I like all the style choices of the classic blouse, but prefer a more extended shoulder and wearing small shoulder pads to balance my "ample" hips. After making a casual blouse and liking the broader shoulder, I blended the casual shoulders to the next few classic garments I made. This was good, if time consuming, but the results almost a little TOO broad! I was getting some wrinkling in the shoulder area. Then Belinda from Australia printed to the PMB chat list her directions for extending the shoulders and slope measurements to create a shoulder line with more moving room in it. I adopted her directions to achieve my goal-a shoulder line that is partway between classic and casual. I tried it, I liked it! The blouses and jackets since the first of the year have utilized my "Extended Shoulder Measurements". Here are the directions from Belinda.
This finally dawned on me while trying to work out why RTW blouses were comfortable and my PMB blouses weren't. As I have a D-cup bust RTW blouses are always too big through the shoulders as I buy a larger size in order for the blouse to do up over my bust. This means the shoulder seam is technically too long (or extended), therefore the sleeve is slightly dropped giving me more room to move.
So I created a second set of measurements adding 0.375" to my shoulder length, 0.75" (2 x 0.375") to both my Front Shoulder Width and Back Shoulder Width plus 0.125" to both my Front and Back Shoulder Slopes. This gives me a *slightly* extended shoulder line adding extra width to the front and back of the blouse. As I had extended the shoulder seam I also dropped the sleeve cap height -0.5" giving me a wider sleeve and lowered the armhole depth 0.5". This is all it took. I had all the reaching and driving room I needed. The whole shoulder and sleeve area had been freed up.
The classic blouse style at the defaults is a fitted garment. Think something to wear to a party where all you do is stand and chat. To wear this style everyday you need to add wearing ease, not at the bust as this only gives you excess fabric under the arms, but through the shoulders and sleeves. Extending the length of the shoulder seam and dropping the sleeve cap height adds this wearing ease.
That's my two cents,
HTH, Belinda. Melbourne, Australia