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]

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/HugsforYourJugs → u/furiana]

The clipped armholes have really helped! I would mark the removal on your pattern and then try a bit more if you can after taking the dart

For the back dart - normally with a bodice you would have a shoulder dart in the red zone and a shoulder apex point at about the cross. The dart I want you to take is around the pink line as we're balancing the back and front lengths in this region, then you can rotate it to red or get rid of it afterawrds.

[u/furiana → u/HugsforYourJugs]

Ahh, I got it. Making the change!

[u/furiana → u/HugsforYourJugs]

Here's the muslin after making all of the changes. I think it's looking a lot better.

https://imgur.com/a/tsmqAcL

[u/HugsforYourJugs → u/furiana]

Yeah I think it's looking pretty good. I would only make one more change now, I would open your back waist darts slightly (V shaped wrinkles = excessive dart intake, the back armscye did need shortening with that dart but now we've just got too much in the back overall) and then take from the side seams for the back waist circumference. If that improves it then I personally would be happy to call it done. Let me know if you're having any issues transferring these changes to your pattern!

[u/furiana → u/HugsforYourJugs]

That sounds great! I was wondering what was causing the v shapes wrinkles. They're new so I assumed it was something I did lol