u/AthenasTrial

Hi,

I'm tackling a new project to learn from.

I have a dress about a size or two too large for me that I can wear just fine cause the waist is tightened with a ribbon. But: the sleeves are set in for people who don't raise there arms beyond a handshake. I'd like to grab my mug from the upper kitchen shelves without the waist if the dress trying to get over my bust, tyvm.

So lacking fabric for a gusset, I've decided I want to try taking in the side seam so I can raise the armescye, then lower the sleeve cap to adjust for the smaller armescye and reset the sleeve.

My questions is: how much ease do I need to keep in the bust in order to keep moving freely without straining seems in this non-stretch fabric?​​ (Googled ease and several websites it kept going on about lowering armscyes when adding ease, so I immediately lost faith that these sources were the right place to learn from - I want my armscyes raised, I want to use my arms!)

I posted before in r/SewingForBeginners, but the suggestion I got there was to just slash the sleeves, and I'm not looking for the easiest fix, I'm looking for one that allows me to do practice something new. Especially since sleeves not set for movement is somewhat common in ready made clothes and I'd like to learn how to adjust that in my current wardrobe where possible.

Hi,

I've got a dress with sleeves that are set in to look good when my arms are down. When I lift my arms, the entire garment is lifted. If I lift my arms above my shoulders the sleeves strain against it.

I do not have the fabric to add a gusset. But: this is a size 44/46 and I usually wear 40/42. So I think I can take it in to raise the armscye. Then I can lower the sleeve cap to have the same length as the tighter armscye and have a sleeve that's more pointing to the side than down. Plus the higher armscye should give me more movement as well, right now the armscye is somewhere between my bust and my underbust.​

Now I'm rather new to sewing, and I'd like to know: how much ease do I need to account for to not make this non-stretch 44/46 dress too tight for my 40/42 moving body?

I do not mean to do heavy lifting in it or anything, but I'd like to be able to take stuff from the upper kitchencabinet shelves.

Google has not been very helpful, because everything about ease is telling me to lower armscyes, while I want to raise my armscye, but maybe I'm not using the right terms when searching.

I think right now I have about 8 cm of ease on either side. (It's hard to tell, because the entire garment moves up as soon as I lift my arm to anything above a 60° angle, so when I lift an arm to make space to pince the fabric, it's basically already distorted.)