sewing for victory blouse - 3. muslin: the good, the bad and the ugly

How is your project going? Over here it is muslin time! The first muslin isn't perfect of course, but it looks nice already. Now let's see a lot of pictures!



muslin front and and back view:
Overall: I like it! Can you spot the problems?

• obviously, the collar is inside out, but besides that the collar edge needs to be shortened
• my one-piece yoke looks good!
• ...though something went wrong because it isn't lying flat...
• sleeve is too tight plus underarm room too small (I feel this when I lift my arm)
• the back pleats are placed too close to the center and are pleated in the wrong direction as well
• swayback adjustment in the back
• shorten the hem

muslin adjustments:

1. sleeve:
The tight sleeve/wobbly yoke problem was partly solved when I discovered that I've put the sleeve in backwards... I guess I just looked at the wrongly sewn collar seams as reference. Unbelievable, but when I started to sew I used to make this mistake on almost every garment I made! Usually just one sleeve though...


After a quick change (setting the sleeve in the right way) there was enough room to move my arms, and the sleeve looked much better, but there was still a little puckering visible along the armhole/armpit. You can see it in the picture below on the left, and how I corrected it by pinning the excess fabric out on the other side:

This is a modification which I need to transfer to my pattern pieces. The excess will be transferred to the front dart leg. (Note: my dart isn't stitched down, it is folded in a pleat to release fullness at the top)
To keep in mind: since my action modifies the armhole it will also affect the sleevecap!

2. collar:
The problem is that the collar of the Marfy pattern is made for another type of convertible collar. I marked the original points in the picture, with a drawing of the original and the shape of my new collar:


I could draft a new collar, but I choose an easy solution: I'm going to round out corner A and add a triangle shape from corner B down to fill the gap.

3. back pleats:
No idea, what happened here... anyway, the arrows mark the place where the pleats or gathering should be:


4. swayback adjustment:
This is an easy one, since I have to make this correction on almost every garment I make. You can already see the excess fabric pulling up below the back darts. (Observe that the fullness of the back looks right, the upper part of the back darts is in the good place!)

I can either pin out the excess fabric and add width at the sides or just try to add width at the sides and shorten the lower dart legs plus the blouse hem.

5. shortening the hem:
I often wear my blouses over my skirts or trousers, so I prefer a shorter hem. Also, I'm short-waisted, so a shorter blouse looks more in proportion on me. The length under the waistline will be still enough to tuck in in a high-waisted skirt:


6. other:

• I folded my front tucks on a vertical line instead of folding in the shape of the dart legs. I also only stitched in the middle, while I could taper it and stitch down a longer section.
• Besides the other sleeve adjustments above I might lengthen the sleeves just a bit.

Next up: muslin adjustments
For other Sew for Victory posts click here:
1. project plan
2. style, pattern & fabric inspiration