Now, to refresh our memories, here is the photo of the first round on the muslin for the jacket. There are a number of issues here and, starting from the top, we’ll review:
Shoulders: The shoulder seam is too long; it’s hanging out over the shoulder joint. That needs to be shortened.
Armscye: There are two issues here – one which we can see in this photo and one which we can’t (you’ll have to take my word on this one). The first one, which you can see, is the flap of fabric hanging out there. This is caused because a) I’m short, so the distance between my shoulders and my bust point is shorter than it would be if I were the height of an ‘average’ woman wearing this particular size. This is a problem I have…every…single…time. Just part of the game and has to be dealt with. If the amount of extra stuff there was less than 1″ (that is, if I pinched the extra together and it was like a dart that was 1/2″ on each side), then what I’d do is I’d frankly…cheat. I’d ease-stitch around the entire length of the front part of the armscye and ‘eat up’ the extra that way. This, however, is NOT 1″. This is like 2″, so (sigh), I can’t cheat. I have to find a way to reduce that distance. There are multiple ways to doing this, and in my case, I’m going to do a combination of things. (more…)