Sometimes making a pattern to fit over your bust is frustrating. You may have the perfect rayon twill or sateen for the job, but ill-fitting moments are still

There are a ton of reasons why you might need to shorten, or lengthen a waistline. You may have a favorite cotton shirting dress shirt that could use a little

I've had quite a few emails asking for fitting help so I'm going to delve into some common fitting adjustments here on the blog. If you have a question that isn't covered, throw it into the comments so other people can benefit from the hive mind! It's clearly your lucky day as I turned pictures of me in my bathing suit into drawings for illustrative purposes. This shows my underbust line, high waist line, low waist line, and an entirely accurate belly button. Although I am slimmer towards my underbust, the intended seam line of the pattern (The Zone) falls around the high waist (if it was at the underbust it would become empire line which might indeed be cute but is not how I designed it). Like a lot of people that may or may not have had children, things become 'less streamlined' below my high waist so the seam falling above and the drape of the skirt should skim over that and be more flattering. How do you find your Zone? When drafting for grown-ups, there's no way to make a golden pattern that will fit everyone without adjustments. Not only are people different heights and sizes, but the distribution of their body parts varies wildly. The good news is that the Skater Dress only has one really important horizontal seam- the bodice / skirt seam. I am very short-waisted (that's actual me to the left), but I manipulated the pictures to show different torso builds for a proportional waist and a long waist. This is nothing to do with your overall height, but proportions. Although the busts are identical and the underbust lines even, the high waists and low waists shift incrementally. The standard pattern pieces for the Lady Skater are for the proportional waist in the middle, which means that even I have to make changes to my own pattern to fit me better! If you have experience of making adult clothes for yourself, you probably have a good idea of your body type but if you're new to this a really useful exercise is to do just as I have: take a photo of yourself in your bathing suit or tight fitting clothes and trace around it. Find your underbust, high waist, low waist, and hip lines and look at how they are distributed. If you're still having having trouble conceptionalising, here are some (fast and loose) indications that you might have to tinker with your bodice length: Your overall height. The pattern is graded for a 5'5" woman. If you are shorter than 5'5" or taller than 5'5" you will probably need to utilise the lengthen / shorten line on the bodice. Your torso proportions. Again, this takes some body awareness and experience, but if you are short or long waisted you will need to adjust the bodice piece to remove or add height. Bust size. This is the least important factor of the three but if you are of the small to average bust you might need to shorten your bodice as less of the fabric is being used to go up and over the breasts. Equally, very large busts might need to add length to the front bodice piece / remove length from the back bodice to have an evenly hanging hemline. Bodice length adjustments might be something that you're able to do to the pattern before sewing, but you might find that locating your Zone is only achievable after muslining the bodice. If you've made the bodice and tried it on, is it hitting you at your high (natural) waist? Is it too close to your underbust? Is it clinging or pooling somewhere closer to your low waist because it's too long? Lengthening your bodice This is probably the most straight-forward change to make! All you need to do is split the pattern all the way across the lengthen line, add height with a piece of paper underneath, and smooth your side seams. The grey section is what you've added. Make sure you do the same change to your front and back bodice. Shortening your bodice Split your bodice along the shorten line, pull the bottom section up so that it overlaps with the top section (keeping the fold line aligned), and then smooth out your side seam. The grey section shows the overlap. Make sure you do the same change to your front and back bodice. I'm happy with my front bodice length but my back bodice is hanging lower / I'm having pooling centre back: As per my tutorial instructions, I highly recommend that you muslin the bodice before cutting precious hoarded fabric. When you make the bodice to ascertain if the waistline is hitting 'The Zone', you might notice when turning sideways that the back bodice is hanging lower than the front. Or- you might not notice until your final dress is finished and you want to know how to fix it. Uneven hems can be very common, particularly if you're busty. Now, I did a sway back adjustment to every size of the master pattern to try to counteract this but your own proportions might mean that you need to make further adjustments. Like the lengthen and shorten instructions above, what you need to do is slash your pattern along the lengthen / shorten line but do not cut through your size line on the side seam, only cut very close to it. Swing the lower section upwards so that you are overlapping the upper section at the centre back. This probably won't need to be a huge overlap (3/4" to 1"), and tape in place. The centre edge of the lower section will swing over the vertical fold line. Return this line to vertical and (if required) add the same amount of width that you removed at the centre vertical to the side seam. The sway back adjustment is essentially taking a wedge out of centre back to reduce pooling, nothing else is changing in a major way. Depending on how much you removed, you might need to smooth your bottom seam line so it's convex rather than a harsh angle. If you only found this pooling after your entire dress was complete, try it on inside out and with the help of a friend pull the back bodice / skirt seam up until the hem is even and pin in place. Seam-rip along the centre back (the side seams should be unaffected), remove the excess to the back bodice piece and re-sew. If you find pooling both at the front and the back your bodice is too long. My high bust and waist aren't the same sizes: When you are measuring your high bust and high waist, you might find that your high bust corresponds to a different size than your waist. The above picture shows smoothing the side seam between smaller bust / larger waist and larger bust / smaller waist. When blending sizes, the majority of the extra room happens in the bust where its needed. Depending on your fabric choice and your cup size, you might find that you need more room in the bust only. Using a fabric with less stretch capacity like interlock or jersey without lycra might result in a drag line across the full bust. Fixing this is almost the same as blending a larger bust to smaller waist except you're doing it to the front bodice only. Adding extra width to the armhole and upper bodice means that you'll have to also add the same amount to the front sleeve so it fits. If the front bodice side seam becomes slightly longer than the back bodice side seam, ease the extra length into the top half of the seam where the bust is. **EDITED TO ADD ANOTHER ONE BASED ON COMMENTS** Shortening the shoulder height / Upper bust height: If you find that after making a bodice muslin that there is pooling above your bust towards the sleeve hole, or that the sleeve cap is sitting funky off your shoulder cap, you might need to shorten your shoulder height or shoulder width. With your bodice muslin on inside out, pinch the shoulder seam to bring it up and pin out the excess. On your paper pattern, match the amount you pinned out to the corresponding smaller size (for example, if you pinned 1/4" below the shoulder seam you would go down one size to both the front and back bodices, 1/2" goes down two sizes, etc). Use that armscye / sleeve hole but when you get to the side seam increase the width to your original size. In the picture above (as per Lyn's adjustments in the comments!), I'm showing how to use the upper bust and shoulder of a size 3 with the width of the size 6 in the lower bodice. Use the sleeve of the smaller size but add the extra width at the front and back corners to reflect the size of your lower bodice. I hope all of this helps! If you have a question about fitting that I haven't covered, chuck it in the comments. Pin It Tweet

Pattern adjusting is the new trend, and tomorrow will be no different! If you’re tired of seeing the shoulders on your garment fit too tight or too loose,

Have you fallen in love with a pattern, only to find that it doesn’t come in your size? A few ladies told me that Itch to Stitch’s patterns don’t come in their sizes – some are smaller and some are larger than the measurements. Perhaps you have a tween who is not quite big enough to […]

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Learning how to alter a pattern can be a project-saving skill. The key element to a great wardrobe is not the patterns or the prints. A good wardrobe first and foremost consists of pieces that fit well. A perfectly fitting piece can be a miracle worker. With this in mind, we have collected a few key tips on how to alter a pattern and make it fit just right in How to Alter a Sewing Pattern. This is by no means an all-encompassing guide to DIY pattern alteration but it can certainly get you started! Before jumping into the quick tips we have here for adjusting sewing patterns, we will go over several pages that will help you find patterns, understand sewing with patterns better, as well as tips to become a better sewist. Sign Up For More Free Patterns >>> Table of Contents Before Starting: Helpful Resources How to Alter a Pattern for Length How to Alter a Pattern for Width Other Alteration Tips

Helpful tips for pattern alterations and the best tools to get the job done. Learn different techniques to alter patterns.

Download these easy instructions on how to enlarge any pattern, from small templates to your own halfscale designs.

A few days ago, a PR member sent me a PM about altering a forward sleeve. She needed a bit more info, and I thought it would be easier to answer with pictures so I decided to create a tutorial for it. Bear in mind: WHAT I'M ILLUSTRATING IS BODY SPECIFIC FOR MY FIGURE. This may not work on someone else's figure, so it would be prudent to check out my slide show to see if my figure is similar to yours. I'm working off of a 42-year old body with forward shoulders and broad upper back. Long arms, long legs, short waist, rectangular torso with not a whole lot of waist definition, 5' 7" in height, somewhat slender, hollow chest, full bust (propped up most of the time with a Wonder Bra LOL), and narrow shoulders. So, knowing that, let's proceed... TUTORIAL: Altering a Sleeve for Forward Shoulder Step 1 - Alter the bodice. Let's assume it's a 1/2" forward shoulder alteration. Remove 1/2" from the front as shown and add 1/2" in the back as shown. Another option to consider is moving the entire shoulder seam 1/2" forward. In the pic below I'm tapering to 0 at the neckline rather than moving the entire shoulder seam forward. Whatever works best. Step 2 - Examine the sleeve pattern. Most sleeve patterns I see are like the one below and symetrical. If this is the case, the sleeve will need to be altered for a better fit since this draft does not mirror a typical figure. Draw a vertical line from the center of the sleeve cap at the top to the middle of the hem at the bottom. Draw a horizontal line perpendicular to the vertical line across the sleeve right above the notches. Also draw in a hash mark on the horizontal line a 1/2" away from the vertical line toward the front of the sleeve as shown. Step 3 - Cut the pattern on the horizontal line. Move the upper pattern forward a 1/2" so the vertical line on the top piece is aligned with the hash mark. Step 4 - True the cutting lines. Normally I don't true my lines this way except for sleeves. Flatten/true the back as shown, bubble and true the front as shown. The sleeve is now asymetrical reflecting a true body shape. Normally, this would be the end of it, but not for me...what else is new. I measure the SEAMLINE of the front and back of the sleeve separately as shown below. Subtract the seam allowances from your measurements. Then I measure the front and back armholes separately on the bodice pieces. Subtract the seam allowances from these measurements. Now I make comparisons of the front sleeve seamline and front bodice armhole seamline and the back sleeve seamline and back bodice armhole seamline as shown on my "math" sheet below. If there is more than a 1/2" difference, I adjust the sleeve. Usually there is no problem on the back, but there is too much ease on the front to the point where it would look gathered. Therefore, using the above example, the front sleeve has 3/4" excess of fabric over that 1/2" of preferred ease. So I reduce the ease in the front of the sleeve as shown below. Draw a line (shown in green) 3/4" above the horizontal line. Slash the green line and overlap it to the blue line to reduce the ease as shown below. True the cutting line as shown below: And that completes the alteration. I do this for almost every sleeve. I hope this information is helpful to one of my body twins out there.

Hand stitching is an essential sewing skill every sewer should possess and master. This basic sewing skill is still very useful to many advanced projects.

The measurements that matter to me, on the size 12 pattern (that's an Aussie 12) are: 1. Base of armscye, from one side seam to the other is 21"or 53cm 2. Middle of armscye, from edge of sleeve, is 15" or 38cm 3. Across shoulders, from sleeve cap to sleeve cap, is 15.5" or 39cm My body measurements are different, as follows: 1. Base of armscye, from one side seam to the other is 2.5" or 6.4cm less 2. Middle of armscye, from edge of sleeve, is 2.5" or 6.4cm less 3. about the same.

With this simple how to, you can draft your own flutter sleeves. Use them to alter any pattern with a basic bodice to add flutter sleeves.

Bottega Veneta, AW11, Milan. Once you have altered your basic pattern blocks to fit correctly, you will want to be able to change the design of the pattern, while remaining confident that you haven’t made

Someone asked me in this post for a tutorial on bloomers. So here it is :). Step 1: You have to cut two different pieces of cloth. Each one two times. DON'T forget to add 5 cm to your waist measurement, or you won't be able to pull it over your but. And keep in mind that you have to mirror…

How to alter the shoulder width and neckline shape and size of the Cashmerette Concord T-Shirt.

Learn how to successfully fit an armhole by using a muslin. Adjust the bust, back, and shoulder—and your armhole almost takes care of itself.

105, [1] p. 23 cm

For the longest time i’ve wanted to alter the Briar to have a sweeping swing back – and this winter i finally did it! I’m so happy with how this turned out. This is a pretty good example of my winter

Regardless of your body type or size, proper alterations can help transform mediocre-fitting items into garments that flatter your figure and boost your self-confidence. For…

A gaping neckline can be a real pain in your finished dress. So here is how you can fix it: Before you start sewing your pattern you must do this important step - MAKE A TOILE/MUSLIN FIRST of the bodice or dress to nut out any fitting problems. That way there will be no tears at the end and another outfit thrown in the corner because it doesn't fit. Ok, so you've made your Toile - now is the time to try it on and see what fitting problems you have with your pattern. The problem I see for this Toile is the gaping front neckline and also the fitting at the bust. But for this lesson I'll just address the gaping front neckline. All a gaping neckline means is that the across chest is too big for you. So the across chest needs to be taken in. Step 1 pin in the excess fabric at the neckline making sure that you continue this down to nothing. It will end up looking like a dart and it should finish around just above the bust. If it goes lower than the bust almost to the waist - then your problem is that you have chosen a size too big for you. Step 2 Now to transfer that amount of excess to your pattern. Measure down to the point where the excess fabric dart finishes. Mark that on your pattern and square a line out to finish at the seam. Step 3 Now draw a line up to the neckline - say half way between the CF and the shoulder. Measure how much needs to be taken out of the pattern and halve it. Mark that amount on the pattern to the right of the first line at the neckline and draw a line back down to the first point. Step 4 Now fold the dart in and secure with tape. This is the time now to redraw the neckline if it needs it. The same amount of excess needs to also be taken out of the front neck facing. And that's it ladies - I hope this has helped one aspect of making an outfit fit your properly. And now you are ready to make a gorgeous new outfit for yourself.

Denne blog er dedikeret til min store interesse: Kostumer. Både filmkostumer, fantasykostumer og historiske dragter, primært fra middelalderen.

Today is the third installment in the Blackwood Cardigan Sewalong! In case you missed the first few posts, we have covered how to grade between sizes, how to do a quick ‘cheater’ full ... Read More

Hello sew-friends! Today we're talking about how to make a shoulder slope adjustment to your sewing pattern. This is a simple adjustment that makes a BIG difference in the fit of tops, blouses and dresses with a shoulder seam. I didn't discover this fitting adjustment until many years into my sewing

How cute are those amigurumi foxes? The Fox Amigurumi Free Crochet Pattern use split stitch to create a wonderful texture.

Well ladies, I am about to show you a fix for one of the most annoying fitting problems ever. You ready? Pants that feel like they're crotching you to death. You know what I'm talking about. You make a new pair of pants, excitedly try them on, and find that they pull in the front, or you can't sit in them. Grrr!! It's the one thing that can really keep you from getting any fashion mileage out of your newly-sewn creation. I can tell you that there are two possible reasons for this. One: The front crotch area is improperly shaped for the body of the wearer. The rise needs to be reshaped. Two: The pants are shorter waisted than the person wearing them. The rise needs to be lowered. Let's start with the reshaping. I have a favorite pattern I use when I want to make some comfy pants or PJ's. Everything about it is perfect. Except for the part where they pull in the crotch. Not comfy at all. Here's how to fix that. Lay the pants out so that you can get at the center front seam. You will be changing the curve, or Reshaping The Rise. Measure 1 1/4" up from the leg inseam. Mark 1/4" out from the crotch seam at this point. Now draw a new curve down to the inseam, and up along the center front seam. You are making the curve deeper. Sew along the line you made, and trim off the excess fabric. Finish the new edge with your serger or a zigzag stitch. Try your pants on. Do they feel better? If so, your work is done. If they need to be adjusted a bit more, here is the next part. Lowering The Rise Measure 1/4" - 3/8" down from the crotch seam and mark. Draw a new curve, but this time carry it up along the back seam as well as the front. You can make your curve bigger than mine is if you want. I usually take it a bit at a time so that I don't do anything drastic. Not that I've done (much of) that sort of thing when I'm sewing. Stitch along your line, trim, and finish your edge. You should now be able to sit down comfortably in your pants. I marked the original curve on the pants so that you can see the difference. You have cut the rise lower, making room in your garment for movement and comfort. This alteration comes in really handy for pants, shorts, coveralls, jumpsuits, and rompers. I've used it many times. Hope it helps you, too! Till next time, keep on sewing! Val Sharing This Post At These Wonderful Parties! Say G'Day @ Natasha In Oz Worthwhile Wednesdays @ The Craftiest Allie Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways Silhouette School @ Two It Yourself Link It Or Lump It @ Two It Yourself Friday Link Party @ The Pin Junkie DIY Sunday Showcase @ The Interior Frugalista

Today you will learn how to adjust the bust on the Clementine knit dress and top. This tutorial can also be used for other princess-seamed garments too!

Today is the third installment in the Blackwood Cardigan Sewalong! In case you missed the first few posts, we have covered how to grade between sizes, how to do a quick ‘cheater’ full ... Read More

Okay guys, this post has turned into a pretty long and reasonably epic one and that's because there's not actually a lot of information out there on doing Full Bust Adjustments on fitted knit patterns. There are lots of tutorials for FBA's on wovens, but not knits - which I suppose comes down to the fact that knits are much more forgiving. That being said, I completely understand that for some of you, an FBA may be needed, even on a stretchy knit like Bronte. I would always do a muslin to check if you can get away without doing one first though, and one thing you may want to consider trying first is cheating the extra room you need in the front by grading up a size or two in the bust on the front pattern piece only, and then adding length at the 'Lengthen/shorten' line on both pattern pieces. If you don't think that this is going to work for you though, then please read on... Doing an FBA (Full Bust Adjustment) The goal of an FBA is to add width and length to the front pattern piece to accommodate a bust that is larger than a B or C cup (most often a B cup in commercial patterns), without messing with the neckline. To do this, you generally slash and spread your pattern. (Note - you will end up creating a bust dart with a standard FBA, but don't worry, we'll talk about that in a moment). I'm not going to go into detail about how to do a standard FBA, mostly because there are so many great tutorials out there already (I love how clear this one is, but as I said, there are lots of great ones). What I would like to point out though is that when you take your high bust measurement and bust measurement to get how much you should be adding to your bust line, remember that you are dealing with a fitted knit pattern that is meant to have some negative ease (i.e it's deliberately smaller than your measurements and that's where the stretch comes in, to skim and hug your body). For this reason, I wouldn't add in the normal amount you would on a woven. Perhaps try adding half your normal amount to Bronte first, and then see if you need more. For example, if you have a 1 inch difference, try adding in 1/2 an inch first. One other thing you'll need to consider is where your apex actually sits on the pattern. Due to the fact that Bronte is a knit with negative ease, you can't necessarily hold the pattern up to you to find it (as you would on a woven). I honestly don't really have any scientific way of finding this either. All I can suggest is that you try on some other similar tops, locate your apex on them, and then transfer this to your Bronte pattern piece. Alternatively, make up a muslin without the FBA and locate it once you've got it on, then do an FBA on the pattern piece. I can't think of an easier way, but if you have one, do let us know! What to do with that dart you've now created... Now that you've done your standard FBA, you're going to be left with a side bust dart, and that's because you've added length to the side seam of the front and not to the back. That dart takes care of the extra length you've added so that your front and back pattern pieces will match along the side seam. Below is my 'faux' FBA on my mini Bronte pattern piece - I've just guessed where the apex may be and then have slashed and spread my pattern piece to create the imaginary extra room needed and therefore the side dart... Do you see that pesky dart we created on the side seam underneath the arm pit? Bronte (and most knit t-shirts) are dart-less, so how do you deal with this extra side length in a knit t-shirt? Below are three options, but there are probably more, so do let us know if you have one. 1 - Ease the dart into the side seam If you don't want to sew in a side seam dart, then you could think about rounding out the dart and then easing the excess into your side seam. I would approach this in much the same way I would when easing a sleeve cap into a set-in sleeve. Put some basting stitches into the seam allowance, gather them lightly into a 'cup' and sew up the side seam. If you have a length-wise stretch in your fabric, you could also think about stretching your back piece down a little to help accommodate any excess side ease from the front. Be careful when doing this though as you don't want to stretch your fabric so much that you end up with wrinkles and ripples in the final garment. 2 - Dart Manipulation 1. Once you've performed your FBA, you'll be left with a pattern piece that looks something like the below. You'll have a 'dart' at the side bust that you might want to rotate that dart out, so... Does this picture look like half a Transformer to anyone else? 2. Transfer the straight line of your bottom left pattern piece (the red dashed line below) onto the paper below your pattern, you'll use this as a guide in the next few steps. 3. At the pivot point circled below, bring your bottom left bodice section back up and tape in place. Below is what that'll look like, with the grey dashed line indicating the line you drew in step 2. 4. Cut back along that old 'dart' leg indicated by the red dashed line (yes, the one you just joined back up in step 3) BUT leave a pivot point at the side seam (indicated by the circle below). Using your pivot point, bring your bottom left section back up and align it with your original, dashed line. 5. True up your bottom hem. And you're done!! The honey coloured outline below is the original piece - you can see that you've kept the additional length and width that came from doing the FBA, but you've eliminated the dart at the same time. So that, Ladies, is how it's done. Let me know if you have any questions or have any success with this method! I'd love to hear about it. 3 - Sew the dart in For some people, sewing the dart into the t-shirt might just be the best option, particularly if you have a large cup size. This might seem like a strange thing to have in a knit t-shirt, but it's only strange because it's uncommon, and uncommon doesn't mean it's a bad thing. It will mean you will have a beautifully fitting top, and if you have a busy print, you probably won't even notice that little dart line. Two issues you may come across with sewing a dart in however are - if you have a lightweight knit, the dart may move around underneath, and with a heavier knit, you may see the outline from the right side. To combat both of these issues, you could cut the dart out close to the seam once it's been sewn in. Do you have any tricks for doing an FBA with knits? xx J

Once again, the wonderful team of Artesane share the second part of the trousers adjustments with us! Thanks so much! ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Now that you can alter the legs of a…

An innovative technique for pattern alteration that's simple to understand and easy to do, offering options other techniques don't.

Make sure your dart hits in the right place by adjusting the bust apex on your sewing pattern

Today is the fourth installment in the Blackwood Cardigan Sewalong! We are going to wrap up the adjustments portion of the process today with narrow and broad shoulder adjustments. Tomorrow we will ... Read More

Comme des Garçons, AW97. Photographed by Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia 1997. This amazing photograph of a Comme des Garçons dress provides a perfect visual example of how to think about parts of garments as

Download these easy instructions on how to enlarge any pattern, from small templates to your own halfscale designs.

105, [1] p. 23 cm

Today you will learn how to adjust the bust on the Clementine knit dress and top. This tutorial can also be used for other princess-seamed garments too!

A tutorial on how to add sleeves to a pattern. How to draft a basic sleeve for any sleeveless dress pattern.