Balance

[Kiem]

The thing I can't quite figure out is wether adding front balance AND back balance is possible or sometimes necessary while fitting a garment.
I hope this makes sense.

Lets say I add 2 cm front balance and 2 cm back balance. Does this cancel each other out? Or does this only change the armhole depth? Or maybe this does change how the garment falls on the body?
And does it matter wether you change the balance through the shoulders or through the side seam?

[Schneiderfrei]

Kiem, it would be the kind of thing you might need if the person was narrow waisted with big development in the chest.

Alternatively, the person may be somewhat stooped as well as with a protruding chest?

That would be a situation that deviates from the proportional model of the draft.  I.e. means that the proportional model is less developed that the person you have. You have to account for that difference.  so there is a longer length of cloth required over the distance from neck point to centre front waist as well as centre back than the orignal draft.

There might also be a wider back, to measure and add in as well.

It is going to be important to measure these amounts.  AND to judge where to put the bigest part of the expansion.

G

[posaune]

Kiem which system do you use?
I can only answer for Rundschau: the balance for a (normal) shirt is determined through the Rh (back height, measured) called At. The front length is in the proportional draft At = Rh (+ ease) - 1 cm. This is the balance value for a shirt. If you add it to Rh the armhole will be deeper. And sure this can change the fall of the garment.
Think of a seesaw: if you put on each side the same weight in the same distance from the center the seesaw bar will stay level. It is in balance
If you do a Corpulent draft the balance will be smaller because of the slant of the Centerfront and depends from the Bu-Tu difference. 
lg
posaune

[Kiem]

I use mostly drafts from modern tailor outfitter clothier.
For shirts I use a draft from Die Gewand Sammlung, which I compared and looks pretty much just like rundschau.

I needed a break from shirts so I am playing around with a waistcoat.
Trying to implement the forward shoulder alteration I learned in my shirt thread on the forum and comparing some drafts to find out why one works and the other doesn't and how to understand both better to make them both work.  Some studying I guess.

reason I was asking is because it sometimes seems I need back balance to go over my blades based on some creases, but on every side picture the front balance looks really short. I think I figured out why the back creases are there, has to do with short front balance pulling things out of place and waist suppression in the wrong place.
The creases threw me off. Everytime I add back balance to a garment I have to then pin that away because the back gets messy, but I figured I might have missed something.

Another thing is that, when looking at this picture:



It seems that adding the same amount of balance to both front and back nothing really changes except armhole depth.

[pfaff260]

You could try this:
https://www.muellerundsohn.com/shop/haka-schnittaufstellung-grundwissen/
It teaches you how to draft basic drafts.

[posaune]

 If you add 2cm to Rh in the Rundschau draft it will drop the Armhole - because it is automatically added to the At.

In the shown example  you shift the pattern against each other. With stooped posture the backheight (Rh) will now be longer and the back armhole too, the front stays. The hem of back will be higher. (This method you do too when you have already cut the garment and have enough inlay around shoulder and neck) And you shift the neckpoint!
sometimes when the balance is of, the front (or the back) are stealing length from the opposite.
lg
posaune

[Petruchio]

I thought this might be a great topic to "chime" in with some balance related questions of my own. I was musing about the different possibilities of adding balance and what it does to the rest of the shirt since I'm currently having some issues with that.

Now, I made a little sketch with some possibilities (sorry for the bad drawings). The first method is the pivoting method posaune was suggesting a while ago. You slash the pattern horizontally to the armhole, pivot it open and make a new CF (green). This, I think, is the best method so far, since it leaves the armhole intact and I think provides necessary changes to the neckhole as well. On the downside it shortens the Av-line the more you add to the front. The question is if you can add to the chest afterwards since it seems to me that a lack of front balance often occurs with an overly errect posture, meaning you would need actually more width in the chest than in the back?  I also tried a different method, whereby you avoid taking from the chest by also slashing  perpendicularly from the the shoulder seam to the chest. Here the neckhole would stay the same (which is a downside I guess) and the shoulder line will be elongated, which you could easily alter.

Now, I'm not sure if I'm at all correct with this observations. I add a picture of my rundschau book on alterations and hope I don't get into trouble for it, but it seems to me, that this is essantially the method posaune was suggesting, but since it is a jacket there wouldn't be any problems with the chest width.

[peterle]

Kiem, to give you the answer you are looking for: Yes, addding the same amount to back and front balance will just deepen the armhole but doesn´t have an influence wether the garments swings to the forwards or backwards at the hem.
Schneiderfrei pointed out why this could be necessary.

But I have some tips for you:
Mark your chest line and waist line on your garment for fitting, You will see wether it is horizontal all around or not.
Take your balance measures( you need another person for this). You can measure the armhole depth, the front and back balance and compare it to your pattern.

Lookin at your side view pics I´m pretty sure your problem lies below the chest line. Your belly is swinging forward i.e. Your belly protrudes your chest in the profile. Your whole waist ring is shifted forwards compared to the norm figure. Thus the diagonal distance from the belly to the shoulder blades is longer than in the norm figure. Your hip ring on the other side seems to be in the norm position. When you try to correct this shortness by adding back balance you will produce problems in the hip area causing folds in the back.

The recipe is to shift the waist ring in your pattern forward also, wich means the belly point of your pattern will protrude the chest point (try 1,5cm). This will result in a center front line wich is not straight anymore. This is OK in a waistcoat; the CF will run slightley slanted from the chest point to the belly point and then vertical. A shirt on the other side needs a straight CF, so you have to draw a new CF from the neckpoint through the belly point. It will be straight but not  right angled to the horizontal lines anymore.

[Kiem]

Kiem, to give you the answer you are looking for: Yes, addding the same amount to back and front balance will just deepen the armhole but doesn´t have an influence wether the garments swings to the forwards or backwards at the hem.
Schneiderfrei pointed out why this could be necessary.

But I have some tips for you:
Mark your chest line and waist line on your garment for fitting, You will see wether it is horizontal all around or not.
Take your balance measures( you need another person for this). You can measure the armhole depth, the front and back balance and compare it to your pattern.

Lookin at your side view pics I´m pretty sure your problem lies below the chest line. Your belly is swinging forward i.e. Your belly protrudes your chest in the profile. Your whole waist ring is shifted forwards compared to the norm figure. Thus the diagonal distance from the belly to the shoulder blades is longer than in the norm figure. Your hip ring on the other side seems to be in the norm position. When you try to correct this shortness by adding back balance you will produce problems in the hip area causing folds in the back.

The recipe is to shift the waist ring in your pattern forward also, wich means the belly point of your pattern will protrude the chest point (try 1,5cm). This will result in a center front line wich is not straight anymore. This is OK in a waistcoat; the CF will run slightley slanted from the chest point to the belly point and then vertical. A shirt on the other side needs a straight CF, so you have to draw a new CF from the neckpoint through the belly point. It will be straight but not  right angled to the horizontal lines anymore.

That makes perfect sense, thanks you for the explanation.
Thinking about it now, my protruding belly pulls the side waist line forward, and therefore creating a false sense of too much waist supression, I think this might cause those creases that I mistaken for lack of back balance.

I have tried doing a balance measurement by myself.

I found the finished neck point and marked that on a shirt. I pinned a measuring tape right on that mark at 50 cm (so I have 50cm to measure forward and backwards).
They I made sure the waistband of my trousers was nice and horizontal on the body and measured with the tape over the blades and chest to the waistband.

I realize this is hardly as accurate as it should be.

[Kiem]

I posted below everything I have gathered on balance. Some things are found on this forum already, others I found somewhere else.










There is some info on balance measuring and implementing into a pattern here aswell.

http://movsd.com/BespokeCutter/index.php?action=post;topic=916.0;last_msg=6807

[peterle]

Petruchio, when considering balance problems you have to keep two things apart:
First the balance itself: The question is: is the relation between back balance and front balance right, so the chest line is horizontal all around? In this situation "Balance" means the vertical measure from the neck tips to the chest line. When the chest line is too high you ´ve to add the missing amount evenly across the pattern from armhole to armhole.
Second the armhole tightness: Due to the protruding character of the chest (and bosom) the pattern needs more length in the center area than at the armhole, so with a straight pattern the fabric will always be looser at the arm than at the center of the body. In women´s wear this difference is higher so there is a chest dart in the pattern. In men´s wear the difference is less and we try to get away without a chest dart although we would need one. There are a ton of methods to reach a tight armhole in a lounge or waist coat: a crooked shoulder, a hidden lapel dart, keeping the lapel line short by sewing in a tightened ribbon ecc. All this methods work, because a coat doesn´t have a straight center front doesn´t close high to the neck and the fabric takes ironwork. But it doesnt´t work for high closed garments with a straight center line and it works limited for cottons and linnen.

That´s why shirts and shirt like jackets can´t have a tight armhole.

You should try the pivoting of your second sketch in a real halve scale paper. It will have a step in the center front line and a kink in the shoulder line. How would you deal with them and with dhe shoulder dart?

[Petruchio]

Petruchio, when considering balance problems you have to keep two things apart:
First the balance itself: The question is: is the relation between back balance and front balance right, so the chest line is horizontal all around? In this situation "Balance" means the vertical measure from the neck tips to the chest line. When the chest line is too high you ´ve to add the missing amount evenly across the pattern from armhole to armhole.
Second the armhole tightness: Due to the protruding character of the chest (and bosom) the pattern needs more length in the center area than at the armhole, so with a straight pattern the fabric will always be looser at the arm than at the center of the body. In women´s wear this difference is higher so there is a chest dart in the pattern. In men´s wear the difference is less and we try to get away without a chest dart although we would need one. There are a ton of methods to reach a tight armhole in a lounge or waist coat: a crooked shoulder, a hidden lapel dart, keeping the lapel line short by sewing in a tightened ribbon ecc. All this methods work, because a coat doesn´t have a straight center front doesn´t close high to the neck and the fabric takes ironwork. But it doesnt´t work for high closed garments with a straight center line and it works limited for cottons and linnen.

That´s why shirts and shirt like jackets can´t have a tight armhole.

You should try the pivoting of your second sketch in a real halve scale paper. It will have a step in the center front line and a kink in the shoulder line. How would you deal with them and with dhe shoulder dart?

Thanks, Peterle. That makes perfect sense. Acutally I tried the second sketch already. The step in the center front was rather small, so I just made a new CF and straightend out the shoulder by just cutting away the kink, but I'm not at all convinced by this method. The problem I had, was that I had to add about 8cm to the front, thereby altering the neckhole significantly and also cutting away a lot at the chest area following the first method. So my question really is, how to alter the balance when you must add a significantly amount at either back or front?

[peterle]

You had to increase the front balance for 8cm? That is incredibly much, and I think there is probably a different issue. When fitting mark the chest line and concentrate on a horizontal run. Also take the armhole depth, the back balance and the front balance measures, and compare them to your pattern.
The rule of thumb is, when the imbalance of front and back is bigger, you should distribute it by increasing the one and decreasing the other. Don´t pivot, add length evenly across the front part.
When you cut away things there are usually different possibilities and each one does have a different impact. When you cut away the kink, it will decrease the angle of neckhole and shoulder seam, wich will cause new issues. When you cut the center front it will decrease the chest width and changes the neckhole/cf angle. it also gets slanted. a lot of unwanted impacts. Just add the balance evenly, and live with the looser armhole.

[posaune]

I support Peterle. 8 cm is (too) much. In the pics where you show your shirt I do not see this.
lg
posaune

[Petruchio]

I measured the balance according to the article on the "Problemfigur" with the weighted tape measure from Rundschau. Since I thought 8 cm might be too much I just added 6 cm by taking out 3cm at the back and adding 3cm to the front, all of this by the pivoting method. So the pictures on this forum are all after this balance alteration. Only after posting it on the forum I added another 2cm, this time only to the front.