"First" project of 2017

Or rather, this is the first project I've done any (more) work on—it remains to be seen what'll be finished first. I bought the pattern probably 3 years ago and just started it last October; being a coat, it feels like it's taking forever. The pattern is OOP Burda 7237 (here it is on the German site, where it can still be downloaded; I don't know how to find it on the English/US site, if it's even there).

It's in their petite sizing; size numbers are halved from their regular misses' European ones. I'm about the right height for their petite standard, although my height proportions aren't distributed identically.

Notable and not-so-notable fit changes:

• The bust darts seem way too low, something I would not have expected of a Burda petite pattern, given the way Burda says to convert their regular patterns to petite. It looks low on the model too—not easy to see, but there if you look at the "Original-Große" photos on the German site. I wonder if they were trying to keep the bust shaping below the View A flap. In any case, it was going to be glaringly obvious on my crisp fabric, so I raised the dart point—by more than two inches! Even on a non-petite pattern, I wouldn't expect to move it up more than maybe 3/4" (at least, if I hadn't done an FBA that lowered it). That being said, I found the armhole depth about right for me as it was, in line with what I'd expect.
  
• I did a large bicep alteration of 1 1/2", and lengthened the sleeves by 1/2" below the elbow. Not too surprising.
  
• I took a generous quarter inch of width out of both the front armscye and front of the sleeve cap. I could have considered taking the same out of the back armscye, but was advised it's just as well to leave it in for reach room when the fabric is non-stretch.
  
• I'll add thin shoulder pads, since the shoulder tips seem a little bit extended.
  
• To stop the lower front edges splaying out, I was advised (by a fellow member of my sewing meetup group, as with the shoulder width) to take in, or maybe I should say lower, the shoulder-neck point on the fronts only. This effectively "rotates" the entire front to make CF hang straight.
  
• I might let out the hips at the back side seams; haven't decided yet.
  
• I may shorten the belt. As designed, it's meant to be tied in a bow of some sort, and seems to have quite a bit of extra length.
  

Dart oddity on this one aside, I appreciate that Burda still makes a few petite patterns. They seem designed to be flattering on shorter people: good proportions, and a nice but not overwhelming number of details.

Flat/protruding abdomen alteration: theories on what it is and isn't

I have more than my share of fitting books, and I've seen several variants of flat/protruding abdomen alterations. In general, the protruding/large abdomen alterations add width and usually length over the abdomen, increasing the waist dart intake as well. The flat abdomen alterations do the reverse.

Now, I certainly don't have a flat stomach, so it had been in the back of my mind that I might benefit from the large abdomen alteration—that is, if I ever got around to bothering to do it. But on the other hand, I've often felt that skirt and pants patterns (and to a slightly lesser extent, RTW) feel too high in the waist in front, especially compared to the back. Besides, I often need more waist shaping in the back, not the front. So I couldn't quite square the two.

Since I've looked into it further, here's what I think: the usual large abdomen alterations work best when the front waist is small and indented in comparison. So the largeness has to be over and done with somewhere below the waist. As somewhat exaggerated examples, look at this Toulmouche painting or this Annie Oakley poster. In both cases the waist is quite small (due to the shape of corset worn at the time), and there would need to be quite a bit of front waist shaping to mold the skirt from the roundness at abdomen/hip level up into the narrowness of the waist. The same goes for Christian Dior's Bar suit, with its fitted waist and padded hips. Generally, the large abdomen alteration methods presuppose your pattern has the correct waist measurement already, and you just need more length and width further down—wider darts then take up all the excess at the waist.

But what happens if you have a large front waist too, or you have a posture that shifts your upper torso a bit more forward relative to your hips? Counter-intuitively, that might actually need a flat abdomen alteration, as it will result in less dart shaping at the waist. The problem is, most of the methods for those will decrease the front hip circumference as well, something you might not need unless you've started with a larger size than your hip measurement would call for. What some people do is simply leave any front darts unsewn, or sew them narrower (and maybe sew the back darts wider to compensate, if more shaping is needed there instead). The front waist may well need to be dropped too: if there's less of a curve then there's less need for length—though extra length may be needed for apple shapes.

Anyway, I'm currently applying this theory to a jeans pattern I'm working on. I've erred on the small side when choosing a size, shortened the rise length to get it shorter in front, and done a large derriere alteration to make the pattern proportionally bigger in back. I did add a dart in back, which isn't usual for jeans (normally that shaping's moved entirely into the back yoke) but I think it might look interesting; the tips will be hidden under the pockets. And I realized after all this that my fabric had stretch, something I'd forgotten about. We'll see how that goes.

Changing construction order of a faced-waist skirt for easy pin-fitting and alteration

A skirt with a faced/contour waist and a center back zipper is probably about the easiest to alter at the side seams. The zipper isn't in the way, and there isn't a one-piece waistband that might have to be taken partway off. It can be made even easier if you sew the facings to each piece first, do all the clipping, grading, and understitching, and only then sew the side seams of the skirt and facings. You do have to be careful to match the facing seamlines at the top of the skirt, and there may be a slight bit less ability to trim and reduce bulk at the tops of the side seams. On the other hand, the facing/skirt seams won't need to come partially undone if you ever have to rip the side seams to take them in or let them out.

This is what I did for the Neue Mode skirt I'm working on, since I wasn't quite sure of my current size. (Turns out my guess was correct.) It made pin-fitting very easy, and because the facings are already sewn to the waist, there isn't the risk of stretching an unfinished waistline out as you try the thing on.

Patterns with optional set-in sleeves

Generally, if you're making a set-in sleeve, you want more armhole/-scye depth than you would on a sleeveless version of the same thing.

Very often, home-sewing patterns with sleeved and sleeveless views do not take this into account. I've just cut (out-of-print) New Look 6387, which is no exception. In this situation, it's usually a good idea to raise the bottom of the armhole if you're not adding the sleeve.

How much? I find an inch or so tends to be about right, if the pattern is fitted, and assuming the armhole started out at a good set-in-sleeve depth for the wearer in the first place. You might get away with tightening the side seam slightly too, if necessary, but IMO it's best if anything sleeveless is fairly fitted in the shoulder/underarm area to begin with (meaning the right amount of dart shaping, and not too much bust ease). Otherwise, gaping is a likely result. An 80s/90s-style boxy, drop-shoulder, low-armhole top would not be the best starting point for this.

Pocket placement on Simplicity 1540

I'm working on placing the pockets on this coat. (Well, I also took in the side seams, but I think I'm going to have to reverse at least some of that. It had been bigger than necessary in the hips, but it had a nice slight flare that's now lacking, and I think it looks kind of sad-sack without it.)

On the right of the photo, the pockets are just a touch below where the pattern intends them to be: the upper edge is meant to be in line with the top of the lowest button. This felt excessively high. I can see why they did it, though. Views C and D are much shorter; this is where the pocket would have to be for it not to extend into (or past!) the hem. On a short jacket, you do what you have to do.

I didn't notice anyone complaining about the placement on Patternreview, but then nobody made the coat in this length.

To place the pocket on the left of the photo, I put a coat with reasonably-placed pockets on my form, and marked with pins on the form the top and bottom of the hand entry (these were near-vertical welt pockets, so not entirely comparable, but I had to make do) as well as the bottom of the pocket bag. The bottom of this patch pocket is about where the bottom of the RTW pocket bag was. It feels much better. I'm not sure which version I think looks better, but I'm going to go with something more like the one on the left; I think the one on the right will just feel too awkward, unnecessarily so given that the coat is long enough to support a lower placement. This does mean I have to lengthen the princess darts for sure.

On a side note, I've been reading Passformfehler, which has possibly some of the best coverage of balance issues (in fitting) that I've seen. I might go into more detail on that later, but this is just to say I think part of the reason things don't hang right on my dress form could be that it has a very flat upper back/very little shoulder blade shape. Not that I'm about to pad it out right before I move, but it'll be something to consider.

Works in progress

OK, so here's what the super sekr1t Patternreview challenge contest is going to be....

Seriously, though, this is what I'm actually working on: Simplicity 1540 (on their site or on PR). I'm very pleased with the pattern so far. It has a proper upper collar and undercollar, the latter cut on the bias with a CB seam. I suspect I might have to deal with more turn-of-cloth than the pattern intends, but we'll see. The collar shape itself looks very nice; the back has princess seams; and the front has both princess seams and princess darts. I do wish the sleeve were two-piece, with a less-symmetric cap, but it's far from the worst cap shape I've ever seen.

Since I shortened the entire upper chest, when I shortened the sleeve cap, I tried to err on the side of blending such that the front curve was scooped out more and the back built up a little. I'm also interfacing the top part of the patch pockets, and only the outer half-plus-a-little-bit-past-the-fold of the sleeve bands instead of the entire things. I'm leaving off the back tab, because I'll be using very round buttons and wouldn't want to lean back on one of them. I did cut enough pieces for two tabs, so I could use them as epaulettes or pocket tabs if I wanted.

Technically, that'll be my project to finish in the second half of April.

In other news, I may have finished the Malmedy jacket. I did an M-stitch around all the outer edges, and I decided to tape the roll line; otherwise I'd have to guess at where it's meant to be every time I put the jacket on. I still have to fix it up a little, but the tape does give a tangible edge to fold against. I don't know if the back armholes are entirely satisfactory, but it's just a question of whether to leave my deeper stitching in or not.

Back to the blouse

On the Neue Mode blouse, I decided to let out the tips of the shoulder seams, straighten the front waist darts, and lengthen the front underarm darts. I think the resulting fit might be acceptable if not perfect. If I were recutting this, I might put in more shaping for the shoulder blade, do a real (if slight) FBA, possibly fill in the front armhole a little, and square the shoulders more.

The thing I find annoying about the way I generally do an FBA is that it makes the underarm dart angle further downward, when on almost any pattern it's already starting off too low in the first place. I don't know of a length- and width-adding, dart-intake-increasing method that doesn't do this; I'd love to know of one that did the opposite, if such a thing can exist.

I also took a separating zipper off a muslin I'd made, so I could throw out the muslin and keep the zipper. On second thought, maybe that was a waste of time. I might throw out the zipper too, as it seems to be extraordinarily temperamental about having everything lined up just right for it to start.

OK, I made a decision

I've cut out a new tracing of Schnittquelle Malmedy, with the following alterations:

• keep the total length, including keeping the button placement, cut of the collar, and CF the same
• shorten above the armhole 1.5" (this affects the front and back raglan seams) — this sounds drastic, but the armhole depth seems rather long on this pattern, and mine is rather short
• shorten the top of the sleeve the same amount to match:
• first cut a V-shaped slash from one raglan seam, down to the center grainline at 45 degrees, then square back up to the other raglan seam;
• then overlap the slashed area 1.5", keeping the grainline straight (sounds complicated, but it avoids shortening the shoulder dart). [BTW, I'd considered taking out wedges ending at the tip of the shoulder dart instead, thus keeping the length over the top of the arm the same, but I thought that that length actually should be decreased if anything, since I would ordinarily shorten a set-in sleeve cap, and since the sleeve looked more than long enough overall. Plus, I thought it'd result in a problematic dart shape. It might've been OK if only some of the length was taken out that way, though.]
• shorten total waist length 1"; since the armhole had been raised this actually meant adding 1/2" to the length above the waist
• likewise, those length alterations taken together also meant a relative addition of 1" length below the waist
• when blending the side seams below the waist, I erred on the side of adding more hip room

I may still add some extra width at the side and underarm seams when cutting. Width-wise (except for the sleeves), this is still a 38, and I should wear a "39", more or less.