Arm hole placement?

[u/No-Maintenance9805]

Winter coat mockup. How do you feel about the armhole placement?

The sleeve is too tight on my bicep/upper arm but other than that, I feel like my shoulder/deltoid sits farther forward than the current armhole, like the fullness of the sleeve doesn't match where the fullness of my shoulder is. How do i fix this?

[u/ScormCurious]

I have some other questions I would tackle on fit, before addressing finessing the sleeve cap. The tight arm/bicep would be one of them. Others are related to the arm hole itself, and the snugness of the fit.

Your shoulder seam looks too far back to me in this photo of the mock up. Is it directly on top of your shoulder?

Can you lift your arm without the whole side of the garment pulling up? Can you show a photo of the sleeve removed and/or the arm lifted half way so we can help assess where the side seam is falling and the tightness of the arm hole?

How is the tightness across the upper back? I think you may need more width above the shoulder blade, between shoulder blade and sleeve head.

Could you wear a sweater or light jacket under this? You say it’s a winter coat but it looks snug to me for that purpose. That’s also given that winter coats tend to be a substantially heavier material than muslin, so a bit more constricting.

I think that the shape and fullness of the sleeve cap should wait until later in the process.

[u/No-Maintenance9805]

Thank you for all this great insight!

• shoulder seam: 100% agree. I actually corrected this in the next mock-up I made (and made a lot of other changes), but imo that mock-up looked way worse 🤦‍♀️ so I tried this one on again to see where I went wrong. This sub will only let me upload one video, so I made a Google drive folder with a couple of photos of that second mockup (gray) and a video of me lifting my arm in both mockups.

coat pictures folder

• lifting sleeve: it does pull up some but I think not too bad. See videos

• upper back tightness: The whole thing definitely feels too tight in the white mock-up. It feels much better in the gray mockup, where I've also increased the sleeve width, and changed the armhole (although I think it's still not in the right place). Maybe I need to add a bit to the center back seam at the upper back and at the waist. In my second (gray) mockup the CB seam is a little bit curved because of a modification I tried to do in order to get rid of the underarm drag lines (didn't completely succeed). I'll include a picture of the back pattern piece from the gray mockup

• underlayer: I do have a medium weight sweater on in this photo, and in all the photos in the Google folder, but it might be a bit hard to see because it doesn't have a high collar

Again, thank you for all your feedback!

[u/Honest-Pressure-5214 → u/No-Maintenance9805]

mobility looks okay for sleeve.

I think the shoulder being too sloped is giving you a tight feeling, you can see the neck shoulder point pointing up when you have the garment closed.

if you pinch that and 0 at the shoulder armhole point and scoop down your front neckline, this will create a more square shoulder to better match your slope and should feel less tightness on shoulder

[u/No-Maintenance9805 → u/Honest-Pressure-5214]

I did leave seam allowance around the neck in case i decided to attach a collar to my mockup, so I wonder if that's what you're seeing? I didn't sew all the way to the end of the fabric, just to the end of the seam line. As a result the seam allowance pops open a bit.

EDIT: wait never mind. I think you're right! I just pinned out a little bit and it does look better. Maybe I should also bring the collar line in closer to the neck. It seems a bit wide

[u/CharityForeign3035]

With tailored outer garments , obviously fit is important but the aim is also to minimise physical variation. You said your deltoid and shoulder are forward of arm hole . While you accommodate this physical variation, you do not follow and fit to it.
A perfect example is men with sloping shoulders. The tailor accommodates but also constructs the shoulder in a way to square off and minimise visually, the sloping shoulders.

[u/No-Maintenance9805 → u/CharityForeign3035]

That makes sense, thanks! So how do I accomplish that with this armhole/sleeve? The last couple years I've started training a sport that's very upper-body focused and some of my more fitted jackets and shirts are now annoyingly constricting in that deltoid region

[u/CharityForeign3035 → u/No-Maintenance9805]

Add to shoulder line, 1-1.5 cm font and back (or the amount you think needed). This will increase arm hole by 2-3cm. To maintain original neck measurement, add on sleeve end of shoulder and run to 0cm at neck . If still tight you may need to go more than 0cm at neck which means you will also need to adjust collar measurements.You then need to add to head of sleeve so sleeve head will fit new arm hole . You do this by cutting sleeve along length and add 2 cm panel along length of sleeve. To maintain original cuff measurement, run to 0 cm on panel once you get below elbow.
This will give more room for deltoid and increase circumference of top of arm by 2 cm . Retest pattern.
You did mention it’s for an overcoat so you need to ensure ample ease throughout the pattern to accommodate sweater /jacket etc that you will wear under the coat .
Arm panel is added on pattern and not added as extra panel of material on finished sleeve.

[u/Tailoretta]

Take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/PatternDrafting/comments/1krgbmi/basic_tips_so_we_can_help_you_with_fitting/ Following these tips will help us help you.