slide and pivot

Sewing has continued apace here as well. That pace has been slow, almost glacial: my sewing progresses incrementally, one small task by one small task. After attempting a chiropractic full bust adjustment on the Vogue 1573, I decided to go a gentler method with 'slide and pivot', following the directions in Nancy Zieman's Pattern Fitting with Confidence.

In (very) short, her method involves sliding the pattern piece along whichever dimension you are altering and then pivoting at the relevant intersection of sewing lines. For example, I wanted the shoulder to be a half inch narrower so I traced the pattern, then slid it a half inch along to the right, thereby narrowing the shoulder.

Next step was to place a pin at the point where the sewing lines for the shoulder and armscye intersect and pivot the printed pattern sheet to the left until the printed bodice side seam and my traced bodice side seam met each other. Then I traced the new armscye. This did have the effect of apparently raising the underarm but Nancy promises that this will be ok. I also did an adjustment to add a half inch to the bust. You can see above where the various iterations of the underarm have been.

I really like this book and Nancy's style of presentation. It's quite easy to follow and very reassuring. The great benefit of this method is that it does not change the shape of the armscye at all so there is no need to alter the sleeve cap. At right is my initial (yellow) full bust adjustment laid on top of the 'slide-and-pivot' version. Slide and pivot does give more room which is what I was needing. Next up, another toile!