In my post on Wednesday, I noted that the armhole for McCalls 5791 is drafted for the cap sleeve version. I'm making the 3/4 length sleeve, and the armhole was so low to make movement of my arm near impossible. So using a very unscientific method ("how many finger widths higher should it be?") I decided to raise the armhole by 1/2 inch (about 1 finger width) at the side seam. Since this is a princess seam garment, I added 1/2 inch in length to both the side front and side back pieces, tapering to nothing at the notches. In this picture, you can see the resulting muslin pattern. When I was done, I measured the resulting armscye seams to compare against the original. I wasn't sure if I needed to adjust the sleeve. Here are the differences between the original measurements and the raised armhole measurementsOriginal SF Armscye: 4 1/16 inches
Raised SF Armscye: 3 7/8 inches
Original SB Armscye: 4 11/16 inches
Raised SB Armscye: 4 5/16 inches
Clearly, they are measurable, but I think I can get away with shrinking them them out of the Loro Piana wool. The biceps measurement on the original sleeve is just right for me. If I take out any width on the sleeve to bring it down to match the raised armhole measurements, I'm afraid it will make the sleeve too tight.
An interesting side note to this is that raising the armhole alleviated much of the pulling of the neckline at the shoulders. I'll still put lingerie guards in, but they aren't as necessary as they would be if I didn't raise the side seams. Once I did the fitting, I took the muslin apart and pressed the pieces. I'll use that as the bodice muslin for the garment. This will make it a lot easier to match my plaids.
PS - as you may have noticed, I did a little housekeeping on the blog. The column on the right was getting a bit unweildy, so I updated it. I moved all the blogs in my blogroll to the new format, which shows blogs as they are updated. You can click on show all to see all the ones in the list. I had to do it by hand, so there's a chance I missed a couple. If you feel like you should be on the blogroll and I left you off, or if you just want me to add you on, send an email to me and I'll be happy to get you up there.
3 comments:
No matter what pattern I use, I have to raise the armhole in a major sort of way due to shortness and wideness of me.
Ann..thanks for sharing your process with us. And thanks again for showing by example the value of making a muslin from muslin and using it to cut what will be the finished garment :)
This is very helpful. Thanks! C
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