hello everyone welcome back to my channel i hope you're doing just good so today i'm going
to be doing something different i'm going to be showing you how to take body measurements like
we all know body measurement is actually the basis for sewing clothes correctly so if you
do not have the correct measurement trust me the outcome will not be nice then you have to make
a lot of adjustments this video is actually for complete beginners or if you would like to see
how and why it is done you can also watch this video so if this is something that you like to
see please come along let's do it together so guys the first thing i want to tell you is this do not
assume once you have your client in front of you ensure that you take all the measurements that
are necessary for what you want to sew in fact just take all measurements that you can think of
okay always write down your measurements don't cram it don't put it in your head
always write it down before you start to take your client's measurement always find the waistline of
the client and by the waistline i mean the high waist line okay so one thing that i would advise
and that i have learnt to be very very effective is that once you find the waistline
tie something around the waist of the client so for example this is my mannequin first i'm going
to find the waist line that's the thinnest part of your upper body and then you tie something
around it that is your eye waistline and mind you it is usually about two to three inches it
depends on how tall the person is above the level so um the basic measurements of a female body
is the bust the waist and then the hips then of course the length but there is more to
it okay so today i'm just going to take as many measurements as possible and i'm going to tell you
why you need those measurements what they are used for the kind of clothes that you
need those measurements for all right so i'm going to start with the horizontal measurement
and by horizontal we know it is from the left to the right that go this way okay
while those are come from the shoulder line down they are the vertical measurements okay
to take your shoulder measurement don't start from the tip of the shoulder you start from the
shoulder bone and then you measure from one side to the other all right so most people
assume 16 but it is not 16 actually mine is about 15.5 if i use 16 my shoulder line would
drop one other thing i try to do if you can't find the shoulder bone maybe if the person is
thick okay you can check the armhole line of the clothes that the person is wearing all right
that line you see this line then you measure from one point to the other okay and it must
pass over your neck this way not like this not like this but like this okay
except the person is wearing drop shoulder clothes if that is the case please find the shoulder bone
all right so that is the first measurement the second measurement is this just show that
circumference you need this measurement if your client wants an off shoulder dress an
offshoulder that bodice or something so you need to measure around the shoulder
okay above the bust around your arm and that is going to be your off shoulder measurement
and when you're taking your measurements always ensure that it is not tight but firm
okay what i do when i'm taking the measurements is this i do not add any allowance while i am
measuring no and please don't do that okay take the measurements as firmly as you can and then
when you're drafting or cutting then you can add a 0.25 0.5 inch ease allowance okay the
next thing we're going to determine is the bust measurement so the bust measurement is actually
the fullest part of the upper body right so you're going to put your taperule around the bust
from the back to the front so when you're taking the bust measurements the um taperule has to be
on the same line as your bust at the front okay not down here but on the same line as the bust
the other measurement you're going to take is the waist measurement so we have two measurements for
the waist we have the high waist and then the lowest so the difference is this some
people do not like high-waist clothing okay and some people they put both their trousers
and their skirts on the highwaist so you should ask your client where do you usually put the
waistline of your skirt okay is it down here or up here so if it is up here you measure the highwaist
and if it is down here you measure the low waist for the highwaist this is the highwaist actually
you take your measurements round okay so for the low waist most people put their trousers
on their low waist okay so if you take the measurements of the highwaist for the trouser
you're going to have a problem for my mannequin the low waist would be somewhere around here
this is about 28.5 and when i measured here i had about 26.5 so that is a two inch difference
which is very very huge when you're sewing all right so the next thing is to measure the hips
you should get the fullest part of your lower body find the point that is full the fullest
another thing is that it should go around your bum
okay it should go around the back so when i'm measuring my hips you see where this taperule
is for example and you see where the butt is if you look at the front it looks as if okay
i've measured correctly but when you turn it to the side you see that it is not covering the butt
so guys i had to wear something for the mannequin because the tape was not showing
you see now it's it's actually better okay so you need to ensure that what you're measuring
is actually on the fullest part of the body okay so you should find that line where both the hip
and the bone is actually full so the next thing is the measurements for the thigh because when you're
sewing the shorts or your trouser you're going to need the measurement of the thigh okay so it's
usually about two to three inches below the crotch okay so this is the crotch when i'm measuring the
client okay i'll just try and eyeball the line where the crotch is okay find the line and then
about two inches put your taperule in between and then you find the thigh
okay for the knee you find the knee and then you measure okay and then for the ankle
measure the ankle all right but you know once you're measuring the ankle for a
trouser right you do not measure here okay the measurement you actually need has to go like this
okay i hope you can see that because um your trouser has to be able to pass through your
heels your trouser doesn't pass through your heels then that's actually a problem except you
want to put a zipper or an opening there that is how you should measure the ankle the ankle width
of your trouser if you want to make clothes for example corsets bustiers um clothes are going to
show again just input it has hugging hugging clothes all right you understand what i mean
you have to take more measurements all right so the first measurement that you should take
is your underbust measurement under the bust so it has to be okay if you look at this
you see it's actually under the bust and at the back as well it should be
on the same line as what you're measuring at the front okay the other measurement you
will need is your bust span measurement and by bust pan i mean the distance between the
the pointed part of your bust that's the nipple to the other right so it has to be like this
okay from one point to the other so one other measurement you need is your across front
measurement all right so it has to be from not from the armhole now it's not like this not from
one another to the other because there's usually an excess a little bit of excess at this point at
this this armhole side where the main bodice and the sleeve are joining so in order to eliminate
that when you're making hugging clothes you're going to need your across front measurement
so one thing i would advise is you look for the bra strap of your client and then you measure from
one bra strap to the other right so you can make that across front measurements okay so you would
also need your cross back measurement usually the across front measurement is usually lesser than
the cross back measurement and the reason is this you know our back it's a little bit curved because
of this bone that is here i don't know what it is called because of this bone yeah let's show that
this part here you measure from this top part just a little bit below the shoulder like this
all right we're almost two guys one other thing i actually want to mention do you
know the reason why we depress our shoulder when you're drafting usually we depress the shoulder by
one inch okay that is like a standard but for men you know it is really more so men can be
2.5 inches do you know how we got that let me show you so this is how we got that if you look at your
the base of your neck okay to your shoulder you see that it is not straight it is slanted right
so if you put something straight a ruler if you put it there on the base of your neck you see that
this there's a there is a gap between this base this shoulder okay and the ruler these will lie
straight but this is slanted so if you measure the distance between this ruler and the your shoulder
okay this is about 1.5 inches for my mannequin and that is where we got the shoulder slant
all right so it's not like you just have to depress the shoulder we have to depress the
shoulder because the shoulder is not straight all right you actually need this measurement
to eliminate the gaping that you have when you're especially when um you're making
um sleeveless clothes okay you see some clothes someone is wearing a sleeveless dress and then
you see some gap at the upper part you can see inside the shoulder okay it's because the
shoulder was not depressed properly or maybe not depressed at all so you must depress your shoulder
in order to eliminate that gap so that this part the shoulder slant can relax on your body okay um
one other crucial measurement is your armscye this is how you do it you put your taperule like this
and then you measure your taperule is going to be like this under your armpit okay and you know when
we are drafting we usually divide this by two one half is for the front and the other half is for
the back you know right okay so this measurement is very very crucial if you do not want to have
your armpits showing while you're wearing your clothes especially sleeveless clothes right i
think we may have to divide this video into two parts i'm not sure... but let's go ahead