The Men's coat

I just recovered from an nasty surprise, while preparing my sleeves and the armholes of my Tweed overcoat:

Originally, my armholes measured around 19 3/4" - after the first fitting and the subsequent modifications, this increased to 20 1/2".

Whilst measuring my armholes for Ep. 36 "prepping the sleeves", I measured 22 1/2" and 23 1/4", while my sleeves measured at 21".

Panic ensued! (I did have enough cloth left to recut the sleeves, but then I would have to tell my daughter she wouldn't get her Christmas dress...) I re-measured the armhole from seam to seam and realised the cloth had started stretching, especially where the cut was on the bias! During fitting, re-fitting and the finishing steps, the armholes and parts of the bodycanvas had slowly started to stretch.

I fixed it by using the "pulling" stitch around the complete armhole, regaining the lost fullness of the Tweed. Tweed is quite forgiving, so with one round of pulling the fullness back in, I brought the armhole circumference back to roughly 20 1/2".

I'll make sure to apply some "stay-stitching" around the armholes next time I'm working with Tweed!