 you guys in today's video I wanted to talk sort of in detail about fitting the garments that you sew. I hear from you guys all the time about how that is the thing that you struggle with the most and honestly it makes perfect sense. It's the thing that's hardest to understand and also the hardest to achieve because our bodies are constantly changing and we're constantly learning new things about our bodies, so on and so forth. So today I have five tips for you plus maybe a bonus one if you stick around to the end on how to sew clothes that fit. If you're new here I'm Lindsay, hello and welcome. I am so glad that you found me. Please introduce yourself in the comments section below so that I can give you a formal welcome. All right so jumping right into it our first tip is all about measurements and specifically where to take your measurements everything that you sew starts off with bust waist and hip measurements right those are the three basic measurements that you need before you even go to pick the size of the pattern that you are going to buy and knowing where to take those measurements is what is going to get you as accurate of a measurement to compare to that body chart right so I'm going to bring in my trusty little dino form here today let me raise her up so that you guys can properly see all of the areas of the body okay so the first measurement that we are going to take is our bust measurement you may need to take a high bust measurement and a full bust measurement depending on what kind of garment you're making and what the pattern designer is asking of you in terms of how to figure out your bust measurement your full bust measurement is where this black tape is right here it is literally across the fullest part of your bust so right where your nipples are is where your full bust measurement is you want to keep your measuring tape nice and flat which is why it might be helpful to get someone to help you but that is your full bust measurement your high bust measurement goes deep up into your armpits and actually measures the top of your bust and figuring out the difference between those two is going to get your sewing bust cup size which spoiler alert is different than your bra cup size okay so for all of you out there who have been going to get fitted at Victoria's Secret for years and years and are getting like double D bras that fit when you go to take your sewing bust measurement the fullness up between here and here is very different than what's between here and here right so this could be if you carry a lot of tissue underneath your breast you could have a larger bra size than your sewing cup size so don't just assume if I'm a double D in bras and I'm a double D in sewing that's not always true okay the next measurement you're going to need is your waist measurement and a lot of people for whatever reason want to take their waist measurement at their belly buttons but no that is not correct my belly button is here as you can see and my waist is this black ribbon here it is the smallest part of your body as you can see my body curves in right here this is the smaller part a little tricky way for you to find that a little sneaky tricky way for you to find that is to stand up perfectly straight bend over and where your body is like folding in on itself is your waist it's going to be very close to your ribs maybe even above a couple of your ribs higher much higher than you probably imagine so this is your waist measurement if you come down here you can see my hip my hip bones are right here this would be our high hip measurement so if you need that this is where we're going for the high hip measurement right at your hip bones which means that your actual full hip measurement is not at your hip bones it is a lot lower than what you would imagine and on me I am hey girl hey um this is my hip measurement where this black ribbon is down at the bottom so it is the fullest part of your bum so you can see this is my side profile and the fullest part of my bum is right where that black ribbon is so that is where your hip measurement is and again you want it to be parallel to the ground and taken all the way around it's going to be closer to your pelvic bone um or I mean maybe not mine is obviously but if you have like a lower bum that sits lower if you have a flatter bum you know you may have some fluctuation in terms of how high or low your hip measurement is on your like hip area so that's the first thing knowing where to take your measurements thank you ditto form for doing your service today the next tip I have for you is to source patterns that are intended to help you with fit yes you can buy a thousand different basic tank tops and try and work on each one to find the one that fits you the best just out of the envelope or you can buy a pattern that is that includes in the instructions how to help you fit that garment two that I can think of um that are really focused on the concept of fit are in the big four category palmer plush um they have their own tissue fitting method which is going to help you sort of like fit the tissue on your body before you're cutting any fabric before you're even making a muslin and then they also have different lines on drawn right on their pattern pieces for if you need a full bust adjustment if you need a small bust adjustment if you need a full seat adjustment a belly adjustment whatever it is they have all the lines on there and walk you through how to make the adjustments on their pattern pieces depending on how the tissue is fitting your body in the indy category we have jennifer stern jay star designs in her patterns actually have one here this is her easy fit and sew yoga pants pattern so you can see it's a basic knit fitted yoga pants and included in this instruction booklet toward the end are it's almost like a workbook you get this little worksheet right that looks something like this where you're encouraged to figure out the stretch of your fabric write all of that down take some measurements of these different areas of your body compare them to the pattern and then make the adjustments accordingly and you're wondering how do i do that well she has instructions in the booklet specifically for pattern adjustments that relate to this specific pattern so we're talking about increasing the rise in the front and or back we're talking about lowering the rise if you need to do that we have in here um if you have like a defined waistline or a sway back or your waist is much smaller than your hips how to adjust for that and then the final one here is how to adjust the width of the leg so she goes in great detail about all the different areas of a yoga pant that might need adjusting she tells you when to make adjustments some adjustments that you shouldn't make like for example and these leggings specifically she's like don't alter them to make them a wide leg the grain line will be off it won't work you'll be frustrated just don't even bother with it which is helpful because how would i know that right i'm no expert but she is and she includes all of this and all of her patterns she has a ton of great patterns basic t's and tanks and tops she's got pants and skirts so you can really do kind of like a capsule wardrobe all in basics that fit perfectly that you could almost use as sort of sloper ish um in comparing different elements to some of the other patterns that you want to make so finding patterns that focus on fit is tip number two tip number three is to really learn how to choose your size so picking your size in a sewing pattern is one of those things that people just get really frustrated with and i get it you look at the body chart and your one size and then you make it and you're drowning and you're like i don't understand like what happened here and i think that there's a bit of a disconnect between the sewing pattern companies wanting you to be successful with your garment getting a completed garment that's not too small and airing on the side of caution and maybe making them a little bit too too big um and so then often a lot of people are like well i just automatically size down and all the patterns that i ever make and that's not necessarily the answer either the way to fully understand it is to consider pattern ease and that includes design ease like the ease that the designer has included like in this dress for example design ease would be all of this width in the waist and the hip that's design ease wearing ease is different than that it is the ease that you need in a garment in order for it to be wearable and comfortable i'm talking about like you know movement in the shoulder in your sleeve cap even this band here that's pretty fitted you know you have to have some ease in this it can't be exactly your body measurements or else you're like i can't move so understanding those two concepts understanding what the terms fitted uh semi fitted uh very loose fitting and understanding what those terms actually mean in terms of inches and then comparing that to what you want out of your garment if you want a very loose fitting garment this is going to be good for you if you want a fitted garment you're going to put this on and be like no this is the potato sack this is not what i wanted at all and it's all about comparing that pattern ease i cover all of this and more in my fast fit worksheet um you can get it on my website there's a link in the description box here it's basically a worksheet that walks you through the mathematical mathematical equation that i use to determine the patterns ease and then comparing that against what i want out of the garment have a full video tutorial um that comes with the worksheet that allows you to um see how i use the worksheet in real time in in a real practice using a real pattern and how i kind of analyze the patterns ease against my measurements and kind of what i want out of that pattern tip number four is to take advantage of the resources that are available to you so many of them are free and if they're not free and they're paid they're paid for a reason because the person behind them is a bona fide expert and they will cut the time that you were going to spend trying to figure this out on your own by way more than half by a lot um because they can just look at you and tell you exactly pinpoint what is going on so after you let's say after you've um done your fast-fit worksheet you know you're okay i'm gonna make this size then you make your muslin in that size and you're looking at it and you're like i think this is good but i see a wrinkle here i see a pull there this doesn't feel super comfortable something's off where do you go from there my suggestion going back again jennifer sturd the expert in fitting that i can rely on to provide new fresh content and learn from week after week she's doing these videos on youtube she's a youtube channel um fit tip tuesday every single tuesday she posts a video on youtube with some kind of fit tips so you can imagine it over the years that she's been doing it she has amassed a large library of fit tips she's a great teacher she makes it all very approachable and very easy to understand once you kind of digest what she's got going on there in terms of free resources you can join her facebook group and in the facebook group she does a fab fit friday like a live facebook what are they facebook live um where she will discuss with you in real time different fitting issues super fun she also does zoom classes um that will help you fit one of her patterns and then if you need to break off and do a private fitting session with her you can do that she's just going to make fitting for you so much more approachable and also just going to make fitting in general much more approachable and kind of take away the guesswork of what this fold means or what that fold means and she's just going to you know really make it simple in the grand scheme of things and then if you need the personal one-on-one help she's there for you to do that as well i think she's just an incredible incredible resource and um i would not be where i am in terms of fitting without her so i hope you guys will all go check out at least her youtube channel join her facebook group follow her on instagram she's got a lot of information kind of floating all around the internet um you just have to study fitting you know you have to study fitting the same way that you studied how to thread your sewing machine how to you know do a zigzag stitch it's the same thing it's the same thing except it's with our bodies right um and so that brings me to tip number five tip number five is probably the hardest one to do in practice because we are eager beavers and we want to just get to the good parts i get that you don't want to sit here and have to analyze the garment and i say analyze the garment and not your body specifically we're not analyzing our bodies here our bodies are what they are beautiful and gorgeous and every single form that they can take the garment and how it fits our body is what we're analyzing that is going to change the way you look at fitting also if you're constantly looking in the mirror after you sew something and go uh this doesn't fit because my thigh is so big this doesn't fit because my belly is so fat this doesn't fit because of this thing about my body or that thing about my body that way of thinking you're never going to achieve the fit that you want because you're constantly blaming it on your body if your clothes fit it is going to camouflage anything that might be going on with your body that's just how it is so we have to be really kind to ourselves we have to you know make those wearable muslins um that's not the fun part but at least we can make them somewhat wearable right um in a fabric that we may like a little bit not our favorite but we may like a little bit um that will help us kind of analyze for fit that we can still wear around the house and still enjoy the time that we spent sewing that muslin rather than making it out of true muslin and then having to just like toss it at the end of the day nobody likes doing that at least for the wearable muslin you know you can still wear it around the house maybe the fit is close enough that you can wear it out of the house you know you're just making a few tweaks on your final version but yeah making that wearable muslin and then practice practice practice study study study are my best tips if you guys are watching my first impression Friday videos I do try to call out fit issues as I see them um when I see wrinkles and pulls and you know anything like that I'm trying to call out that that exists and how you might go about checking for that if you go to make that pattern so being able to see it with your eyes analyze it and then utilizing the resources like my fast fit worksheet like Jennifer Stearns vast catalog of um tutorials and resources that she has available to you um and getting those patterns that are going to specifically talk about fitting that pattern as well are all going to send you on the right trajectory you're not going to make a couture gown that fits perfectly in your first few months of sewing it's just not going to happen heck it might even happen in your first five years of sewing if you're not studying fit you have to start with the basics you have to start with the simple concepts and then build from there so I hope that this video was able to encourage you guys to look at fitting a little bit more open-mindedly a little bit more positively like it can be accomplished it's a little bit like nirvana where we're constantly reaching for it and we may never actually get there but so long as you are practicing and studying and trying you we're going to get so close so so very close that it'll feel like we've done it um let me know if you have any other fitting questions if you have any fitting tips that you want to add to this list leave those in the comment section below if I get enough of them I'll do a part two I mean why not um but that is going to do it for me today y'all all the links for everything that you could possibly need that I talked about in this video are linked in the description box so be sure to check that out um otherwise yeah that's it for me today thank you all so much for watching see you soon bye