Fun Times...

Between the stress, the endless fitting and the booze, can't say I'll remember much of this weekend. So here's something to remind me:


Consider easing that side front bust curve into the jacket front piece. I suspect that's why they advise you not to add more than 2 inches overall when you're doing a TBA. Don't worry, I've been living with these boobs for a long time. I know how to work around them with fabric.

The classic rock internet radio has been going almost non-stop for 5 days and I have to say, if I never hear "You Can't Always Get What You Want" again, it'll be too soon.

The Tailored Suit: Final Improvements -Sleeve Fit

I really hope this is the last time we ever speak of this muslin, but I do want to let you know that all of your comments of yesterday were so helpful. My sewing partner, S, came over again this morning (I know, part sewing helper, part saint) and she assisted me in sorting out that pulling at the front seam.

Here's what we realized:

• Turns out, I had cut off the seam allowance?!? On the plus side, I had the side front armscye curve dead on. So we added the seam allowance back on.
• We rotated the sleeve 1 cm towards the front. Wow, that's easy. All you do is move the sleeve head notch 1 cm towards the front sleeve. And it made a BIG difference. (Thanks Sherry.)
• We moved some width I added to the front sleeve onto the back sleeve - because the underarm seams weren't aligning. We don't want to move the extra space over the bicep, but we do want the seams to line up.
• We removed some fabric from the arm - there was too much. (Thanks Phyllis.)

In truth, S realized all of this. I just agreed with her. Gotta love friends!

In the final analysis, these adjustments should make the sleeve fit pretty close to perfectly within the armscye.

I have a lot of emerging feelings about the need for sewing partnership - 2 brains are better than one (as are 4 hands) - and the expectations we can reasonably place on a paper pattern to fit without major adjustments. No doubt these will be the topics of some future posts.

This afternoon will be all about cutting the pieces. Never thought I'd be so thrilled to spend 3 hours cutting and marking fabric. In a rather amazing twist, I'm actually on target with my work plan. Sure, I had the benefit of a 5 day weekend (not originally factored in), a genius helper and I've been working many weekday evenings (not my usual thing), but I'm happy to say that this 70 hour undertaking hasn't put me behind schedule. Even if that schedule is arbitrary.

Do you have a sewing partner? If so, tell us about it. What are your thoughts about the need to make numerous alterations on patterns? Do you think it's the sign of sub-optimal pattern drafting or do you feel it's the role of the sewist to undertake any and all fitting challenges to gain the final result (s)he seeks?

Houston, We Are Go For Launch

Can you tell I'm one of those long-suffering, space-program documentary wives?

People, I am very thrilled to tell you I have a workable pattern. Too weary to jump up and down, but inestimably grateful that I didn't give up, and largely because of the help, good vibes and encouraging comments I have received lo these past 2 weeks. Hasn't it been longer than 2 weeks?

Anyway, below I present muslin 8 - but I warn you that it's only the right side (my right side) you want to pay attention to. I used the left side to diminish the seam allowance - to see if it would improve the fit. I was afraid I'd forgotten to reflect seam allowance in the final pattern pieces I'd (natch) already cut. That was the anxiety I awoke with this morning... It appears I did not, because the right side of the jacket definitely fits better than the (seam allowance-diminished) left side.

Here I make it easy for you to keep your eye on the right side - I've cropped the left one...

Keep in mind that I inserted the shoulder pad quickly - and it's got too much fabric along the top of the shoulder - I'll have to alter it slightly for fit but I don't want to start fooling around with it to fit the muslin. I want it to fit the finished jacket. I also shortened the sleeve so as not to have to deal with the dart etc. I was only considering the sleeve head on this round...

I'm not lopsided. I've got a whole different seam allowance happening on the left side of the jacket.

I realize that it's not perfect but you have to consider the following:

• I'm working in a very stiff and heavy muslin (all I've got left). It's not going to drape like my fashion fabric - especially once it has a slippery lining on the inside.
• The shoulder pads need some work.
• I'm ok with this fit. It may not be the world's best, but I think it's the best I'm going to get without a fashion design degree, at my current level of experience, with a pattern that started off extremely unsuited to my dimensions.

I've hit fit fatigue - and I'm seriously worried about totally over fitting this in a fabric that isn't even vaguely like my fashion fabric. Drag lines happen. It's a function of the requirement for ease that permits movement. Apparently, on suits, we call the drag lines drape. Go figure.

I think, in the online sewing community, we're nearing a point of such anxiety about "wrinkles" that we're in danger of removing the ones required to allow us to move gracefully. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

But never mind me, what do you think of drag lines (the good ones, the bad ones, the necessary ones)? Are they all bad, in your mind? What do you think of this muslin? Note: I am very sensitive at this juncture - so please express your true feelings with care :-)

This Is the State of My Brain And a Question

I don't know that I've ever worked in such a state:

See the wine on the floor?

OK, I actually think I might be getting somewhere but my fix is SO BIZARRE I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't come to it with trial and error pinning. Note: I'm about to make muslin 8 (I think it's 8). I've actually started tracing the pattern pieces because I'm afraid of the cuts I'm making now.

Here's the sleeve in its original form:

There's slightly less curve on the right side (the front sleeve) than on the left (the back sleeve).

However, given the changes I've needed to make to the side front piece - and to get things to fall smoothly in light of a) where the side front meets the front at the armscye and b) the topography of my chest leave me with a sleeve that looks like this:

Again, the right side of the photo is the front sleeve. From the sleeve head to the left (the back sleeve) there are no alterations from the original pattern.

I've pinned this and it works. Is this even possible???

The Tailored Suit: People, I'm on Muslin 7.

I can't not talk about this. Trust me, I considered it, but the story is too good.

A while back, one of this blog's readers - a sewist - contacted me to suggest that we meet for coffee. Let's call her S. S recently moved to Toronto. She has been reading for a while (but isn't a blogger). She's a delightful person who makes lovely clothing and she's passionate about fit!

At any rate, she must have felt my blood pressure through the internet and she (incredibly kindly) offered to come and help me with the jacket today.

Man, what a gift! I cannot tell you what an awesome and instructional experience it has been.

We worked for about 5 hours - which flew by - and at the end of it I have another muslin. It's not a perfect muslin. There are still more kinks to work out, believe it or not.

Let's just say, at this point, I might as well have drafted this jacket myself.

Some fascinating things I learned:

• My upper bust tapers to the size 4 in this pattern. My full bust probably correlates with a size 10 - but only very briefly. We actually ended up doing an SBA (small bust adjustment) on my TBA (targeted bust adjustment) above the full part of my bust. Hilarious! (Fortunately S is all too familiar with that adjustment.) It was nice to learn that someone else concurs that my boobs are very hard to fit. The size differential between them and everything else - is really challenging. I know, cry for me.

• The side front pattern piece is marked erroneously. Either that, or it's badly drafted. My previously determined, one inch tapering of that piece is non-negotiable - no matter how I put things together. S noted that almost immediately. And I made her look at all of my cut lines to ensure I hadn't made a mistake. The error is not mine this time.

• Nonetheless, I may not need to redraft the armscye - the problem is only in one spot on the side front - and the length added to the armscye by the alteration is supported already by the original length of the front sleeve cap. It remains to be seen if it will be required, but I'm committed to that alteration too, if it comes to it.
  

• The back is looking good - but with room still for sleeve insertion. Tomorrow I'll fit the sleeves in again and determine what's next.

Note: We did work with shoulder pads.

I'm sort of in an altered state at this point. I can no longer manage to work up the will for a quick conclusion. I just want to get it as right as possible before I make the real jacket. I'm sorry to keep on about this but, undoubtedly, this is the most challenging sewing experience I've had to date. I don't want to deal with anything harder until I forget this - and I'm wearing a suit jacket of such fantasticness that people stop me on the street to ask where I bought it.

Let's just say I only hope I can return this favour with as much skill and patience as has been shown to me.

Lies - and Some Truth

I know, I said I'd never speak of this jacket muslin again but wonderful commenter Phyllis has alerted me to a potentially huge issue with muslin 5. Remember overfit territory? Well, all of those drag lines I worked for an hour to remove on the jacket back were probably a sign of necessary ease - for when the shoulders are inserted.

Thanks to her advice, I inserted one shoulder (I used the bias strip easing method which worked beautifully) and everything fit was once again wonky. Now I've got to start all over and figure out how the pieces need to go together - AGAIN. All of this (and late-stage insertion of shoulder pad - thanks for the reminder Taran!) has fucked with the bust height. And, I think, obviated the need to cut off the tapered inch on the side front armscye. You did read this correctly. I suspect my 6 hours of work yesterday was for naught.

Honestly, I'm in a vortex of "I have no freakin' idea of what to do next." I have to assume though, if I just keep doing things, something will work. At times like this I think of my great aunt Jean who was a fancy seamstress and house designer for Saks (I believe that's where she worked) in NYC in the heyday of the mid century era. She learned her craft in Italy, where she was born in the early 1900s. (She used to make me the most perfect doll clothes when I was a young girl.) Jean would window shop at all of the chicest shops (so the stories go) and sometimes go into those shops to try on insanely expensive dresses (New Look, anyone?) and then go home and impeccably recreate those garments. She wore them well as she was beyond slender. Sadly, in later years she could barely eat because of a myriad of stomach problems and surgeries, likely foreshadowed by her youthful, stylish slimness.

I only knew her in those later years when the ravages of time and life circumstance had taken over. I wish I'd been able to have some meaningful discussions about sewing and tailoring with her. Sometimes, now, I have imaginary conversations with the only pedigreed sewist (to my knowledge) to whom I am related.

Though I didn't know her well, she has given me a great deal: confidence, ephemeral support and an awareness that I am part of a continuum, that this is something I can do because it's in my blood. The people who come before us show us what we're made of. And given that we all go back more than a thousand generations, imagine what is in all of us to be accomplished.

Onward.

The Tailored Suit: I Promise, This is the Last Post about Muslins

When I said I was on muslin 3, I misspoke. I was actually on muslin 4 - and, as of right now - muslin 4 is a mashup with muslin 5. In case you can't keep it straight (like me, apparently):

• Muslin 1 - the one where I cut all the side pieces in the wrong size because I followed the wrong cut lines.
• Muslin 2 - the one where I corrected this and figured out a) I needed and FBA, b) the armsyce/sleeve fit was problematic and c) I needed to shorten the length of the bodice above the waist.
• Muslin 3 - the FBA version aka the sack, the paper pieces of which took 2 hours to alter.
  
• Muslins 4 and 5 are shown in photos below - the left side is muslin 4, the right side is muslin 5.

Before I show them to you, and tell you about where I'm at and what I've resolved, I should tell you that I do NOT recommend princess seam FBAs if you are a) small and b) narrow(ish) and c) there's more than a 5 inch difference between your underbust and your full bust. I'm not going to say it can't be done. But I will say that I believe that the reason it seems to work better for larger and wider people is because the disparity between added bust fabric and added waist fabric PLUS length is easier to manage when you are tall and/or broad. Feel free to debate this, btw.

I will also say that I have NEVER had as much trouble cutting a pattern in the correct sizes (according to pattern markings) as I have done with this one. I LOATHE pasting together pieces of paper and cutting them. I'd rather trace every pattern till the end of all time than do this again. Even today I discovered I'd cut something wrong. And I have gone back over each piece AT LEAST A DOZEN TIMES. It's like my eyes can't focus anymore.

Final proviso: I have never had as much difficulty fitting anything as this jacket. Why? Well, I presume it's for the following reasons:

• I've never known as much about fit and how to correct it as I do right now.
• Suit jackets are, bar none, the most HORRIFYING thing for me to fit, even RTW. (Man, I've got a lot of capital letters going on in this post...)
• I don't know that I shouldn't have just started with the 8 (though I suspect I would have had as many problems as with the 6, just in reverse.) I do think it would have been easier to cut - as it's the middle size so I would have been able to go straight down the middle with the scissors.
• I question whether this pattern is really designed to suit my particular dimensions. I actually took out my Claire Schaeffer suit jacket pattern and considered sewing it instead. But I couldn't bear the thought of starting from scratch with a whole different garment. Better the devil you know...
• I've veered dangerously into overfit territory - a desolate moor where one runs into the occasional, hollow-eyed, muslin wearing zombie. There's a time to know when to quit and it involves either a) putting the pattern away or b) getting on with it. I'm going with option b), God help me.
  

Now all of this will be water under the bridge when I get this thing sewn up gorgeously. Right?

Onto the muslin deets:

Muslin 4 (erroneously called muslin 3 until this post) began with one alteration: the targeted bust adjustment in the amount of 2.25 inches. It was a very successful alteration peeps, with one challenge to be resolved (shown belowin muslin 5). Note: My left side (i.e. the RIGHT side of the photo) is muslin 4. My right side (i.e. the LEFT side of the photo) is muslin 5.

See how muslin 4 drags and looks droopy? The irony is that it's because I made the bust line too high on that side. You can sort of see how, above my left breast, there's a little empty pocket surrounded with fabric.

Below, you can see (in the first photo) how the too-high bust line leaves a ridge of empty space above my actual breast:

However, on muslin 5 (the other side, shown below - and pinned together rather than stitched cuz I didn't have the will to stitch again), you can see how a slightly lowered bust line has made everything much better fitting.

I did not use a fitting book to resolve this challenge. At a certain point, it's easier to just figure out the solutions by feeling your fabric and by assessing the fit.

Believe it or not, muslin 5 still left me with two problems: fitting the sleeves into the armholes (unshown) and some weird drag lines along the back where it meets the side back:

Remember to ignore my left side!

Somehow I managed to resolve this by lowering the placement of the side back against the back piece (a pinned, and unshown, muslin 6?!?!). To be honest, I can't even figure out if it's better at this point, but numerous other photos (on Scott's cell phone) and his feedback lead me to believe that it is.

I did have to shave a tapered inch off the side front armhole curve. I tried every way I could think of to make the shape feasible for a) the shape of my body and b) the need to insert a sleeve, but this was all I was left with. At this point, I'm prepared to believe I've done something wrong which has led me down this path. But, if the armscye problem is with the pattern, that would seriously suck and piss me off NO END.

Having adjusted the curve of the armscye on the side front, it appears that it is now about an inch smaller than the sleeve which will be inserted into it. That's ok, because I'm going to ease the sleeve in (using a strip of bias fabric along the sleeve head before it's inserted into the armscye). I think that can work. 4 inches wasn't going to ease, but 1 inch should. And lowering the armscye on the side front means that the armhole fits my body better.

So, what's next?

I've got to make 4 alterations to every relevant pattern piece before I go any further:

• The lowered side front armscye adjustment.
• 1 inch-lengthened front and back pieces (to accomodate the lower placement of the side front and side back pieces, which ameliorated fit).
• The TBA on the front and side front pieces.
• Ensuring that every new matching mark (and I changed them all to suit my incredibly specific repositioning) is reflected on every piece.

I suspect that's going to take a while.

Have I mentioned that every part of my body seems to hurt right now?