Mini-Wardrobe, Here I Come

I cut a muslin of Butterick 4991 last night. Of course, I encountered my first dilemmas: (1) how to lower the bust apex by 1" when there is no apparent shaping pointing directly at the bust; (2) given that there is no apparent shaping pointing directly at the bust, does it really matter; and (3) why is the back lining identical to the back other than being 1/8" wider at the bottom and given that, why is the front lining exactly the same as the front (other than being shorter, of course).

Carefully sidestepping the philosophical ramifications of #2, and realizing that there actually are darts pointing at the bust apex (but they are a cool design feature and I didn't want to shorten them) I decided to just add my standard 1" above the waist to the pattern pieces, except in this case, I added it below the armscye and above the bust. This put the bust apex at least in the general vicinity of my own. I was a little concerned that the waist darts still ran up onto my bust, but a careful perusal of the photo on the pattern envelope revealed the same on their model.

I'm making View A, the vest. I love vests; with just a few pattern pieces and no sleeve, what's not to love? This particular vest, however, has 14 (count 'em!) darts, 12 of which are top-stitched and so must be perfectly stitched. For my muslin, I'm just marking with dressmaker's carbon, but for the real deal, which will be made of black linen, I think I will need to thread trace. In case you didn't see my previous post about this pattern, this is the fabric I intend to use. Yummy, isn't it?

I am very excited to actually take the first steps toward a mini-wardrobe. I have been completely snowed under with work the last couple of weeks, so hopefully I will manage to keep up with that and still find some time for sewing in the coming week. Happy sewing, everyone!