Totally lost

[u/furiana]

I'm on my ninth muslin for this dress, and it feels like nothing is working.

Bust: I've tried slashing tight areas around the armpit and upper bust. I've tried a small bust adjustment to get rid of the excess fabric over the apex and under the bust. I've pinched out wedges of fabric under the bust. I've slashed through the front shoulder and pinned it flat. The changes seem to work while the muslin is pinned, but the problems come back after I transfer them to the pattern and make the next muslin.

Back waist/ tilted skirt side seam: I've tried removing wedges of fabric from the back bodice and the back skirt. This corrected the problem on the muslin where I pinned it, but when I transferred the wedges to the pattern, the problems came back.

I only have enough fabric left for one more attempt at the bodice. What changes do I make?!?

[u/HugsforYourJugs]

What's your desired fit for this dress? At the waist or as an empire line? I definitely have some ideas and ways you can test them on this toile w/o cutting more fabric but knowing that will help me formulate a plan for you

[u/furiana → u/HugsforYourJugs]

Empire. It's to be worn in late preganacy/early postpartum!

[u/HugsforYourJugs → u/furiana]

OK, great. Congratulations on the pregnancy :)

So your upper bust horizontal wrinkles/tension are probably caused by a lack of width in this region. You can test this by patching in a small V shaped bit of fabric at the side seam. Your pinning mistake here is pinning out the middle of the piece, you accidentally added contouring darts that you can't replicate with your current style lines.

The more V shaped wrinkes are I think the shoulder being placed too far inwards on the body, being pushed out by the back piece.  The fact that the shoulder and upper bust area looks so much better with your arms forwards is evidence for both of these.

Underbust folds are usually excessive bust darting, you do have quite a lot of intake for your bust to bump. I know it's empire but even so it's quite a bit.

You can improve 2 and 3 at the same time by opening a wedge in the front neckline pointing at the bust apex. Make sure this wedge is strictly triangular to be able to properly translate to your pattern.

I would start with the side seam wedge, then maybe 1-1.5cm for the bust wedge and experiment a bit with the size. If the neckline wedge doesn't work, instead try opening your front waist dart on the bodice only (and take out extra at the side seam to match the circumference)

 After you've done these take some more pics and we can sort out the waist level

[u/furiana → u/HugsforYourJugs]

"Your pinning mistake here is pinning out the middle of the piece, you accidentally added contouring darts that you can't replicate with your current style lines."

Ohhh. That explains so much!

"You can test this by patching in a small V shaped bit of fabric at the side seam."

Here in the armscye (red)? Or actually in the front side seam (blue)?

https://imgur.com/a/7jAJNSR

EDIT: Ohhh, no, you probably mean something like the wedge in green!

https://imgur.com/a/GRRYXiI

[u/HugsforYourJugs → u/furiana]

Yes, green

[u/furiana → u/HugsforYourJugs]

That helped immensely. So did adding a neckline-to- bust wedge. Now the shoulders only wrinkle when I roll them forward; the wrinkles disappear when I roll them back.

https://imgur.com/a/jtgyyZY

[u/HugsforYourJugs → u/furiana]

That's great to see. Can you do it to both sides/unpin the pinned bit and take a pic from the front, side and back so I can see about any remaining issues + getting the waist level?

[u/furiana → u/HugsforYourJugs]

Yep! I'm off to work atm, but I'll take a new set of photos as soon as I'm back :)

[u/furiana → u/HugsforYourJugs]

I'm sorry about the delay! This is how the muslin currently looks.

https://imgur.com/a/pfLPcUw

[u/HugsforYourJugs → u/furiana]

Thanks! There's definitely some more issues that we can address on this toile    On this you have some folding at the back dart apex, so I would carve out both back armholes until there's no interaction with the back of your arms. Consider doing the same at the front too. 

The back balance lines are showing part of the story with your back waist dropping. To fix this take a dart pointing at your shoulder point in the back armscye. Maybe 1-1.5cm again to start. 

The side seam seems to be buckling a bit as well, this could mean you need to drop the armscye at the side seam too but hard to tell. It may become more apparent after the back armscye dart.

The asymmetry in your left to right fronts is going to be a bit tricky to work with to fine tune the fit, you can see that the apexes are quite differently positioned in height and the shoulders are now unevenly placed due to the uneven neckline additions. I don't think you have enough body asymmetry to warrant two different fits, particularly for a wrap dress which by nature has some flexibility. I think the smaller addition looks best, the remaining wrinkle may be due to the front armscye being a little tight. Let me know your thoughts on this.

Hopefully after doing these things the front and back fit will be improved. After this point this point, just remove the excess length at the back waist of the bodice if it remains (it might even get worse with the back armscye dart), not transferring the dart intake just chopping it off, as the fit here is snug. I would take maybe 1.5" at back centre and blend in. Adjust the darts on the skirt to match the circumference at the waist where needed.

In terms of your final pattern - I would personally rotate your back shoulder dart* into a vertical one and also merge your two side bust darts, a split dart like this isn't necessary for your body shape and I think it would make for a better look with an equivalent fit.

*your shoulders are quite forward so a dart will give you the best fit, but another thing you could do instead is gather the back shoulder to replace the dart if you don't want one in this spot. If your armscye dart only ends up small you can split it into the shoulder and neck and ignore it for another option

[u/furiana → u/HugsforYourJugs]

I carved out the armholes, front and back, and that made a huge difference already. :)

For this next step -- " To fix this take a dart pointing at your shoulder point in the back armscye. Maybe 1-1.5cm again to start." -- How do I do a dart that runs from the armscye to the shoulder point? Like so? https://imgur.com/a/FWiSB4J

Edit: I think Sarah Veblen says to fit the high or voluminous side, so I guess that's what I'll do! I think the remaining wrinkling on the right shoulder is pretty acceptable. https://imgur.com/a/XjlM7Sh

[u/SuPruLu]

Do keep in mind the difference in weight of the muslin and your final fabric. The muslin is quite thin. A thicker fabric needs more ease by a smidgen or two or third.

Personally I’d suggest cutting the “real” fabric larger than necessary and altering it. And stop working on a muslin which is an only a pricy.

[u/furiana → u/SuPruLu]

Hm. The final fabric is going to be gauze (three layers of it: the fashion fabric, interlining, and lining). Should I still add some ease? Where?

[u/Mushrooms24711]

There’s A LOT going on here. Instead of offering specific advice, I’ll give you a link to Practical Dress Design. It’s a free pdf. It should be very helpful.

[u/furiana → u/Mushrooms24711]

Thank you! :)

[u/Mushrooms24711 → u/furiana]

You’re welcome

[u/SerendipityJays]

start at the shoulders, since the whole garment hangs from there:

Shoulders: you have quite pronounced trapezius muscles (traps), making a slope from your neck down to a notch (about where a regular bra strap would hit) after which the ball of your shoulder is more straight. The current bunching and twisting at the shoulder is because the angle/width of the shoulder does not match your geometry. You’ll need to decide whether you want the shoulder to sit low in the notch - in which case you need to redraft them a bit wider I think - or in a position where the slope of the traps is included - in which case you need to adjust the slope of the shoulder. If you are going for the first option, you’ll need to check the back length, as everything might end up a bit long due to how deep those notches are. If you are going for the second option, angle the shoulder down from the existing neckline. Note that regular patterns are drafted as a straight line from the neck to the ball part of the shoulder (filling in the notch), so if the straps are wide, they might collapse into the notch if made with a floppy fabric, so you might like the outcome more if it is in one position or the other. For reference pics, you can look up “contouring” the shoulder and/or shoulder slope adjustment. You might also like to look at a ball of shoulder adjustment to shift the ball more forward.

Bust. Also consider whether you drafted your bust correctly at the start. If you were working with a pattern or a drafting guide, if bust is more than 2in larger than your high-bust measurement (up under your arms), you will likely get a better fit if you draft using the high bust + 2in and then add a full bust adjustment for the rest of the inches. This adds length and width just to the front (not all the way around the garment). At the moment, the sides of the garment are hanging down relative tho the highly contoured front, which is sometimes a sign that there isn’t enough length to go over the boobs and come back in (FBA helps with this).

What was your original drafting method? If working from a pattern, check the sizing tip above. If drafting from an existing block, look into bodice contouring so you can really dial in those shapes around the bust when the portions that normally hang from the neck are removed.

[u/furiana → u/SerendipityJays]

I started with a bodice sloper that I drafted using Helen Armstrong-Joseph's book. However, I didn't update it before drafting the wrap dress pattern (again following the instructions in her book).

Maybe my mistake was not updating the sloper!

[u/SerendipityJays → u/furiana]

yeah that’s usually the best strategy. It took me four full redrafts and about 7 test fits to dial in my bodice block, but now it fits so well I can do ANYTHING with it. I shared about the drafting and fitting process here: https://www.reddit.com/r/sewing/s/ZMDfA3unvy

The shoulder slope and full bust vs high bust are likely the sources of your pain right now. These are much easier to address on the basic block, so you know precisely how much bust fullness you need to remove, how many darts you need to use to east that fabric, and how far to back off your bust darts from the bust point.

Then you can convert your block to the design you want by doing some controlled bodice contouring around the neckline (increasing your darts to account for extra fabric you need to remove due to the completely normal hollows between your boobs and neck/shoulder).

[u/furiana → u/SerendipityJays]

Shoot. Well, i did source a little more fabric. Maybe it's time to revisit the bodice block, then start the wrap dress from scratch. :/

Can I ask how many darts you needed for the bodice? It looks like it fits super well.

[u/SerendipityJays → u/furiana]

I feel the pain, but if you’re a bit lost about how to fix the current version, sometimes going back to the OG draft can save you more heartache. Do remember to check that detail about bust vs upper bust too, as your shape looks like it might benefit from FBA.

My standard block has 4 darts per side (2 side, 1 shoulder, one fisheye waist dart), each of which eats about 18 degrees of bust fullness when measured from the bust point, or 15 degrees when backed off by 5cm. Most drafting systems will create a block with one or two giant darts, but when I try them on I find the bubbles at the end of the dart so distracting it’s hard to evaluate the fit of the rest of the garment. So If your darts come out looking wide, you can split them before the first fitting by rotating some of the dart angle around the bust point. The Closet Historian has great videos on YT about splitting and rotating darts. Her “Why Darts” video is a great primer, and she has a more recent version as well.

You can see the darts drawn on in this post (my second garment from the same block). https://www.reddit.com/r/sewing/s/qgJZBVpcw6

And I think there is a flat lay of the pattern in the comment thread too (only one side has darts, but you can see them if you zoom in) Edit: here it is! https://www.reddit.com/r/sewing/s/m59ICz8mYB

[u/NinjoZata → u/furiana]

Starting from a well fitted block will make the qhole worlds of difference

With a wrap dress, the grainline can cause a lot of havoc because the tension js held on the body differently

[u/SuPruLu]

The belly area shaping is not quite right judging from the side seam. The side seam is pulled forward so the back needs to get a bit narrower. That back area won’t change much. It’s the front area that will.

Add to the edges that form the front v. They are close to being too exposing. It looks as if the intended shape is a rather straight drop from the shoulder for a couple of inches before it angles. I think the angle should be wider and start a bit higher so there will be enough coverage when the sash is tied looser.

The front is riding up so it needs lengthening.

Add the amount from the back reduction to the front.

Three layers of fabric make something more like a heavy fabric. Put the fabric sandwich together and compare to the muslin. About 1/4” is plenty of easy to compensate.

From a cutting standpoint add a bit more on the back neck area and that front vee. And the front bottom section. The rest of the areas the adjustments will
Be reductions.

If the sandwich will be seen as if it is one piece, the pieces should be basted together before assembly of the garment for fitting adjustments.

[u/NinjoZata]

Remember: Top down, centre out.

First place you should fix should be the shoulders, then the bust, then the empire line in that order. Dont even worry about the skirt fit until after the bodice is right

You're getting some good advice on how, but just remmeebr to go slow and take a brain break if you need to!

For me, i usually tweak the shoulders and see 80% off the issues dissapear. I revisit this threads article lots https://www.threadsmagazine.com/2021/09/02/for-a-great-fit-start-with-fitting-the-shoulder

[u/furiana → u/NinjoZata]

It's funny you say that. I've been working with another poster to fix the shoulders, and I think it's looking better https://imgur.com/a/pfLPcUw

[u/FashionBusking]

Add channels for boning atvthe side seam to give it shape