This Is Not The Face Of Happy. Shirt hanging weird.

[beautifulcreature]

So. I'm posting more here lately rather than lurking obsessive like. At one point I saw an obnoxious orange floral in mom's fabric stash. I said SO COOL. She said I'd never make and wear something from it. I said THROW DOWN I'll be wearing an orange floral Something one of these days and so began the mission... I never got around to finishing it so tonight I was down and thought I'd try to finish one of the dozens of ziplock baggies of WIPS this is what I pulled out. OK. back story complete...
No, the problem isn't the glaring orange floral, or the idea that I thought it would look GREAT with a purple top part,or the way the fleece sweats really set it off, nor the fact that I need to clean up my apartment, or that it looks like I'm in desperate need of botox, that's just the look of WTF happened to my top.
It hangs weird and gapes in front, I've tried pinning it different ways, I've tried getting it to hang on me different ways but it slips back to the gaping front position.
Did I just cut the yoke too large/wide? are my shoulders freakishly narrow? I'm not sure what's going on. any tips would be appreciated. I think the body is ok. and that it's the yoke that's the problem. but i'm not sure. basically. HELP. this is not the face of happy wearing the shirt:/ do not like the big ol' gaping front:/

[knottie]

I'd tend to agree that the yoke is the problem.  Have you tried pinning it in at the shoulders to see if that lessens the gaping?  That's what I'd try first.  Pin baste it, then if it looks better, redo the shoulder seams.

Is the yoke one layer or two?  Interfaced at all?

[SewnMemaw]

The same thing happened to me,I made one from a McCalls pattern and the best thing to do is take it apart and cut the yoke down a little about a 1/2",then reattach it. Take up the shoulders a little more also.Hope this helps![/bSometimes these patterns are made larger than it's supposed to be.Baste it back together and try it on to see if it fits right before you sew it  up again.Good luck ]

[Ambimom]

A sewing teacher explained this phenomenon to me once, but for the life of me I can't remember the solution.  It has something to do with cutting the yoke on the bias, rather than on the straight of grain.

Here's an idea.  Why don't you remove the yoke.  Gather the top and bottom of the yoke, maybe with elastic thread in the bobbin, and resew? 

[beautifulcreature]

Heyya, thank you lotsandlots. The whole thing is basted together right now... Very glad I took the time to baste this and try it on, I don't usually. I wasn't too sure about how it was going to go together I tried repinning multiple ways...  some ways it hung uhm. farther apart on my shoulders but you can tell it's not suppose to because the whole thing slides in, from off my shoudlers towards my neck and regapes.  it's two layers, not interfaced.

here's where I confess, I had issues with following the pattern, and didnt do it properly. and I learned my lesson for at least the next week and will follow patterns more carefully.. Thing is, I assembled the yoke, front and back, incorrectly.. and made it smaller than it should have been<between overly wide seam allowances and other wrong assembly problems> So I expected it to actually be too small and was surprised when it was too large.

I like the idea of next time cutting on the bias. :>

ok, read everyone's posts. tried another round of repinning at shoulders and the best I can do is to get it to sit farther apart on my shoulders and not gape and as soon as I move the yoke comes closer to the neck. and it regapes. I tried running some stitches through the middle 1/3rd of the front yoke and making gathers.. it's already pleated in the body so it looks pretty funny once I start making even more gathers but that is the problem. the whole yoke's just too wide so... going to take apart the basting, take out some of the width of the front yoke, I think the back is ok, and it's all the front, and try repinning til I get a better fit and then make a new pattern piece from the refit yoke... and make a note to cut it on the bias because that should also help the material hold it's shape, right? and be less drapey?

Sorry, I talk babble. alot. There's so manymany parts to sewing. there's having some vision of what you want in the first place. construction technique. fitting technique. knowing your materials.. god only knows what else. It seems like anything really fun somehow ends up being an art, science, and coin toss with fate half the time. thanks for your help and patience:>:>

I'm wishing there was a sort of tutorial of quick cheat fixes, like the gathering to get the yoke to fit part. ya know? "if it gapes here and you ran out of fabric and can't cut a new piece try- gathering, pleating, ruching, tweakinginwhateverw ay" there are fit books and tutorials online about getting the proper fit but a sort of cheat list of- ok, you've gotten this far, it's not fitting right, you can't start over, you want it to fit right, now what? kind of thing... hmm. maybe it exists and I just missed it.

[squid777]

Sorry to be off topic. It seems you have some solutions already. I just wanted to tell you that I am green with envy over the luscious walls of your dwelling. I was just telling my sister-in-law last night how I would love it if I could paint my walls that color. (stupid rental)

[elijor]

I think you've got it figured out - it is too wide. The only way to fix that is going to be take the yoke off and make it narrower. I doubt you will be able to re-cut the yoke you have so you would need to cut a new one if you have enuf fabric left or make a center seam on the one you have there. Even if you are going to cut a new yoke I would use the old one to work with in getting the correct fit. You should be able to take the yoke off and pin the center front so that it lays flat. Use that to cut a new one or make a seam where you pinned it. Of course you will need to make the pleats on the bottom part a little deeper to fit it back onto the yoke.