half muslin on the stand

This is my "Blue Book" waistcoat pattern cut in muslin and pinned to the stand. As I said I just followed the draft as is.

The first thing I saw in the pattern (previous post) was the location of the front neck point in relation to the CF construction line. It is excessively far to the right. The result of this is the fold of excess fabric you see in the front neckline.

As you move the neckpoint further away from the CF, more fabric is thrown into the neckline and the armhole closes up (gets tighter).....As the neckpoint moves closer to the front, fabric moves from the neckline and the armhole gets less rounded as the ease moves there.

If you have access to a stand, try it- leave everyhting else as is, just play with shifting the neckpoint position .....

I know that some of that excess couldor would have been shrunk in using the iron, but not that much, and for our purposes, we need to have less manipulation required.

The other issue is the short front balance.

Can you see the waist constuction line in the left photo and how it is so far above the waist of the stand? The front armhole looks pulled tight and there is tension diagonally from the back side seam at the armhole toward the CB waist.

I didn't pre-make any adjustments in the pattern nor did I check any of the other measurement charts in the book that may have corrected this so I will go back and check to see if there was some instructions hidden somewhere.

I personally like to take a nape to CF waist measurement on the client so I can use it to check against the pattern for accuracy. If the pattern is short I can lengthen the front. There are many other methods for determining balance but that is the one I like to use.

Next I'll show you what happens when the shoulder is released and the options for the neckpoint.