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<\/a><\/p>\nChoosing a size<\/h2>\n
My measurements are high bust 36\u201d, full bust 40\u201d, waist 33\u201d and hips 43\u201d. A 4″\u00a0difference between my high bust and full bust put me at the D-cup sizing. With a 36\u201d high bust,\u00a0I probably should have selected an 8D, but since my hip measurement put me at a size 14, I\u00a0started with the 10D. If I were teaching a fit class, I would have told myself to start with the 8D,\u00a0but fitting is more art than science!<\/p>\n
The muslin phase<\/h2>\n
I sewed a muslin using the 10D without any fit alterations to get a sense of what might be\u00a0needed. As expected, I needed some adjustments. From the front, the blouse looked ok. It\u00a0looked like the bust dart might be a bit high and there was a little pulling across the hips, but it\u00a0didn\u2019t look bad.<\/p>\n
From the side view, I could tell that I needed a forward shoulder adjustment. The wrinkles just\u00a0behind the shoulder indicate that you need to rotate the entire sleeve forward. I work on a\u00a0computer all day and sew at night which has affected my posture over time, so I usually need to\u00a0make the forward shoulder adjustment.<\/p>\n I was happy with the sleeve length.<\/p>\n The back view was a different story. I almost always need to do a high round adjustment, again\u00a0because of my posture. If you typically have collars that stand out from the back of your neck or\u00a0if it feels like your front neckline is pulling towards the back, you need a high round back adjustment.\u00a0The way to check the fit is to wear a necklace. The neck seamline should hit right where the\u00a0necklace falls on the back of your neck.<\/p>\n The hips\u00a0are also too narrow which you can tell from the pleat pulling open, but I\u2019ll come back to the\u00a0hips later.<\/p>\n Armed with this information from the first muslin, I started pattern adjustments and tissue\u00a0fitting. Since the pattern has a reverse box pleat at the center back, I cut the pleat off during\u00a0tissue fitting adjustments so that I could tell where the true center back hit on my body.<\/p>\n It is\u00a0important to do fit adjustments in the proper order because the adjustments can affect each\u00a0other. The high round back and back width adjustments are performed first. I did a 1\/2\u201d high round back\u00a0adjustment and added 1\u201d to the back width (which adds 2\u201d to the circumference because 1\u201d will be\u00a0added to both sides).<\/p>\n Since I added an inch to the shoulder width, I would need to either ease\u00a0in that inch during sewing to make the front and back shoulders the same length, or I could\u00a0take care of the added width with a shoulder dart. Since I have rounded shoulders, I need a dart\u00a0anyway, so I killed two birds with one stone. Another tissue fit and I could see that I needed a\u00a01\/2\u201d swayback adjustment because I had too much tissue at my back waist.<\/p>\n With the back adjusted, I checked the front again and decided that I should lower the bust dart\u00a01\u201d. For the final tissue fitting, I decided that my hips needed 1\/2\u201d added to each side seam (which\u00a0creates 2\u201d total in the final garment).<\/p>\n A note about the\u00a0forward shoulder adjustment: You can make this adjustment on the flat pattern or you can just\u00a0rotate the entire sleeve forward. The outcome will be the same. I usually make the change on\u00a0the flat pattern, but since I had never made a forward shoulder adjustment on a shawl collar I\u00a0was hesitant to try. Now that I\u2019ve sewn the shirt I realize it would have been fine. But it is easy\u00a0to just rotate the sleeve forward so I\u2019ll just keep doing that for this pattern. I did make a note\u00a0on the pattern so that I wouldn\u2019t forget the next time. I also made sure to add the center back\u00a0pleat back on!<\/p>\n In my next sewn version, I used a really crisp shirting fabric. The fit on the shoulders and back is\u00a0perfect. My side seam falls exactly at my side and hangs perpendicular to the floor. The position\u00a0of the bust dart is good. The sleeve hangs perpendicular to the floor as it should.<\/p>\n I had to make\u00a0some decisions about the hip width when I was sewing. Remember that I had added 2\u201d to the\u00a0width at the hips. With the box pleat added back in, however, I felt that I had way too much\u00a0ease at the hips and it made the fit look sloppy (especially from the front). I decided to remove\u00a0the extra 1\/2\u201d on the hips.<\/p>\n From the back it looks like the center pleat is being pulled open by my\u00a0hip width, and maybe it is a bit, but I also think that is partly due to the crispness of the fabric.\u00a0At the end of the day, however, I am the editor, and I thought the blouse looked better overall\u00a0without the added hip width!<\/p>\n In my second complete version, I used a lightweight and drapey fabric. I didn\u2019t make any adjustments on the\u00a0fit\u2014the pattern was exactly the same as what I used for the crisp fabric.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>You can also see from the photos that the back is too\u00a0narrow; the horizontal wrinkles between my arms indicate that more width is needed.<\/p>\nFlat pattern adjustments<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nVersion 1<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nVersion 2<\/h2>\n