Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Men's shirt muslin fitting

I know everyone says that when you make a garment, you spend the least amount of time actually at your sewing machine, but sheesh! I've been working on a Negroni shirt for my husband, and it takes for.ev.er. to mark and cut out. Not to mention adding a muslin on top of it.

Plus I'm being extra careful because I'll be devastated if he doesn't like/wear it. I might have to move out.

I kept my muslin very simple. I used pattern pieces A (shirt front, I cut 2), B (back yoke, I cut 1), and C (shirt back). Trust me, you don't want to assemble the facings, collar and the inside back yoke just for muslin fitting. You could cut sleeves if you wanted, but the pattern contains a finished garment underarm measurement, and you can easily compare that to a well-fitting shirt you already have.


Sorry all the photos aren't on a live model. I could barely get him to put it on for fitting.


I drew on the pocket placement, buttons, and marked the hem so I could get a visual on those.


My husband is tall and muscular, and RTW shirts that fit him in the chest are baggy through the rest of the torso. For my muslin, I cut a straight large and prayed for a miracle. I was disappointed. Stupid. I've been shopping with him for almost 7 years, I should have known better!

The length and bottom half of the torso were fine, but the chest/shoulders area was too small. After fitting him I knew I'd have to cut an XLarge in the chest and yoke, but grade it down to a Large everywhere else. Because the upper torso would be XL, the sleeves would also need to be XL too, unless I felt like messing with the armhole (I didn't).


It was from roughly the middle button up that needed to be bigger, so I marked that on my muslin. I must say, muslins are a pain, but being able to make notes right on my fabric was fun. Made me feel like a naughty child drawing on the wall.

Thursday I'll be going over how I adjusted the pattern pieces. It involved advanced math and a graphing calculator. Just kidding!

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