Friday, April 20, 2007

Now what?


Well, the shell and lining are finished - and now I will have to tear them apart. The armscye is too high. I'm afraid that lowering it might make the sleeve too tight. I will have to do something. Even though it looks like it fits really well (more pix later - it's hard to figure out fit wearing this big collar - only a few more weeks) it is just too tight in the arscye. I know I won't wear it because it is not comfortable. The arms are also tight around the lower edge, but I can live with that. Any expert advice out there? I don't want to put in the button holes or finish the beading until I fix this problem.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nancy,
Where is your sleeve tight? Is it under the arm or where?
If it is in the under arm area, just sew your seam lower, and trim.
Sometimes with underlining these thngs occur, because of the added bulk.

Marji said...

I just clicked on comments here to ask the same question Enid asked.
Where exactly is it too tight? Is it so high under your arm that it is digging into your armpit? Is it just difficult to move your arms forward? Up? Is it binding or pulling in to the front of your shoulder just under your bone at the top of the sleeve?
I think the fix is going to depend on exactly where and how tight the armscye is.
You don't appear to have heavy arms at all - but is the sleeve tight at the bicep?

Nancy Winningham said...

It is too tight at the underarm. I just took off the cervical collar to try this on, and it is not as tight with my real neck ;-) The seam where the arm meets the side seam is almost all the way up to my armpit. Part of the problem is that it is a bit tight in the forearm, and the bicep would be too tight if I had even the thinnest blouse underneath. I can probably let that out a bit. I don't think I have heavy arms, but these sleeves are really snug. After the fiasco I had with the hot patterns Prim and Proper jacket, I'm beginning to think I must have fat arms!

Anonymous said...

Hi Nancy your new jacket is beautiful. Looking at the Burda picture shows the models just wearing the jacket open with a tank top underneath. A jacket like that should have a snug fit at the armhole armpit, and wearing a blouse which has a more loose fit and lower armhole does not match the high armhole of the jacket.

But since you do not like that tight fit, you can do some alterations if you have enough seam allowances. I presume you already trimmed the seam allowances to ¾. You can rip the sleeves and since your fabric ravels a lot serge the seam allowances but do not cut off a bit, widen the sleeve at armpit a bit and do the same amount of widening at the side seams. The widening should be equal for the sleeve and armpit otherwise the sleeve has too much ease.

Now you can baste the sleeves in but not with the left ¾ inch seam allowance but use a 1/6 seam allowance on the sleeve and armhole this will give you more wide at the biceps. If you’ve done that try the jacket on and see if you still want to lower the armhole.
If you do, just scoop out the under arm and sleeve at the same time.
Good luck.