Crepe Muslin #4

Ah. Crepe muslin numero cuatro. Also to be known henceforth as my limit. I'm calling it. Final Answer. Leaving well enough alone, as they say. I'm very sick of darts. :)

A few days ago I got a really insightful comment. It had some how got filtered into my junk mail folder, but I caught it. I'm going to go ahead & just copy it here.

Jenna, I've just read about your muslins backwards and I hope you don't mind me saying but your first muslin of the front looks the best. This design with the cut-on sleeves is tricky and not really meant to be so form fitting.... If you notice in this muslin you have no shoulder wrinkles/creases as you do in the later ones. In fact the sleeves look perfect in muslin one. Beware over-fitting. If I were you, I would go back to the original muslin and just make a few changes to the back to eliminate some width and length as Vanessa above said. Good luck!

At first I thought it was crazy. No way was I going backwards. But once I looked at the pictures, I saw she was right. My first muslin was the best (as for the front, anyway.) Possibly even better than muslin #4. I'm going to be tweaking muslin #4 before I cut out my fashion fabric, but I won't be doing a whole separate muslin.

Muslin #4

Muslin #1

I went back to my first muslin & took in 1/4" from the side seams. I shortened & curved the waist darts. I also took an inch from the shoulders (which was way too much, I can barely get my arm through. LOL).

As for the back, I simply lengthened the darts by 1.5 inches. One of the gals from the flikr group said it worked well for her so I figured I' d try it.

After writing this post & agonizing over the pictures, I've made up my mind. :) Here are the alterations I will be making form the original pattern:

• Take side seams in 1/4 inch
• Take shoulders up 1/2 inch
• Shorten waist darts by 1 1/2 inches
  
• Curve waist darts

In all honesty, I think the fit (silhouette) is better when the waist darts go right up to my apex, but, I think it draws attention to, well, my apex. And I'd just rather not go there.

Now to get myself geared up to hand baste the underlining to the fashion fabric. Sigh.