The Spring Suit: Muslins Galore

Oh, where to begin... Yesterday I walked over to S's for our marathon session and she was feeling a bit off. By the time I left, a few hours later, she was horrendously winter-sick. You know when you watch a person get ill?  Of course I am concerned for her - having a virus completely sucks and hurts and is horrible. Alas, my highly illness-anxious side spent last night having a long shower, mainlining whatever supplements I could find and trying not to focus on how viruses hurt and are horrible.

Now, S may have been descending into blurgh, but somehow she managed (like a consumptive Victorian, surveying her domain) to completely rip apart (figuratively and then literally) muslin 2 - the one I spent the whole morning constructing on the basis of our first round of changes. Note: We did start on S's muslin but standing up wasn't in the cards given how she felt as the day wore on.

Here's the result of muslin 2 alterations:

Let me interpret this for you. Everything gets smaller, yet again, except for the join of the front and side front pieces at the bust - which gets bigger (yet again). For those of you who like to go by markings, those dashes to the inside of the thinner, black pen line (seam allowance marking) indicate that I need to remove about a quarter of an inch from each side of the side to side-back, side-back to back and side to side-front seams.

And then, just to call extreme attention to it in red fabric, I have to add a whole whack of extra curve over the bust point. (Our first muslin alteration was a dart at the full bust point with some extra curve and then extra length below the bust. It didn't quite work.) We've also added a wedge of extra length on the front piece, over the curve.

Here's how the side front pattern piece looks now:

OK, before you yell at me for not tracing the pattern pieces when, we got started, I know, I know, I was an idiot... I'm in an anti-tracing phase which is, natch, about to end. As I re-trace these pieces today.

It appears that I'm a "big four" size 10 everywhere but in the bust, where I'm a size 16 (I estimate, but not in a standard fashion). Seriously, you need to be a master sewist just to ease the side-front into the front along that curve.

Frankly, I'm scared because I'm going to have to do the muslin to paper alterations by myself today - no doubt, S is safely tucked up in her bed. Although, in truth, whenever we're together, I rely on her. The only way I'm going to sort out how to do this is because I have to.

I want to say that muslin 3 is going to crack the code, but who wants to invoke a visit from hubris? We really can't go from the princess jacket I made last spring, although elements of that fitting process inform this one, because that pattern was challenged. So it's like we're starting from scratch, making a jacket TNT.

On my rather short continuum of "bored to out of my depth", I'm on the out-of-my-depth side right now. I know that, as soon as I sort out the shell fitting, I've still got to reflect a massive number of alterations onto the lining and interfacing pieces (and adjust the collar, potentially).

Today's questions: How have you managed the lining and adjunct piece alterations on the basis of alterations to your jacket shell? Is there mystery to it? I suspect the lining acts as its own garment, more or less, and you just need to make the adjustments on those pieces in the relative spots and to the same degree as in the shell. In terms of interfacing and underlining, those will have to mimic the revised pieces exactly because they are affixed to the shell. Any feedback would be so appreciated.

And, holla if you happen to have one body part that is proportionately outsized. If you've got a (relatively) huge ass or wide back or large arms, I wanna know! How do you handle pattern adjustments? We're the ones who do the heavy lifting with alterations - cuz we have to.