So what happens when your closest sewing pattern slice just really doesn't exist?
Like, it's so far off, you don't know what to choose.
Do you learn to sew or do you learn to make patterns?
You probably ask yourself these questions.
Well, in today's video, I want to talk with you
about the different methods and processes that there are for you to actually choose
the right size sewing pattern, even when it doesn't seem like it
exists on the envelope, because you absolutely can still
find something pattern and create your own sewing patterns
in your size that fit you as.
Welcome back, my sewing friends.
I am delighted to see you here again.
If you are actually brand new here. Welcome.
My name is Evelyn Wood
and here on this channel, we talk everything about garment sewing.
So you can.
So the clothes that you dream of in your head.
So if you haven't already, do hit a subscribe button down below.
Because today's video came from an idea came from a previous video.
So if you like in this vein of like fitting and fitting clothes that fit.
That's what we do here.
So this subscribe, this video idea came because I've got a question
and I'll bring you that in a moment about like what?
Like what do you do when your closest sewing patterns size does doesn't exist?
Like you're looking on the back here at these sizes and one, you're either
much smaller than the pattern envelope
or you're much bigger than the pattern, like what they say the size range is.
Or you could even be a huge size in between, like the difference
between your bust, your waist and hips is like two or three more sizes
and you just don't know what your closest starting size
pattern should be because it's just seems so far off.
What do you do?
Because yes, if no one told you yet sewing is actually learning to skills.
It is learning to sew and it's learning to fit an old pattern.
So like sewing what you do at the sewing machine, the sewing
as if they seem finishes then like nice, neat, trim
spacings, all of that stuff that is sewing and then to throw clothes.
Yeah, we need to learn pattern like fitting and pattern adjusting is part
of it.
All patterns have to be adjusted to fit us in our size and shape.
That is just the complete normal standard.
And hopefully those of you following along probably already know this by now
and know that that is just part of the process is pattern fitting.
But it can it is one of those things that when you first start sewing,
no one tells you about this.
And so you learn that you have to learn this whole other skill as well.
And that is pattern fitting.
So let me start with the question that we got.
I have to read it to you here.
Okay.
So so this is a comment left on one of my last videos.
I can't remember what the name is, but I'm going to put it here.
It's about pattern fitting.
And one of the comments I left from Zone was
what do you do if your closest size doesn't really exist?
I love I'd love to get into sewing.
I've been watching videos of people doing it for years,
but the biggest thing stopping me is inaccessibility.
When it comes to patterns.
I'm very petite person all around and I've never seen a sewing pattern
that wasn't multiple sizes too big, never seen anything even close
to my measurements.
In fact, the reason I've wanted to get into sewing
is because I simply cannot find clothes in any stores
unless I cave and buy from the junior section.
Kids clothing isn't preferable because the last thing I want to look
want is
to look like even more of a child that I already do.
Well, everything I'd like to wear
is always too baggy, falling off or bunching at my ankles.
I'm beginning to wonder if learning to make my own patterns
would save me this dress in the long run.
So I think you can understand here and I know I'm sure you can relate
to this question in some part because I hope we all get there.
And yes, the very first answer is learning.
Learning to pattern make is part of learning to sew clothes.
The two skills that we need.
I want to offer you some different perspectives.
So what do you do in these situations?
I think generally we have two main ways that we can use sewing patterns
in our home sewing.
The first one is to have a commercial pattern
or I'll call a fashion pattern in this video,
and we tweak it, we make alterations to fit us.
That's pretty standard, that's normal.
Or you can start from scratch and produce
a block or a slow path, i.e.
generally in the sense it's meant to be used.
Is a design list basic block
pattern, bodice dress, pant, etc.
And then you alter that pattern
because it because it's made to fit you in your individual body
and then it's made to into the design that you want it to be.
So you kind of obviously the end result, but there's two different methods to
get there.
And of course there is no one way to do anything.
And the right answer for you will depend on all the pros and cons
that we're going to talk about from each of these two methods.
If you are just starting out on your pattern fitting, Jenny,
and just starting to fit patterns, this might be a little bit confusing
if you haven't started this process yet, but bear in mind and just keep it
open mind and think about it as where you're headed as you go down
your fitting path.
Those of you that have already delved into starting to fit in older patterns,
I think this video and what I'm going to explain will gel really nicely
and put into perspective
maybe just how you look at fitting your patterns and what you create
and do with your closest standard styles that you start with.
So to say, let's look first of all at using a fashion pattern,
a commercial pattern, and using your closest standard stock size.
And you would then fit this to your body and you make it fit.
That's, I think, the most common kind of process.
Let's look at the pros of this one.
One, the hard work of designing actual
like designing a design, something that looks good.
All the hard work is done for you.
They have measured all the proportions.
Everything's in in there. They've done the hard collar.
They've worked all that out. All that is done for you.
And the other pro is that usually
most of us only really have to learn one, two, three.
I find this the most common sort of fit issues that we usually come up with.
And then once you learn these one, two, three, four issues
and how to make the pattern adjustments, you just really rinse
and repeat on sort of every other pattern that you get.
So you don't need to learn all of the fitting alterations.
You'll only find a few that you really need for yourself.
For example, myself, I always need to make the hips bigger.
I always need to make the waist smaller and I need to lengthen my bodice
always there things that I need to do on every pattern
because that is part of just my body shape and how it fits into the, you know,
normal standard.
There is no such thing as normal standard, but that's just how I diva all the time.
And so I really I don't need to worry about learning a full bust adjustment or,
you know, all of these different types of other adjustments there are.
And then of course the cons.
So yes, you are completely limited to the signs ranges
that these patterns print out.
Now different companies have all different size ranges and a lot of them are,
you know, expanding either, you know, two for the larger sizes
and for the smaller sizes as well, which is wonderful to see.
But there's still this always black out comment from.
So there's always, you know, some of us that lay on the outer ends of those
or your actual body shape is that that your difference between,
you know, you say your bust, your waist, your hip if it be these from deviate
from the standard sort of you know 234 more sizes difference in shape.
It can be really hard to kind of figure out which standard size
do you go with if you know what your bust is here, but
your waist is up here on this size and then your hips is way down here.
I mean, we're all a little bit different,
but when you sort of three plus sizes, it gets really tricky to figure out.
And so it can be kind of challenging to figure it out.
And the other thing that I want to point out is that there is such a thing
called gray ding.
This is the technical term for what we do is when we grade up
or down sizes and you can learn to do this yourself.
Absolutely.
So you can grade up a few extra sizes at the end or down
a few extra sizes at the end, as well as a standard general rule.
Though I say anything up to three sizes, you can usually do yourself like learn
and that whole process and do yourself any more than that.
And it becomes quite challenging
because you have lots of
things of body proportions and I won't go into high detail
in this video because I want to keep it on point,
but it does become quite a bit more complicated as the body grows
larger, like in more sizes or we decrease or increase,
it just becomes a little bit difficult to do with proportions and things and you
really need to know what you're doing.
So generally up to three sizes grading, you can absolutely learn yourself.
So that might be an option.
There is actually to grade your pattern up or down into the size that you need
either end and then use that as your standard starting size from there.
Let's compare this though to the other option,
and that is kind of doing it the other way around,
and that is to create yourself a block or a slope
and then designing that in the design that you want.
So block or a slope is a basic be.
It borrows a basic pant, a basic dress, kind of like a design list,
you know, block size, but that is
and then, you know, it's made to your body measurements.
So it's all fitted and perfect to you and then you create designs from there.
This is how fashion houses work.
Of course, the way you can get to making your block,
there's many different options.
You can literally start by putting out measurements and like creating shapes.
You can drape it on a mannequin, you can.
There are companies that produce sort of block patterns and then you fit them, etc.
There's all different methods to to get there.
I want that will leave it at that for today.
I have made other videos about blocks and slippers.
I'll link that down below as well for you to reference later.
And let's look at some of the pros of this.
One is that, well, it's fitted exactly to you.
Once you do the fitting
and all of the sizing, of course you do that and it's all done.
And then the other the pro is that once you,
if you like to wear the same design, say the same shape, you just have that
one dress style, that one pant style that you just love over and over.
And you like to make that same thing over and over and over.
And just different fabrics, different colors, quite different designs.
Only very small, but the same thing over and over.
This is perfect because you only have to do the alteration once you use.
Keep making it.
Some of the cons though,
if you like wearing different types of garments,
I want to make different types of garments.
You have to learn how to actually pattern, make and design
all of those different design changes every single time.
For example, your bodice, your basic bodice will just be that if you want a,
you know, button up shirt collar, you will have to learn
how to make a collar, how to make a button extension, how to put the sleeves.
You have to do that every single different time.
So that is quite challenging.
And that's when you have to design to make everything in proportion
and actually get the silhouette and the design working.
This takes a lot of skill to learn.
It's why fashion designers get paid so much sometimes
because they can design things that just look good and work.
Now, comparing the two of these options here, of course,
as I said, there is no one answer and it all just depends.
But I find the most like useful
tool is a bit of both of these.
I think most of us, if you can relate, this is how I started sewing
as I've wanted to create my own wardrobe.
I wanted to sew the things that I couldn't find in the shops, and
because they didn't fit me either in both design and style,
I find for most of us really motivated.
So us that want to create that and I think that's why you're here too, is that Sue
is that we can do a bit of both of these, is that you can,
you know, depending on where you start, whether you start with making a block
from just plotting out measurements to get your basic block
or you start with a commercial pattern.
But basically think about it as each of the patterns
that you use is building your own personal pattern library.
And so you want a block of different types of silhouettes.
So for example, you might want your own personal block
of a fitted dress, of a collared shirt,
of a, you know, loose fit pair of a tight
fit pant of a pullover tunic.
See where I'm getting at?
You want these different sorts
of silhouettes and styles and you know, your own style.
You know, there's a certain few things that you usually wear and
and you pick those and then you can work out your block
from that, your own personal library of patterns,
be it that you start from a commercial pattern and fit it.
Once it's fitted, you create, you know,
make it on your own paper and make all the tweaks and everything.
And then that is your block for that particular style,
whether you start with the commercial pattern
or whether you start by a, you know, standard block or slope
or you block out your measurements and you drape it on a mannequin,
then you make that from there.
And that becomes that style of your book because
doing slight little different design
changes from there is fairly easy, but doing whole big designs.
Like I said earlier, adding colors or
creating different sleeves is a little bit more complicated to do.
So try and get the most bang for your buck.
I find that creating your own personal library
of fitted patterns and they're all your box, but you can
then change up and little tweaks from there are really easy to do.
Once you have your block, you can use that with other commercial
patterns or fashion patterns because you know that block fits you.
You can put that bodice over the top of this
and kind of superimpose and see what changes you need to do to that.
Maybe this pattern to make it fit you better and the other way around too.
Once you have your block, you could just reference
the fashion patent, maybe to know what design styles
that you need to do to get that design and work it onto your block of Sloper
so you can work either way. And it just depends.
As I said, it's really all about the perspective and the look of what you like.
You know, the way that we look
at what we're doing ahead of us, there is a solution for you.
And you know what?
The one that feels the right way for you
to try and get about doing this that way is the right way for you.
Promise.
Check the description box below because I've left lots of other videos
around this topic that I know you'll really enjoy too and find really useful
and leave me a comment I would love to hear.
What do you do?
Have you started creating your own personal library yet?
Books, slippers, commercial fashion, patents?
I'd love to know which one you're starting with.
Leave your insights for all us.
For all of us reading there in the comments as well,
because we're all sharing our sewing information here
so we can all get better and keep increasing sewing skills
and make clothes that we love.
Until next time, my sewing friends.
Happy sewing, bye.