Sewing Tip #3. Finished Garments can hold clues about tiny variances in your body.

While there’s much to say about the importance of muslins to gauge the fit of a garment, tiny bodily imperfections are frequently revealed in a try-on of the completed (whether there was a trial muslin or not) or ready-to-wear clothing.

= Newly sewn or purchased garments may be trying to tell you that you have an uneven body. Calm down. Uneven human shape is commoner than dirt. I’m one of those humans. I’m not referring to the large butt/small butt debate, but a tiny variance here or there in your body which manifests itself in tiny variances in the hang of the garment.

This dress hangs okay as far as I can tell. It is my newest bias linen maxi. Fabric from SewMuchFabric in Peach Parfait. Styling note: seems like I’m barefoot, but I am wearing blingy neutral thong sandals. I’ll welcome other styling ideas……

= You may not be able to tell by looking at me, but my left hip at the upper thigh juts out on the left side a wee bit farther than my right hip does. I was informed of this many years ago in a sloper class; I realized that may be the reason my left side seam on a pant seemed to skew upwards at the hem. Time to readjust the hems to make them even on me. Sometimes the skew is so minimal, only you notice it, eagle eyed seamstress that you are. In that case, one of my sewing instructors advised to just “walk fast”. It’s sounds funny but the lesson is not to sweat the really minimal stuff.

= Besides the pant hem, there are other clues to the unevenness — the folded elastic casing of my pull-on pants, after I used that trick of wearing a piece of elastic at the natural waist, folded over the pants waist to even up everything, pinned it and then discover that the folded down inside of the casing is uneven. So glad I know this trick.

Excellent drawing skillls showing the process 😐
Casing folded over the marked line.

= Even more clues to my skewed hip/upper-thigh conundrum: if there’s a center back seam and it skews to one side at the hip level instead of hanging straight down your center back — shows that one side of the hip juts out just that little bit. Now is the time for all good sewers to go back to the paper pattern and adjust it by adding a little bit to that back pattern at the hip level. Be conservative—- a little bit of adjustment goes a long way.

= Or, eliminate the back seam. Cut the dress back on fold, and add waist darts for shape.

This 23 year old dress has a skewed center back seam. And I’ve been wearing it just like this without realizing the anomaly.

Have a great summer, and keep me and my fellow Texans in your thoughts while we go through unusually frequent and extreme storms. Hurricane season is here and the weather pundits are predicting a doozy. Yikes.

Samina

4 thoughts on “Sewing Tip #3. Finished Garments can hold clues about tiny variances in your body.”

  1. I like the bias dress style. Looks like a very comfy summer dress.

    We are all a little skewed one way or the other. And aren’t we lucky that we can make adjustments for that?

    Happy sewing and stay safe from Mother Nature.

    Liked by 2 people

  2. I like the center back seam on the 23 yo dress. I think the back center seam might have been straight if you came up a size or a half size on each side. I read somewhere do not alter to fit a small problem, in this case: make both sides larger, not one side larger. On the peach bias dress, I’d draw the eyes away from the hip and toward your face with a more important necklace (or 2 necklaces?). Very nice. My sloper class many years ago pointed out several irregularities, too…lol.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Oooh. Thanks for the adjustment tip; makes sense. Also, thank you for the styling tip — I will dig out a couple more chunky necklaces and try them with this maxi.

      Like

Leave a comment