Marfy 1444

I cut out and started a muslin of a new Marfy jacket today and so far, its going fairly well. It has shoulder princess seams both back and front so this allowed me to incorporate a back dart and a front dart into the princess seam to eliminate excess width at both the shoulder and the upper chest. It worked really well and I was pleased to note that the bust point was exactly right on the jacket, so I didn't have to do any complicated changes in that area to lower it. Nor did I need to lower the waistline seam, despite comparisons between my measurements and the pattern which suggested they should both be lowered.

I have the jacket body made and I am extremely pleased with the fit at the back, and the fit at the bust and upper chest/shoulders. However, the jacket is too large for me between the underbust and the waistline at the front, and I think the jacket might be slightly gaping at the lapel, though the collar isn't on yet, nor are the sleeves, so that may make a difference to the fit. The lower section of the jacket fits well and can be left alone. Preliminary pinning and tacking on one side of the jacket suggests that I need to take out an inch on one of the front seams. This does improve the fit but something is still not quite right. My gut feeling is to take in the side seams about half an inch at the underarm, tapering down to nothing at the waistline seam, but that might distort the sleeve fit. Maybe I will leave one side seam, alter the other one, then add the sleeves to see which produces the best fit.

Hopefully tomorrow I will wake up and be able to suddenly see clearly what needs to be done and perhaps get it to the point where I can put a picture of it up.

Meanwhile, in a different room, I have tissue spread out, tracing a second jacket pattern which has a sufficiently similar seam configuration to make it an ideal candidate for seeing if the same alterations for one jacket can be transferred successfully to a second one.