Cat Bites, Not Sewing, and The Gaping Neckline

First, may I smile a great big "Thank You" to those wonderful readers who e-mailed me checking in to make sure I was OK after such a blogging absence - it means a lot to know that someone (at least 2 of you) actually noticed!  ;-D

I've not been blogging partly because I've simply not been sewing.  I would love to say that it's because life has been so fantastically busy because of the bustle of the holidays and other wonderful activities, but...well....it's just been life.  It gets that way sometimes.

I was actually in the middle of cutting out a muslin about a week ago, when my no-longer-such-a-darling kitty sank his teeth into my hand & destroyed any possibility of holding a pair of scissors for several days.   Blood.  Pain.  Antibiotics.  And not the first time this has happened in the past few months.  He has issues.   Not his fault, behaviorally, but whatever's causing this behavior has, so far, been a mystery to his vets, and right now I can't even go into the emotions that are coming up with the choices in front of me :(

In Better Times.....

At any rate, the hand, although not completely healed, is functioning again, and best of all I'm BACK IN THE SEWING ROOM!   (sorry for yelling, it's just so exciting!)

Which brings me to the Gaping Neckline.

Yes, that gaping neckline...

This is not the first time I've come across this problem, so it dawned on me that I should probably learn how to deal with it.   I think it has to do with a combination of narrow shoulders and a hollow upper chest.  Hollow upper chest?   Seriously?   Who knew????  The body oddities we discover when we start to sew....

So I read up here & there on some solutions, and decided to try this:

(hope this is clear enough)  I put a dot at a somewhat arbitrary bust point, and drew 2 lines - one to the neckline, and one to the side seam - (sorry about the picture quality; if you can see them, the lines are in red).   In this case, I drew the line to the side seam above the bust dart, since my actual bust point is a bit lower than the pattern dart's bust point (no surprise there...)

I then cut along the lines, from the pattern edge almost to the arbitrary bust point, creating a "hinge", and rotated the cut piece towards the CF, so that the neckline area lapped by 1/4" (which removes a total of 1" of fabric from the neckline), with a corresponding gap created at the side seam.

I cut a new muslin piece, basted it on, and Voila!   No more gap!!!!

And this, my dear readers, is one of the reasons I love to sew - clothes that fit!   I still get delighted and amazed each time I discover something new like this :)

Here's a sneak peak at the material that will be used.  It has sheer bits - the left side is placed over white fabric; the right side has black fabric underneath.   I'll muslin the sleeves tonight, and if all goes well with them, it should sew up very quickly :)

Oh goodie, it's so nice to be back in the sewing room, and back in the blogging world as well.  And even though I haven't been commenting much on your blogs, I've at least been skimming to try to sort of kind of keep up - know that I've been thinking of you. :)