Sewing Sorbetto

This past week I've been working on the two first pieces of the Spring Wardrobe Plan: Sorbetto top and McCall's 5591 skirt. 

The Colette Sorbetto top is pretty simple, two pattern pieces (front and back) and a simple bias tape facing.  It was a little bit of a nightmare for me, though.  Fitting the bust was quite a project, then the back needed extra attention as well.  I learned a lot about fitting this week!







Here's muslin #2:

Pulling across and above bust told me I needed to adjust bust dart and add length between shoulder and armhole.

Even with curving the back seam, there's still a lot of bunching in back.  Shortening the waist, adjusting curved seam, and letting out seam at hemline will help. 

To make a week-long story short, I made the following changes to the pattern:

• Adjusted for sloping shoulders, 1/2"
• Made a minor adjustment for forward shoulders, 1/4"
• Full bust adjustment
• Added 3/4" between the shoulder and armhole
• Raised the armhole by 3/4"
• Shortened the waist 1"
• Added a center back seam, and curved it

The curved seam line is traced in red.

In pinning the curved back I discovered two things: the seam allowance wasn't enough at the hemline and the back piece was cut too close to the selvage and had the store stamp on the bottom.  Oh well, I thought, I can work around that. 









Then I discovered that the neckline shoulder seam was off. 

When I added that 3/4" between the shoulder and armhole, I needed to true the seam lines.  See how the seam points out?  That's not supposed to happen. 

Neckline on left, curve isn't smooth like armhole on right.

So I'll go back to the pattern, adjust the neckline, add the extra seam allowance to the back hemline, and cut out two new back pieces (farther away from the selvage this time).  Then I should be ready to finish this top!