Fitted shirt - muslin

 I finished the muslin for the fitted shirt.

I am very happy with the construction; not so happy with the fit.

Why is it that the muslin fit better?

I do have an idea... I completed this muslin with French seams throughout. (LOVE a French seam!) and that MAY have emphasized the poor fit along the front.

I sewed up the front princess seams first, and THEN remembered I had planned to do French seams. So I went ahead and did the back (after looking online to see if there was any reason to avoid this technique on a princess seams). The back worked well. I was going to just leave the front, and finish the raw edges some other way, but then reminded myself that the point of doing the wearable muslin was to go through each step of the process.

So I undid the seam, and restitched it. Probably a good thing, since it may affect the fit!

I found a good youtube tutorial at Sew Sew Live for how to do a French seam in the sleeve.

Now sleeves, although I have sewn them hundreds of times, always give me a bit of bother. Unelss it is a design feature, you don't want gathers in your sleeve cap, but you need the fabric to poke up a bit in order to allow for movement. I have always had some gathering in there and put up with it. And on this one, when I did the fitting muslin I felt that there was WAY too much ease in the sleeve cap.  But when I painstakingly measured the cap and the armhole I was wrong. So watching this video was a reminder of how to properly do it. So I eased the sleeve cap the way she suggested, and made sure to smooth out all the 'gathers'. And it worked quite well. The ease is not distributed as much as I would like, but overall it works. There may be too much material in the bicep area, and I will look at that and consider altering it.... if i can figure out how!

French seams ARE very luxurious, though...

Exhibit A

I used the Grainline 'Archer' shirt sew along for finishing the collar band. Anyone who has ever made such a collar must have struggled with poking those little ends in out of the way so that they don't show. They always 'show'. (See exhibit A from the Gosling shirt!) 

Exhibit B

The Grainline method has you wrap the collar band around the button band, so that right sides are together, and you sew the first inch or sew. When you pull it out those pieces are pulled nicely to the inside and can't escape!  (See exhibit B). It can be a bit fiddly ( I had to redo it once, and it was hard to make sure not to bend the button placket over a bit too), but it makes a nicer finish!

I copied the hem curve line from other shirts I have made recently - I realize I much prefer that over a straight hem on this kind of shirt.

As for the fit.... even though I had adjusted a fitting muslin, this is too big across the chest: the apex of the bust is too high, and there is too much fabric across the chest. I looked up instructions on how to adjust princess seams, and their advice was choose a smaller size (because it was all over too loose!). I am just going to have to redraw some seam lines, move the apex down and make another fitting muslin. I was SO hoping to get to that Liberty fabric sooner rather than later!!!

But today I will go back to the kimono refashion. I have only cut out the back of the Kalle shirt. I want to get other pieces cut out. Because this fabric is already in bits and pieces it will be one pattern piece at a time! 

Maybe I will also make the changes to the V1865 jacket pattern that I need to make. The question there is do I need to do another muslin?

I had my fourth Covid shot yesterday. I walked down to the pharmacy, but first went to the specialty stationery shop to get something I could use as a scrap book. Someone on the PR website recommended keeping samples of different kinds of fabrics, and I thought that was a good idea. So I got something suitable. 

I then looked at knives in the Japanese knife shop, and then at hats in the haberdasher. It is a good thing I spend my time sewing and not wandering around shopping districts! (I did not buy either. Yet!)

I won't be doing much sewing next week -I will be out of town at a meeting. Maybe some time to knit (I still have to finish the sweater that I gifted, incomplete, for Christmas!)