Hi, I'm Haley! I'm the pattern designer here at Seamwork. We're community of
sewists that are all about designing and sewing our own wardrobe so check us out
at Seamwork.com.
Blending sizes is often used for people that find that one part of their body
doesn't fall into the same size category as another part of their body. In this
tutorial, I'm going to show you how to use blending sizes to customize the
waist fit of your me-made garments. When you're blending sizes, you're gonna
want to pay attention to two measurement charts. Of course your body measurement
chart, but also your finished garment measurement chart. This is gonna help you
to figure out the ease of a garment. The reason you're gonna want to be
acquainted with the ease of the pattern is because if you're making something
with a really loose oversized fit, kind of like the jacket that I'm wearing, it
won't particularly matter if your waist falls into a different size category
than the rest of your body. If you're making something a little bit more
fitted, then blending sizes is gonna be a really great way to help you achieve a
better fit the first time around. First thing you're going to want to do is examine
the body measurement chart and then go ahead and make a note on the size chart
of what sizes you're going to be blending between. This will come in handy later
when you're working on your adjustments. in this first example, I'm going to
demonstrate how to blend a dress from a 10 in the waist to a 14 in the hip.
The first thing you're going to want to do is locate the waist of the garment.
Oftentimes, this will be marked by a notch right on your pattern piece, but
you can also visually identify it on fitted garments because usually it's the
most narrow part of the pattern. If neither of these two things apply to the
pattern you're working with, don't worry. You can just take the pattern and hold
it straight up to your body and determine the waist that way.
Once you've identified the waist of your pattern, you can go ahead and grab a
pencil and mark it. Once you've marked your waist, you're gonna want to go ahead
and also find the hip line of your pattern. Often this is going to be about
7 to 9 inches below your waistline, but again, you could also visually
identify it by the widest part of the pattern. And if that doesn't work, just
hold the pattern up to yourself and mark the line that way.
Once you've marked your hip, you're ready to grab your hip curve and create your
new side seam. Your hip curve is gonna help you create a really smooth
transition from your waist to your hip. There's no like exact science to this.
You're just trying to create a nice, smooth line that mimics that of your
body. Once you've created a nice smooth line, you're ready to cut out your new
pattern pieces. But make sure that you're making these same adjustments to your
back pattern pieces or any other corresponding pattern pieces. If you're
blending out in the waist rather than in, you can just follow those exact same
sequence of steps, finding the waistline finding the hip line, and using your hip
curve to blend smoothly between sizes. In some cases, you might find that you have
intersecting pattern pieces, like the waistband on a pair of pants or a
corresponding bodice and skirt. In these cases, you're just going to want to make
sure that you're adding or subtracting the same amount at those intersecting
seams. In this example, I have the Christina skirt and i blend it all the
way down to a size 10 in the waist and i'd want to make sure that I was also
cutting a size 10 waistband, so that everything lines up when I'm sewing.
You can already start to see just how versatile this adjustment is and how it
can help you achieve an even better fit the first time you sew a garment.
If you liked this video be sure to check out Seamwork, where we share really great
articles every single month that help you become a better sewer. And subscribe
to our channel for more videos like this one. Thanks for joining me and happy sewing!