paper also stopped all the texta dots from transposing to my table. I added standard seam allowances to the pattern at the shoulder and side seams so I could pin the pattern together for fitting. I forgot to take photos of this stage, but the only things I changed was to remove 1cm from the shoulder width and removed 14cm from the front waist darts so they didn't sit so high. The extra width around the hip did allow the vest to sit lower and, I think, much improved the fit. Okay then......so far, so good!
Now on to the muslin, duly made with the above alterations.

 Pretty good, right? I have pinched out 4cm from the left armhole, but instead of making a dart here I am going to have a go at removing this with a sewing technique. Just removing this excess makes the armhole look a whole lot better than the right side.
Here's the back. As you can see she needs that extra width around her hips, but there is too much fullness up higher, so.........

I will increase the width of the back waist darts to give the back a little more shape. I have only placed one pin in each dart at this stage, to let me know her waist point and how much to take the dart in. I will smooth them out when I sew them in. Another option is to add a little belt with a buckle, at the pin placement, which will allow Anna to take it in further if she wants to. The belt could actually be placed inside the dart.
So I am now quite pleased with this result, as is Anna (very important). She's not fond of the width of the top of the vest, but as it is a pattern design issue, we have decided not to worry about that.
I am now going to put this aside for the moment and will work on a shirt for her. It is now only 6 days until final moving day so I am running out of time. I am not convinced this is the best garment to use as the first test run for fit. Surely a fitted sheath dress with a standard set-in sleeve would be better? If I can get the shirt muslin ready as well, I will make the two garments and post them to her. She can then take photos, send them to me and I will report back here. It's getting exciting now......
Back soon with the next project.

3 comments:

  1. This is looking good! Anna is lucky. I find tissue fitting very difficult with just myself here so I am doing mine through muslin ( or should I say cheap fabric!!. Look forward to seeing how it turns out and learning together how to use this system.

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  2. I also think this is coming along well. You have a good eye for detail in picking up on the small areas that need work. So, onto a shirt - the love of my sewing life at the moment...looking forward to see it...

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  3. Hi Pam, thanks for the tips on fitting Babs.. Great point - I will do that. Sorry to hear you have had a bad start to the year. Hopefully the rest of the year will look up. I look forward to seeing your completed work.

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