I figure that this sweater / blazer will cost somewhere in the $100 range to make. Considerably less than the real deal, but still enough of an investment to deserve the full muslin treatment.

 

A $2 jersey knit sheet from Goodwill turned out to be the perfect muslin material. It looks a little crazy but it served the purpose. It also gave me some practice working with a knit, which was much easier than I was anticipating. Talk about a whole lot of worrying over nothing!

 

 

So here is version #1, right out of the gate. All things considered not too bad. One of the defining features of the Missoni jacket is its soft shoulders. My inspiration garments don’t appear to have any shoulder pads. My pattern, however, is designed for them. So my major alteration will be to adjust the sleeve head.

 

I measured the sleeve cap of my pattern and compared it to the armscye. Result — There is 1.5 inches of ease in the sleeve cap. This is what gives the little “poof” at the shoulder which gets filled out with shoulderpads and sleeve heads. Exactly the look I DON’T want! So I set about removing the extra ease.

 

I’m not exactly sure where I first saw this little You Tube video, but it turned out to be the perfect solution.

 

The process is quite simple. First the pattern is slashed from side to side at the armpit level. Then a second slit is made perpendicular up to the “dot” at the apex of the sleeve cap. The two pattern pieces are then rotated (in my case, overlapped) to take out the ease. Ridiculously easy. Note: If you have a two piece sleeve just tape the two pattern pieces together before slashing.

 

 

 

It ends up looking like this.

 

 

And here is the result. My right shoulder has had the ease removed. The left shoulder is the pattern as drafted, and you can see how a shoulder pad would fit in there. Definitely NOT the look I’m going for. Removing the ease made the right shoulder a little too wide, so I ended up cutting about a 1/2″ crescent off the shoulder between the front and back notches. This eliminated the “dropped shoulder” look.

 

 

The completed shoulder adjustment. The sleeve went in perfectly without any ease. Talk about easy!

 

My only other adjustment was the overall length of the jacket. I had already taken out 1.5″, but it was still much longer than any of my inspiration models (in which the sleeves and body are pretty much the same length).

 

 

Out came another 2 inches.

 

 

This is much more like it! I’m happy with the fit and ready to dive in.