Reply To: alter pattern for narrow shoulders

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

hi there! We do not have a tutorial on sloping or narrow shoulders yet but I hope we do some day. Both techniques are similar to increasing the bust. You draw the outline of your pattern. For narrowing the shoulders, you make a mark inside your outline how much you need to narrow by from the armhole/shoulder side, then slide your pattern to the right to meet the mark. Then pivot at the seam allowance (shoulder/armhole) to the side seam and redraw the armhole. For sloping shoulder, for the same outline, you mark down from the shoulder (at the shoulder/armhole point). With pin at shoulder/neckline mark, pivot down to your mark (draw new line), change pivot to shoulder/armhole point and pivot to side seam (redrawing armhole as necessary). Because these are so similar, you may just consider doing all these alterations (including increase bustline) all at once. Draw your outline, make all your marks so you can incorporate them as you pivot. So you’d slide for narrow alteration, then do slope and finish with increase bustline. If, for example, your correcting sloping shoulders and pivoting back to the side seam, you might as well go all the way to your increase bustline mark then stick the pivot pin at the armhole/side seam and pivot to the waistline, finishing both the increase bust and sloping shoulders at the same time. I would shorten the bodice first and then do the other three items. I know it’s hard to explain this when I’m used to showing it but I hope it helps a little.