Butterick 4985 in progress

I've been inching along on sewing projects, all these days I haven't been posting. It's slow going, a few minutes in the morning at a time: cut something or pin something or sew a seam, or press the little bit I sewed yesterday. But eventually it adds up to progress. Here are some things I've been working on...

Butterick 4985 (not yet hemmed, awaiting buttons/buttonholes)


This is a wearable muslin from stash fabric. You can't see any of the nice details or shaping to the blouse in this photo, so here's the official view (I made the version at lower left, with band collar):



If I ever figure out how to fix the fit issues it will be better than I'd hoped.The print suits the pattern better than I expected, and I'm looking forward to wearing this... someday.

For now, it's back in the UFO pile. I made a bunch of adjustments to the pattern, adding length both above and below the empire seam, and to the sleeve, and increasing width at the bust, and gathering instead of a dart, etc. All that measuring and double-checking and remeasuring took forever, and although it's close to okay (better than it would have been without the adjustments) it still manages to be too big across the back shoulders, and not wide enough across the front.

How the front can be too narrow in the center and still have too much fabric at the front underam area is a mystery. Will probably just have to live with that. And the extra at the back doesn't bother me much. Big problem is where to find room to have enough overlap at the front for buttons...

Got this far about a month ago and set it aside to come back to in a bit for a fresh take on problem-solving. For now, I have other things in the works. I do want to get this right, but have no enthusiasm for going futher at the moment.

What I learned from this is that my bust measurement may match the pattern size exactly, but I need to cut a size smaller at the upper back, and add an inch to the center front. Too late for that with this one, unfortunately. I'll come back to it someday, because I have some luscious Kaffe Fassett fabric to make this from if I can get the fit right.