Let’s talk about that little fitting wobble I mentioned last time shall we?

Overall I think tissue & fit-as-you-sew worked OK for this semi-fitted garment. I didn’t have much problem with fitting the front. Once the FBA was done on the front during tissue fitting, there was hardly any changes during fabric fitting.

Tissue

vs Pinned

vs Sewn

Sleeve attached

Shoulder narrowed,
sleeve head adjusted

The main problems I had were with the back above waist, shoulder & armhole areas, including the sleeve cap.

Part of it was due to my unfamiliarity with what to expect at different stages of fitting and how garment parts affect each other. As consumers we’re more used to judging the finished garments. It was difficult to know when to stop before I attached the sleeves for example. And I was surprised when new drag lines appear after the sleeves have been attached.

It was also a bit difficult to read excess tissue paper vs fabric. Paper being stiffer doesn’t show up drag lines as clearly as fabric.

Also, having tried sloper fitting before I probably should have tissue fitted on both sides rather than just one side. I could have cut wider seam allowance I suppose. But in curved areas & armsye for example, the extra SA might throw up false problems because it won’t lie flat or would make the armhole smaller or too high.

Tissue

vs Pinned

Comparing the tissue with pinned trench, the pinned version shows up a lot more wrinkles. It would have been easy to panic at this stage. Basting might have been a little bit smoother. But pinning did at least show up the bigger problems like my lower left shoulder & the possible need to lower both armholes (for my sloping shoulders) even on a jacket / coat which would have been designed with bigger armholes anyway.

Pinned, extra left shoulder pad

vs Sewn, extra left shoulder pad

After first sewing I was surprised that the extra shoulder pad which seem to fix my uneven shoulder problem during the pinning stage wasn’t enough to fix my uneven back. I had to redo sections of the princess seams taking in and letting out where needed. So even pin-fitting with fashion fabric isn’t fool-proof. Maybe with experience I’ll get better at pin-fitting. For now, I’ll have to be prepared to redo seams. So no ploughing ahead with seam finishing without checking the fit first!

Left vs Right adjustments

Left side with adjustments

The next hurdle is the sleeve vs pre-sleeve confusion. Minus the sleeve the shoulder looked alright (at this stage I had widen the shoulder about 1/2″).

Sleeve attached
 

Shoulder narrowed,
sleeve head adjusted

Once the sleeves were attached, the shoulder felt too wide. The weight of the sleeves stretches the shoulder a bit I think. So I narrowed the shoulder by 3/8″ (leaving a 1/8″ widening compared to original shoulder width). But after the sleeve head has gone in & the whole thing lined, the shoulder now feels a tiny bit tight. I probably should have widen it the 1/4″ that my sloper fitting had implied I need. It goes to show though, when there are many bits involved (like in tailoring), it’s best not to panic too soon and over-fit! The result is still wearable, but probably would be more comfortable if I had not panicked.

The sleeves, especially the sleeve head areas, I had to attach twice. There was a bit too much ease after my bodice shoulder-armscye area adjustments. I had to lower the cap a little bit more, and when adjusting the sleeve head curve, made the back curve shallower and front fuller. I kept the original shoulder alignment point on the sleeve, but shifted the underarm seam alignment point backward to accommodate my Forward Shoulder Adjustment without making the front to full to ease into the front armscye.

So is tissue & pin-as-you-sew worth it?

Most definitely! For fitted and/or tailored garments anyway. Saves me wasting yards after yards making muslins after muslins. Documenting the process made it more tedious this time, but I think I will continue to try this method.

It probably won’t work as well for looser drapy styles. And obviously not for knits. For those, developing slopers & blocks to compare new designs to probably would work better. And if the final fabric is expensive or otherwise precious, I guess there will be no option but to make test garments in cheaper similar fabrics.

With any luck this will be the last fitting post you see before I sew!

Fabric Fitting:

So following FFRP instruction, I’ve interfaced the fabric & pin the main pieces together to check how the pattern fit in this particular fabric. While I don’t plan to wear this in the midst of winter, I do hope to wear this into mid-fall with a light sweater/jumper underneath. So that’s what I’m testing the fit with.

• Front:
  Looks OK to my untrained eyes.
• Sleeve:
  • Looks a bit long.
  • Width-wise I had add back the 1/2″ I tucked out. 3-1/2″ ease made the sleeve a bit tight over the sweater. So I’ve let out 1/4″ on the oversleeve at the both seams. That takes the bicep ease back to 4″, which is actually what most of my RTW coats have. Doesn’t look too dowdy does it?

• Back:
  • My lower left shoulder seem to be causing havoc here. There’s a fold at my left underarm. The CB is swinging to the right. I’m wondering if that’s also partly caused by the lower left shoulder: The fabric is rather stiff, so may be swinging to the right rather than forming more folds the left side.
  • There’s also a little bit of drag lines at the right underarm. I think that might be me being naughty & not doing the 2nd part of Sloping Shoulder Adjustment – ie lower the armscye at the underarm as well. The unslashed seam allowance here exacerbate the problem I think, with the arm joint pushing the fabric downward forming those drag lines.

Fabric Fitting Tweaks:

• Lower left shoulder:
  I’m taking the easy way out & doubling the shoulder pad height (from 1/8″ to 1/4″). That fold under the left arm is now gone & the CB now seem a bit straighter.
• Underarm drag lines:
  I’ve slashed the underarm seam allowance 1/4″ deep on both sides. The drag lines now seem to be reduced. I’m debating whether to lower the armscye or not. Once sewn, the SA will be trimmed a further 1/8″ anyway. So maybe no change is necessary? I don’t want the underarm to be too low as it might make the sleeve seem fatter.
• CB still swinging to the right:
  Maybe I have a slightly bigger right hip? Maybe pinning & not pressing make stiff fabric like this misbehave? I think I’ll sew up as is first and check again. If the problem is still there I might let out a little bit at the right  back princess seam.

Decisions decisions decisions!

Fitting headache sort of over, time for headache of a different kind.

I’m a bit unsure about this fabric from the 2 decade old stash. It’s cotton twill of some sort (khaki chino?). Seemed like the right color and texture for a classic trench. But the beast is stiff with hardly any drape! More so than my RTW trench.

When you throw in interfacing on both the front & the front facing, it might just look like armor rather than chic trench inspiration I had in mind. And I have to use fusible interfacing. I tested sew-ins & I like the dimpled folds at the hem even less. Fusible at least gives me a smooth curved fold.

The contrast with the velvet hem might be too great. Both velvet are quite limp. And I won’t be able to stiffen these up with fusible interfacing. One’s silk and the other I think is rayon velvet.

So dear readers. what would you do?

Does the main fabric look too stiff? Should I not waste the velvets on this one, make a short plain trench with this stiff chino & find a softer replacement for the version with the velvet border?

I’m already considering not interfacing the whole front facing. Maybe just the lapel area so it’ll look smooth. (Did I mention this fabric love to wrinkle too?) And the interfacing for the velvet I might double up – fusible on sew-in.

The other thing that I didn’t really think through is how to finish off the velvet part at the back vent and on the inside (front facing, hem). I could have used the main fabric on the inside. But it’s a bit too late now as I’ve already cut the fabric front facing the same length as the fabric front. Oops. Looking on the bright side at least the velvet will be nice to the touch against my knees!

Are you getting bored with the tissue fittings? Just one more post on tissue fitting I promise! In fact, the main fabric is now being prepped for cutting as I write.

Third alterations:

So of the outstanding issues, I decided to…

• Ignore
  • Waistline that’s 3/8″ too low – I’ll deal with it if it still looks too low in fabric fitting.
  • CF that seems to swing out to the side – probably not an issue once buttoned up.
• Adjust
  • Princess seam line – moved towards the front 1/2″. In the process of doing this, the side front panel princess seam line seem to have grown 1/4″, so reduced the front armhole gap a bit.
  • Front armhole gap – I decided after the final tissue fitting to widen the shoulder & reduce the front armhole gap a bit further. So final wide shoulder adjustment is 1/2″ & the gap area patched with 3/8″.
• Now the bits I haven’t checked yet…
  • Pocket:
    There are already plenty of complaints on Pattern Reviews about the ridiculously small pocket. And you know from my previous post that a bigger pocket was one of the reason I wanted to make my own trench. So here it is…Self-drafted pocket that I’ve checked against my hand size and the bits & pieces I tend to keep in my pocket. So it’s all good. Big enough to keep my hands warm on cold days and nothing stored in it should go missing!
    
    I’ve had to move the pocket up a bit though. The original position was obviously designed for the Lilliputian pocket. With the pocket opening at the princess seam, the pocket can only be accessed with bent arm. So the bottom of the pocket needs to be high up enough to be reached with a bent arm.
  • Hip:
    This is a bit low. But I might ignore it as there seem to be enough ease anyway.
  • Sleeves:
    There’s like 3-1/4″ – 4″ bicep ease, which is plenty for comfort. Both the width and the length looks perfect (with the under-sleeve aligned at underarm seam).
    So I proceeded to convert the 1-piece sleeve into 2-piece sleeve following the instruction in Connie Crawford’s Patternmaking Made Easy. But the result looks a bit puffier than the 1-piece sleeve, even though the width hasn’t changed at all!
    Maybe it’s jut paper being paper. But I’m now paranoid that the sleeves are going to come out dowdily wide. So I took a 1/2″ vertical tuck on the over-sleeve. I’m hoping that if it turns out too much I can just restore the amount with a narrower seam allowance.

So here are the final Patterns:

And here are the dart-based FBA front patterns which I won’t be using this time.

I still have to sort out lining & facing patterns. But I think I’ll do that after the fabric fitting to be sure there aren’t any more tweaks needed. But it’s looking good so far!