Fiber Mood Norma Blouse

For me, fitting shirts are just as tricky as fitting pants. I have an excellent fit for my everyday t-shirts with a modified Union St pattern, but I’ve struggled to get a decent fit in a woven pattern. When the Norma blouse didn’t fit, instead of altering, I ended up drafting a pattern from my measurements. What I am showing with this post is the difference between my self-drafted pattern and the Norma blouse and how to modify the Norma blouse to make it look like my self-drafted pattern.

Sizing

For the comparison between my self-drafted pattern and the Norma blouse, I will use size 14. That’s the size I would choose if I were going to make the pattern.

Front Pattern Piece

Armhole

If you follow me on Instagram (handmadephd), you’ll know that I worked through many muslins, and the only way I could remove the gaping at the front armhole is to do this alteration. I cut from the armhole to my bust point but didn’t cut through the bust point. I cut another line vertical from my hem to the bust point, again making sure not to cut through the bust point. I was then able to overlap the amount I needed at the armhole while simultaneously spreading at the hem. I had to redraw my armhole, shown in red.

This alteration raises the armhole to remove the gap and moves the dart to the hemline. I could have moved the dart to the side seam and created an actual bust dart, but I tried to draft a pattern with no darts.