Lesson Learned Yesterday: Make muslins out of fabrics more similar to the final weight of the garment fabric.
Lesson Learned Today: Don’t cut fabric before you’ve had your morning coffee.
It seems that a lot of the problem was that, while the previous muslin and pattern fit beautifully, a big reason that didn’t translate was because my garment fabric was much heavier than the muslin, thus it wanted to do very different things than the pattern insisted upon.
When Bridget came over, she did a lot of fiddling with the shoulder seams first, but what ended up changing the most was actually the side pieces. She pretty much re-drafted those. The shoulders moved a smidge, the collar was moved around some, and I re-cut the fronts too, partly because I’d noticed an imperfection in the fabric that had been bugging me all along and partly because there was some armhole wrinkling that we needed to dart and draft out. The only piece I didn’t re-cut was the back — we salvaged it by just trimming the sides and shoulders a wee bit. All in all, the changes were small, but there were a lot of them in different places. The amount of fabric that moved was barely inches, but it was critical inches in fit.
The result is a lot smoother and has none of the weird chunks of fabric sticking out in odd places that baffled me two days ago. Not sure if these pictures really capture it, especially since I haven’t clipped the curves or pressed anything yet (plus, I’m wearing it over a Victorian chemise, which is bunchy), but trust me, this is an improvement.
However, when I went to cut out the new fronts this morning, I cut them with the nap facing the wrong way. Doh! That’s what I get for cutting before having had my coffee (not to mention, I was coming off a migraine). I won’t try that again.
Good thing I have plenty of fabric and also good thing I’m short. The skirt won’t take a ton of fabric on lil’ ol’ me, and should be able to eek out the two pairs of sleeves I still need (the one simple sleeves for 12th Night, then the fancy Knollys sleeves for the Elizabethan Feast). I still believe I can make it to 12th Night! I’m keepin’ the faith! I can finish the basic bodice and sleeves, then the skirt, which will be closed. That’s good enough.
I’d like a hat, but in a pinch, I can wear a black snood and flat cap from my old faire days. Besides, Sarah is supposed to be The Prettiest at 12th Night anyway 🙂