One of the unique designs of the Freya Shirt is the yoke that goes from mid armscye in the front, over the shoulder, to mid armscye in the back. Due to that the shirt doesn't have a shoulder seam, so I wanted to make a guide of how to make a narrow and broad shoulder adjustment.
GET THE FREYA SHIRT PATTERN HERE
How do you know if you need a narrow or broad shoulder adjustment?
- First you need to identify where your low shoulder point is. This is where your shoulder meets the arm. If you lift your arm you can find an indent forming past the shoulder tip bone. This is your low point shoulder.
- You may need a narrow shoulder adjustment if the armscye seam hangs far past your low point shoulder. It may look like or feel like the shoulders are too wide.
- You may need a broad shoulder adjustment if the armscye seam lies too high on the shoulder, and the seam is above the low shoulder point. The garment may feel tight across the front and/or back and you have horizontal draglines across the upper chest and/or back.
Note that the Freya shirt is oversized and therefore has a dropped shoulder of about 4 cm (1,5") past your low point shoulder. If you don't need a shoulder adjustment based on the above reasons, you can still make one if you want to move the armscye seam for your personal preference.
Preparing the yoke piece
Draw a line on the yoke piece to mark the seam line at the armscye (seam allowance is 1,5 cm (5/8")). Draw a line between the shoulder notches and cut and separate the yoke at the shoulder line.
Draw line 1 and 2 as illustrated on the picture below on both the front and back yoke pieces.
Cut lines, leaving a hinge at the seam line.
Making the shoulder adjustment
Following, the broad shoulder adjustment will be shown to the left and narrow shoulder adjustment to the right in the pictures.
Broad shoulder adjustment: Spread the pattern and increase the width of the shoulder with the desired amount you want to increase the shoulder width with. Add paper underneath and tape in place.
Narrow shoulder adjustment: Overlap the pattern and decrease the width of the shoulder with the desired amount you want to decrease the shoulder width with. Add paper underneath and tape in place.
Draw a line from the high point shoulder to the new low point shoulder on the pattern and tape the yoke pattern back together at the new armscye line.
You may end up with points at the shoulder after the adjustment. If you do, re-draw the curve to make it smooth.
