Altering for My Uneven & Sloping Shoulders....

One fitting challenge that I didn't even attempt to conquer with the Crepe was my uneven, sloping shoulders. Since the sleeves are designed as cut on, the alterations require that you cut the sleeve off & move it. This scared me. This still scares me. But I'm warming up to the idea in anticipation of sewing the Sencha.

The Pendrell is much less intimidating. After reading FFRP (again & again), consulting my body graph, and making the following notes, I feel prepared.

My biggest challenge was doing the math to figure out the difference between the pattern measurements & my own. :) Subtracting fractions is not my strong suit. Thank goodness for Google, that's all I have to say.

After that I set out to draw new cutting lines. My cutting lines started out at 5/8" at the shoulder & tapered to 0 at the neck. This will fit my high left shoulder. For the right shoulder, I am just going to lower my stitching line another 3/4". I then lowered the armhole, using my nifty Project Runway Design Ruler.

I was going to stop there, but I decided to do the Broad shoulder alteration. It's a straightforward alteration, but the illustration in FFRP shows that you only add width to the front side pattern piece on a princess seam. Now, I know I'm new at this whole thing, but it didn't really make sense to me, so I added it to the back side pattern piece as well. (Tasia agreed that it needed to be added to both front & back; though she did point out that the ruffles will cover the shoulder) We'll see how that turns out.

Also, I decided to adjust the neckline a bit. The blouse has plenty of easy to just slip on, but I wanted to be sure to have plenty of room to get my (sometimes big) hair through the neck hole. I lowered it a 1/2". 

Here's what my shoulder slope alterations looked like. In these pictures I've just drawn the new cutting line.

 

And this is the broad back alteration. I will probably true the seams a little better. Even with using the French Curve, I think that they could be a touch smoother.

So. There you have it. Today I will cut out the fabric for my muslin. I was initially planning on doing one without hte sleeve ruffles, but I think I'm going to do one with (if I have enough yardage) and shoot for a semi-wearable muslin. Time will tell!