Still more fitting, and knitting

OK, I've sewn the shawl collar onto the neck of my Schnittquelle Malmedy, and also rethought the back alteration. I'm still flailing about changing too many things at once, probably, but here's how it is at the moment:

• I took the side seams back to normal from the waist up (so no inch of width taken out anymore).
• I ripped the back raglan seams and adjusted them so that the sleeve is eased slightly onto the back below the notch (with the back pushed down a little so it's sewn closer to the cut edge, which, since it's concave, is shorter), and the back onto the sleeve above. The reason for this is that I think the overall back waist length was actually about right; it's just the armhole that's possibly too long. (Maybe I need my back armholes even shorter than I thought? I think I may have had the same problem in my fitting shell muslin; I should have another look. As I recall, Müller & Sohn have you dart a certain amount out of the back armhole, but there probably was a range, and maybe I should've taken out more.) With the fullness in the very upper back steam-shrunk out, it looks pretty good so far; I might just need to fiddle with the lower part of the armhole a little more.
• I let out a lot of the front waist dart intake, since that's really not where I have a waist anyway. I'm committed to that dart placement and length now, since I've gone ahead and sliced them open.
• I lengthened the tops of the back waist darts, although this might not have been necessary; they might just need an overall reshaping.

What was very helpful in all of this was the chart in Jan Minott's book on fitting commercial patterns. I should have looked at it sooner. It shows a whole lot of balance and other issues that don't seem to come up in many other books.

Meanwhile, on the Neue Mode shirt, I've ripped the outsides of the shoulder seams, but that's about as far as I've got.

Finally, I started swatching the lace pattern on the sleeves of this sweater. So far it seems like it might be straightforward enough to actually look like something in the yarn I'm trying to use.