How to Make a Broad Upper Back Adjustment

Have you ever found it difficult to move your arms when you make a garment with a close fitting bodice, or just felt that the upper back was strained and tight? If so, you may need to make a broad upper back adjustment to your pattern. There are a few indicators that this adjustment may be of benefit to you. Do you find....

• Tightness across the upper back?
• Difficulty raising your arms up 90 degrees or more to the body?
• Tightness at the front of the sleeve?
• A high armscye (armhole) that seems too small? 

I've been making this adjustment for a while, and have mentioned it on my blog before, however I thought I should finally get around to showing how it's done as I don't think it's one of the more common adjustments although I'm sure I'm not the only one with this issue. It really was a huge source of frustration to me until I got it sorted out so I hope this will help someone else.

I'll show you 2 ways to make the adjustment. The first requires less alteration of the pattern pieces but adds a smaller amount of width: 

Method One: Adding On

Add width following the line of the armscye on the back pattern piece only. As a guide, I pivot out from the sleeve notch and would try a distance of 1/4" or 3/8" at the top first of all. A French Curve is helpful for this but you can freehand it too.

If required you can also add to the sleeve piece. You follow the curve of the back of the sleeve head to add width, going from the centre to the end of the sleeve piece. You can see from my adjustment that on this pattern I made two attempts at adding width, the first indicated by the red arrow and the second by the green arrow.

Make sure you add only to the back part of the sleeve, which is usually indicated by double notches. 

Method Two: Slash and Spread

This method involves more cutting and reassembling of the pattern piece but allows you to add more width.

Cut a section vertically from the centre point of the shoulder and across about 1 1/2"/2" under the armhole, and move out. You may need to use a bit of trial and error on this. I moved about 1" which will add 2" total to the back. This seems like a lot but on some patterns I really needed this extra width.

You will need to add to the side seam too, to graduate it back in to the body, as indicated below.

What you must bear in mind is that this method will add width to the back shoulder seam and it won't match up with the front seam. You will need to add a dart at the back shoulder to rectify this. Again, you might need to see what works for you but I found that a 3" long dart, the width of the added section, was perfect.

This method is great if you are broad only in the upper back. If you are generally broad in the back, you can just slash all the way down vertically from shoulder seam to garment hem which saves having to graduate in at the side.

Result = Freedom!!! You'll be able to move your arms and not feel as if your seams are straining!

 Image source

You can see that my alterations were made on a pdf pattern which has been printed on regular thickness paper so it's easy to add on paper pieces. You may wish to use an appropriate weight paper if making additions onto regular pattern tissue or ideally trace the pattern piece to make adjustments and then once you're sure you've got them right, retrace a lovely new piece.

I found that this type of adjustment took a bit of trial and error to find out exactly how much to add. On this pattern shown, I ended up using all three types of adjustment.

I hope that's clear - let me know in the comments or by email if you have any questions.

I'm linking this up with Sew Grateful Week at My Happy Sewing Place.

K x