Hello Autumn! I welcome the arrival of fall, although the world feels oppressed with summer-like heat at the moment. Not summer. The days are shorter, the light different, the summer colors have long since begum to fade. I love the autumnal fade, the process of winding down and preparing for rest. An interesting dichotomy that, as the natural world winds down, the social world, the school world, the world of the arts seems to kick in high gear. It is autumn and winter I look forward to, but it is also autumn and winter in which I feel most pulled in multiple directions.
As usual in September I am behind in the garden, and ready to look inward to the studio. I am also behind in the studio as August and September seemed to toss a few minor hiccups my way. But that is of no import, and I am surprisingly sanguine about projects getting resolved in their own good time.
There are two unfinished projects on my sewing table right now, one almost finished, the one I'm not going to write about, the past being the past and all that. Don't you just love being teased and then dropped? And a second project, one that was cut out and then, completely unintentionally, set aside. That is my subject today, simply because the project may have been abandoned, but it was not forgotten, and I am about to pick it up and finish it.
In July I was working with the Simplicity pattern pictured above, Simplicity 9147, long discontinued. This is the pattern I used for the simple, straight-legged elastic waist pants I made earlier in the summer and have been wearing since. This time however, I was working on the vest pattern.
One of the reasons I started a sewing blog oh so many years ago is that I am terrible at keeping records, writing things down on random bits of paper or notebooks and then tossing them out in an organizational frenzy. Blogging helped me keep records. But here I am two months after starting this pattern trying to reconstruct what I did. There are some basic facts however, and I can start there.
The largest size on the pattern I have available is a size 14, which, according to the pattern information is for a 36-inch bust. Now my full bust is not 36 inches, but my high bust is 35 to 35 1/2 inches. For older Big 4 sewing patterns I have found that buying the pattern by my high bust measurement works best for me and I would get a far better fit through the upper chest and shoulders by starting with the 14 and then adding a full-bust adjustment. My full bust is 4 inches larger than my high bust, which means that I actually have to do a full bust adjustment on most patterns, unless it comes with cup-sizes. This still puzzles me to no end, because I had to do it when I was younger as well and I have never felt like I presented as particularly busty. But then again perhaps I've just never gotten over my mother's comment that I didn't need darts because I had a "dartless" figure. I now know that was clearly not true, and I've always had at least 3 inches between my high bust and full bust measurements, even when I was a skinny young thing. The problem was more likely that I just couldn't get bras with small enough bands at JC Penney in the 1970s.
But back to the pattern at hand. Even though I know I often need to cut patterns single layer, I cut the first muslin as designed, on the fold in back and with two identical front pieces. I did my full bust adjustment. In measuring the pattern it did not appear that I needed to add anything to the back of the pattern. Then because I also know that I have what is called a shallow chest (hollow in the upper chest), and a forward head, I made those adjustments. Both meant moving the neckline a little forward at the center which also means tilting the shoulder seam forward at the neck. Based on more recent experiments with a sloper and my knitting, I figured I needed to drop the center front about an inch, and because changing the neckline also affects the shoulder seams, adjust the shoulder seams accordingly. I did all that and made the first muslin.
The first muslin fit pretty well, surprisingly well in fact and I was excited because a year ago I just felt overwhelmed by all this stuff. I don't know why, I suppose I was just out of practice. It is only math after all. My initial adjustments were good. The bodice fit, the bust darts provided ample room and the bust point was in the right position without my having to move it up or down. In fact, this Simplicity pattern fit me pretty well, with only minor adjustments (since I always need to do the full bust adjustment) and the bust point was at the right point for me, unlike both the Love Notions Cadence dress and the Closet Core Cielo dresses, where the bust point was an inch too low.
The only minor quibbles were at the shoulders. My right shoulder rolls forward, and I needed to move the shoulder seam forward 7/8 of an inch at the outer shoulder edge, and there was also a wrinkle at the arm where I have a smaller shoulder joint on the right and a slightly narrower upper torso on that side, resulting from my flatter egg-shaped upper torso. All of this is related to my scoliosis. Further alterations were needed, which was not unexpected. But I was happy to have taken a two-stage approach because it made the process more clear. After moving the shoulder forward (both front and corresponding back pieces) , I still needed to remove extra fabric at the front edge of the armscye between the side seam and the shoulder without removing the needed extra volume at the center front. A minor adjustment when tackled incrementally as I did here, but it does substantially reshape the armscye and increase the size of the dart on that side.
Once I finished the pattern adjustments, I redrew my pattern pieces. As expected, I would have to cut this pattern single layer, as each piece is different. The differences are actually slight, but the implications for fit are significant. I cut the garment piece out of gray linen and put it aside, thinking I would sew it as soon as I returned from a quick trip to Texas.
It is still waiting, but I am planning on starting the project now. I am making this out of a light summer weight linen, perhaps too light for fall, but you wouldn't think so based on today's temperatures. I actually have doubts, wondering if perhaps the linen I chose is too light for the planned garment. But it is all a learning process anyway and I am going to go ahead. The worst thing that will happen is that I don't like the garment, but I have learned something from the process.
I will keep you informed.
