Redrawing lines after shifting

After pivoting the pattern to reduce fabric in the neckline, I've redrawn the neckline and the armscye.
At first I wondered if I was actually reducing anything since I was, in a sense,  redrawing things back the way they were.  So this post is detailing what I did so that those helping me can see what I'm thinking in my head.

Here is the neckline...

and the armscye...

now to cut a muslin and see what changes it has made in the fit.

I decided to try the new adjustments onto Dresda to see what I have now. I raised the wasitline to a bit above my natural waist...however, I'm still getting excess fabric at the neckline....

also have pulling over the bustline and lots of excess at the side, which I can pleat in ...however now on the back the center back is pulling away from the center line.

It appears that every time I make an adustment to the neckline and the the excess fabric returns. So I must be running in a circle here somewhere.

Playing with Pattern Alteration

Clothing has seldom fit me the way I would like it to. We all have this problem because one size just doesn't fit all.  In my last post I put up some pictures of an historical pattern I'm trying to get to fit me. The pattern is fine except for some gaping at the neckline that I want to get rid of. I don't want to hide it I want it gone.

I've played around a little bit with getting a pattern to fit me, even had a class that taught me quite a bit, but this fix seems to be a bit more of a challenge and not an uncommon one...gaping fabric at the neckline.  The bodice on this dress has a 1.5" gaping at the neck front. That's a lot. Now, granted, this pattern is taken from a 1870's workdress that most probably didn't fit any better than this does me, but it fits me so well everywhere else there just must be a way to get that gaping out so the button band lays neatly against my chest front.

I've taken some suggestions and tried some slash and pivot techniques, but I'm really in a completely new arena here, I'm just unsure of what I'm supposed to be doing. 

So the suggestion was to take a pleat in the neckline taking out the excess fabric there. Slash the pattern down to the underbust pleasts and let the excess fabric from the reduction in the neck land there...easy enough to deal with by taking the pleats in a little more or adding another one...but then what does one do with the changes in the pattern lines at the neckline, armscye and waistline...let me show you what I mean.

I've made the pivots keeping the Center Front on the straight of grain.

So what does one do at this point? Do we true up those changes in the neckline and the armscye? Or does that put one back to where we were at the start...this may seem a really silly question, but when you're only grasping the concept by the outside edges...it's really not all that silly :). 

So that's where I stand to date, still working on it...

Fiber includes clothing yardage too!

I love costumes, don't have that many opportunities to wear them, but sometimes wearing a vintage outfit to do my wool spinning demonstrations is fun. So I found this pattern called Isabella's Workdress, and thought I'd try my hand at sewing it together.

The pattern taken straight from a vintage dress. My muslin mock up has a few fitting issues, that more than likely weren't an issue for a work dress, but I have the idea that I can get it to fit me a bit better than it does...but I need help...help from people who understand pattern design.

The following pictures are made with the muslin lining and the fashion fabric as a finished top...the muslin fit me so I went ahead and put the fashion fabric onto the muslin lining,

front view

 but it wasn't until I did this that I saw a big problem, the front neckline has major neck gaping.

1.5" gap

I've taken up the front shoulder seam of the front of the bodice at the neckline about 1/4" but it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. I might try to take it up a bit more in that area to see if it will help to pull in that extra inches. The other thought is to actually change the straight line of the button band into something more serpentine...in at the top, out at the bust and back in at the waistline.

Here is a look at the shoulder seams..the back is a bit longer than the front much like contempo patterns are, but there is quite a curve to the front shoulder seam...wondering if that has something to do with the excess neck front fabric, or if it can be changed here somehow?

shoulder 

The seams on the dress also sit differently than contempo patterns, as the shoulder seam drops off the shoulder, and the side seam sits to the back of the center line:

drop shoulder-side seams set back

You can also see that the back of the neck seems very high and tight against the neckline. Maybe some adjustment here would change the front neck gaping?  

back neck

And the waistline on the back is much lower than that in the front....the waist line is marked with the large pearl headed pins:

The back waist is 1.25" longer than the front.

So there you have it...I appreciate any suggestions.  :)

armscye-front facing left

Great thanks go out to Lindy, at Timeless Calico for all her tips and help with this dress as well. She's been a great source of help and information for the fit and style of this dress, without her input I think I may have not tried as hard as I am to get this to fit me in a contemporary stylish way :).

example of serpentine center front line 

Note the center front line on this bodice diagram. I'm thinking of changing the original straight front center line of the original pattern to something more serpentine like this.