Thursday, July 17, 2008

Claire S. - V8346, still working on sleeves

I'm hoping I'm not the only one still having trouble with the muslin - I know we're supposed to be cutting real fabric by now.


I've read everything I could get my hands on - the more I read, the more confused I got.


Sooooo, I'm ignoring the left sleeve for now. I don't think splitting it to add width was necessary, the fit of the original sleeve was ok. I think the problem lies in either,

1) the depth of the armhole (too low) or
2) the shoulder width - are the shoulders on my jacket too wide for me ? some of those many wrinkles seem to match up with the 'narrow shoulder' problems in my books - Fitting Finesse & Fast Fit

I worked only on the right sleeve...
- some said to balance the sleeve, move the shoulder dot forward
- others said move it backwords

I tried both. Neither seemed to work too well, I still could not raise my arm.

I focused on the armhole instead
I raised it 1/2" (added 1/2" at the bottom of the armhole on the body of the muslin).
I reset the sleeve by putting on the bodice, sliding the sleeve on my arm and fiddling with it til it hung straight then basted it in.

I forgot to allow for "I could only see the front while doing this" ! While the front of the sleeve seems to fall pretty straight, the back has lots of wrinkles. It's as though I have no shoulder in the back, it's all empty air under there. This is why I'm wondering about the narrow shoulder.

The fix for a narrow shoulder in Fast Fit has you take a copy of the armhole seam and tilt it so the shoulder width is less and the armhole rises up the same amount - this MAY fix my problem. But how would I accomplish this on this muslin which is all sewed up, would I have to undo it all and start again ?

Any opinions anyone ? My muslin is looking worse instead of better I'm afraid.

Here are the pics of the right arm after raising the armhole and 'fiddling' with the hang of the sleeve. The shoulder pad is in there, but I don't know if it is sitting in the right place. And the bonus to this is, even though it's not looking really good, I CAN lift my arm a bit higher.





3 comments:

Marji said...

Claire, don't feel badly, I think many many people are still in the muslin fitting stage.
I suggested, way back a page or two ago, that Rosemary make a narrow shoulder adjustment in her coat - and it looks as if your coat may indeed have the same issues. Those shoulders do look wide on you.
the pics on how to make it in the muslin are here.
you need to remove that sleeve, it's def set in wrong.
You'll need the help of dh or a fitting partner, but scroll back to the post I did showing Els diagram of measuring for the sleeve cap depth, and have your dh/fitting partner do that. That will give you more accurate information on where your armsyce should be.

Linda said...

I don't know if this was covered, but you did do a forward shoulder adjustment correct? Then did you move the notch at the top of the sleeve the same amount too? Also, you shoulder pad underneath your coat looks wonky and not set in place correctly. I would suggest pinning it in place to your coat using safety pins and then try it on. Ask me how I know ;).

Mary OK said...

Claire, I don't have anything to add about your sleeves, but just want you to know, I am also having ISSUES with my muslin. Hang in there!