Pretty in Pink

Here's the muslin for Butterick 4986. The fabric is a bubblegum pink textured poly knit. It looks kind of nice in the photo, but it's thin and cheapo looking in person. I would not be wearing this even if the sewing was neat (which it's most definitely not). This ugly knit has served its purpose well by being a decent test fabric without any temptation to want it to be wearable.

As I mentioned last night, the only pattern alterations I made prior to cutting and sewing this muslin were to narrow and square the shoulders. After trying it on, the fit over the bust is great, including the underbust seam which hits me under the bust as it should. Yes, this is without an FBA. I'm in shock. And really, even though this is a knit, the stretch is not compensating for an FBA. It fits over the bazooms without seeming to stretch anymore than the bias of a woven would had I used a woven per the pattern.

I cut the pattern at the size 18 lines at the upper bodice and gradually morphed to the 22 toward the hips. For this knit version, I also cut the back on the fold instead of with the shaped center back of the pattern. I don't want the seam in the solid fabric I have planned for the first wearable version. I may add another 1/2" to 5/8" ease in the back hips since I was trying this on without the underlayer I'll need in order to wear it out of the house.

The sleeve on your left is hemmed and the other is not. You can see on the unhemmed side that the armhole is drooping a bit. It's passable on me, but will be more comfortable raised about 3/8" so that's what I'll do. I think I'll add a little bit to the sleeve length because I like the unhemmed length better than the side that's hemmed. I like the puffed cap sleeves, which I was unsure about before trying it on. The bottom of the top is also unhemmed and again, I like this length so I'll add onto it for a new hem allowance. The last fit tweak will be to narrow the shoulders a bit more.

One thing I will be changing that has nothing to do with fit is to leave off the collar stand. I questioned it for a knit but since I was in testing mode, I figured why not just try it. I like the collar but there's absolutely no reason to have a stand for this top in a knit. I'll just widen the collar to compensate and make the top even easier to sew in the process.

Oh, if only all patterns were this easy to fit and sew. But I won't be greedy — I'll just be thankful that this one is a winner all around.

Other projects going on around here today:

DH finally took out the hearth in the family room. It's only a matter of days now before we have a real floor in there. We are going to cover up the fireplace. Yeah, I know, but right now it just does not work for our furniture. And besides, this is Florida. How much do we really need a fireplace? We're not going to make it permanent in case we change our minds or buy new furniture. (It won't even be pretty since our furniture will cover the wall completely.) One of the problems with it is that it is not centered on the wall. That drives me crazy. The other problem is that the brick hearth ran the full width of the wall and took up 2 feet of what could be useable floor space. We've now reclaimed that floor space.

This is a before shot from this morning:


And this is an after, taken earlier tonight.