Simplicity 2497: Fitting the Muslin

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Once your paper alterations are done it's time for a muslin fitting so you can see all the many ways your alterations went wrong.  You can skip fitting the muslin if you are confident.  Hubris is always punished but you know, whatever floats your boat.  When I make a muslin I, do the bare minimum.  I skip facings, finishing, and I only attach one sleeve.  You might also leave out zippers and other closures and pockets unless you want to test the installation or application.

Behold, Simplicity 2497: the Muslin.

All in all, my errors were not egregious but as you can see there is some awkwardness going on.  some of it, like the wide neckline in the front and in the back will be corrected further along in construction.  Other issues, like the too-tight sleeve cap and awkwardness around the zipper will require further attention.

The sleeve in image 2 and 3 is after further sleeve alteration

I mean, this sleeve was fucked up.  The top part of the sleeve was sooo tight and the armhole itself seemed too small which didn't seem possible considering how much length I added to the bodice sides.  After much googling, internet tutorial research, youtube video watching, and redrawing of patterns, I went back to Sewing for Plus Sizes and realized that I forgot to add the length from the bodice to the sleeves. 

1. Too tight sleeve cap, 2. Dart detail and high waistline, 3. Too much length in the neckline, 4. Zipper into pocket detail

Problems:

1. I added unnecessary length to the neckline pattern.  
2. The invisible zipper into pocket application was fussy and not well done.
3. This waist seems much more empire than other finished versions I've found online.

Solutions:

1. Restore the neckline pattern pieces to their original forms to remove the extra fullness.
2. I decided on a slightly shorter zipper than the pattern calls for.  My FBA translated to much more length in the bodice as well, so my pocket only contained about an inch or so of zipper anyway.
3. I am going to add an additional two inches to the bodice length.