Sew Easy: #5, How to Alter Your Skirt Pattern

today let's start out by considering two methods of making a dress one method of making a dress is to cut out the dress baste it up and then try it on and if it should fit too tight as this one there isn't much you can do because the material is already cut the thing we want to do is alter the pattern before we cut the dress out so that when you put it on it will fit you as this one does now today i want to show you how to make these alterations now we'll take the pattern out of the envelope unfold it just about this much so that we can iron out these large creases we'll press this pattern with a medium warm iron if the iron gets too hot your pattern will curl of course you don't want to press this side crease in any deeper than it already is now we'll be able to handle this pattern more easily the next thing we'll do is compare each of our pattern pieces to the chart on the back of the envelope and check it off as you locate it so that when we get into a situation like this where we have two sleeves we're going to use the short sleeve so we'll remove the long sleeve and the cuff and put it in our pattern envelope and of course as you finish checking through all your pattern pieces you'll return any others that you're not planning to use for this particular dress to the envelope and since we're just going to be working with the skirt today i'm going to move all of the blouse pattern and get it out of our way and the next thing we'll do is extend the grain line on these patterns this arrow indicates the grain line marking so we'll lay a yardstick along this arrow and extend the arrow the full length of the pattern and of course you'll do this on both pieces of your pattern you remember we took these measurements waist hips and length then let's suppose that your waist measures 30 inches and your hips 40 inches and the front length 27 the left side 27 the right side also 27 and the back let's make 27 and a half so we'll have a problem and next we'll compare your measurements with the pattern measurements and we'll take what we can from the back of your pattern from the section labeled body measurements the pattern measurement for the waist is 28 for the hips 37 and for the finished back length of the dress 47 but that includes the waist as well as the skirt so we won't be able to use that right now so let's go back up here the pattern measure 28 you measured 30 so we'll need to add 2 inches at the waistline 37 is on the pattern 40 is your measurement which means we have to add 3 inches at the hip now let's see how we'll make that alteration this has been made to represent your skirt front pattern and as you know it will be used to cut both halves of the front the same thing is true with the back and here is the waistline where we need to add two inches we'll add half of that to the front and half to the back but the logical place is to add it to our side seams so let's just cut this in half again in other words whatever changes you need to make will be divided by four and now let's apply this to our skirt pattern be sure you get the side seam and then here where the waistline seam meets the cutting line measure out one-fourth of the amount of needed change and put a mark now if you needed to make this waistline smaller instead of larger you would do so by making several small tucks like this now we'll go into that in more detail when i show you the shoulder alteration in our next lesson of course you'll make the same alteration on the back of your pattern but we'll go on down now and check the hip measurement as you remember we need to add three inches to the hip an easy way to divide the needed change by four is to take your tape measure and double it back to the change needed then double it back a second time and crease it then when you unfold this you will have your four equal sections and this will be the amount we need to add to the hip line at the side seam of this skirt now before we can add it to the hip line we'll need to establish the airplane and as you remember we measured seven inches down from the waist so measure seven inches down from the seam along the cutting line and mark this point seven inches then from that point measure out the needed addition and you can see we're running off the pattern here so i'll cut a strip of paper and pin it the entire length of the pattern now here at the hip line we'll measure out the amount that needs to be added and mark it on the paper and then draw the curved line try to repeat the line from the cutting edge of your pattern and connect those two marks and come right on down the edge of your pattern and add the same amount full length of your pattern that you added at the hip line and you'll do the same thing to the back of your pattern if your skirts have not been hanging properly in front because of a large abdomen correction can be simply made with the use of lined paper line your pattern up the edge of the paper and then shift the pattern until this corner lines up with the crosswise mark and then pin the pattern in place you can see that we have straightened the top edge of your pattern now this is the most alteration that you would ever make in this place and from experience you may find that you could use a smaller amount of alteration let's finish our pattern alterations by adjusting the skirt length with your pattern flat measure down the seam line from the waistline seam to the hemline that was our center front seam and it measured 29 and a half and remember that that measurement was taken down to the hem line and not to the bottom of the pattern and this will mean then that we need to shorten our pattern two and a half inches we'll start measuring at this double line which indicates to lengthen or shorten our pattern put your two and a half inches on that line and then measure right up on the grain line and put a mark fold your pattern along this double line you might want to check to be sure that the grain line is straight you can see that right through your pattern then bring that fold up to the mark on your grain line and flatten it down and then fix that with pins now we need to even up this side edge and you can readily see if you had to do more alteration than we have done here it'd be much better if you made several small folds across your pattern in order not to distort this outer edge any more than we did now if you have one section of your pattern length that needs to be altered more than the other such as this one here's how you do it measure on that seam line the amount that you need to change it and mark the amount and then taper from about the middle of your pattern and connect those two lines trying to as nearly as possible reproduce the original bottom line of your pattern now that you've seen how easily the skirt pattern was altered i know you're eager to get on with the blouse next time i'll take up the blouse alterations and complete your understanding of pattern alterations