Adjusting patterns – fitting the back

Hi, I hope you’re enjoying your summer – or whatever season is happening in your part of the world! We’ve had some warm weather this month in California, too warm in some parts of the state but great weather for sleeveless dresses and strappy sandals.

Earlier this month, I had a lot of fun at a Bay Area Sewists meetup on adjusting patterns. We met in the spacious, well-lit classroom space of Lacis in Berkeley. We were fortunate to have in attendance a member, Kathleen (a technical designer for Old Navy), who enjoys fitting and adjusting patterns for herself and her friends. She explained to us how we should always look at how each change affects the overall balance of a garment.

The pattern changes I usually make are a small bust adjustment, wide shoulder adjustment, and grading up in the hips. What pattern adjustments do you usually make?

I admit that I don’t usually pay much attention to the back. But I did make a pattern adjustment to the back of the sleeveless dress I made for Spring for Cotton. It was gaping a little in the back neckline so I had to bring it in slightly. I just happened to notice the gaping in the mirror when I tried on my muslin.

Kathleen made me realize how important it is to make incremental pattern adjustments. I saw first-hand how adjustments to the back can affect the front.

I brought the muslin I made several months ago for this vintage Vogue pattern. I searched my blog to figure out when I started this muslin. I think I made the muslin last December and I traced the pattern in October. Wow – how time flies!

This is a dress for knit fabrics and I have some lovely wool jersey from Britex Fabrics to make it. I used this brown synthetic jersey fabric I had in my stash. I think I got it at Discount Fabrics in Berkeley about four or five years ago with the intention of making an Alabama Chanin garment.

This pattern has princess seams so my automatic response was, oh, I can make the bust fit better by bringing in the princess seams – an easy adjustment. There are four pattern pieces for the front – two front center and two side front. The back has two side back and two center back pieces. I’m going to color block this dress using a rose and a black wool jersey.

Here’s a photo I took at the end of Dec. It’s a bit loose in the bust area. The only adjustment I made to the pattern was to lower the armholes, which seemed a bit high.

Kathleen’s first adjustments to my muslin were to the back. This pattern has a center back zip – try to ignore the sloppy construction – I installed the zip but didn’t bother stabilizing it (lazy!). I confess I didn’t really look at the back when I sewed this up. As you can see, Kathleen pinned two areas on the back. The top adjustment was quite small 1/8 inch at the zip and taping off into the shoulder area. The mid-back adjustment goes across two pattern pieces – center back and side back.

And voila! The front left (my right) fits perfectly as a result of the back adjustment. This was like magic.  Then I’ll add to the front what was subtracted from the back.

Kathleen transferred the adjustments to the pattern. She likes to fold the pattern – as opposed to cutting it – to make these adjustments. I like this idea because you can easily undo the adjustment. Just remove the tape. In the photo below, she folded the pattern for the top adjustment near the neck.

Here’s Kathleen pinning adjustments to someone else’s garment…

… and transferring them to the pattern pieces.

If you don’t have anyone handy to pin your garment or someone who really wouldn’t know what to do with a pin other than poke you, Kathleen suggests asking them to take photos of you wearing your muslin. Take photos of the front, back, and sides. Then you can at least look at the photos and see where you can make adjustments. If you don’t have a friend or partner handy, you can always use the timer on your camera  😉 As you make your adjustments, take photos of all sides to see how they affect the garment overall.

While we were at Lacis, Jules Kliot, the owner of Lacis, stopped by and invited us to have a sneak preview of Lacis’s beautiful September exhibit on netting and filet lace. It’s quite stunning. The netting on view are works of art created by netting and embroidery on the netting, which is created by knots similar to the technique used to create fish nets (read more about filet lace here).

You can see a slide show of the exhibit here. The show opens on Sept. 26 and will be on view until Sept. 3, 2016 – nearly a year so if you live in the Bay Area you’ll have plenty of time to check it out.

Happy sewing!