 Hi you guys! Welcome to my next Sew Along. This time we're going to be working on Butterick 6873, this really cute dress with drop shoulder and sleeve variations as well as skirt variations. And because this is such a beginner-friendly pattern, easy for no matter your sewing experience, whether you've never sewn garments before but you've sewn quilts or other things, I think this pattern would be great for you to enter into garment sewing. Come over to the dark side with us over here. If you haven't already, go ahead and download your Butterick 6873 Sew Along Workbook. It's completely free, available on my website. I have a link to it in the description box below. This is what we are going to use as kind of like our guide for the next few days as we begin to make this dress together. So I have a new page added. If you've done my Sew Alongs before, I added this page here. It's a project planner where you can write out sort of what your goals are, the timeline you have, some fabric options, your sizing, any alterations that you want to make as well as the project materials and a checkbox as to whether you have it on hand or you need to buy it. Just a great way to stay organized and get organized before you head to the store or head online so you don't buy anything that you don't need because we've all been there, right? Okay, the next page is the Ultimate Project Checklist and we are going to be working our way through this. This is kind of like a reiteration of the materials list. But today we're going to be working through the prepping list. We're going to start with the Fast Fit Worksheet. If you're unfamiliar with this process, this is my Fast Fit Workbook, linked to this in the description box as well. It comes with, I don't even remember, like 40 or so different Fast Fit Worksheets, which looks like this. You can buy the sheet individually or you can buy the whole workbook depending on how much you plan on using the Worksheets. All right, so we're going to be going through this today with the pattern. The reason why this works and this is able to get you a better fit the first time is because it takes into consideration the patterns, design ease, like what the designer wants it to fit like, as well as wearing ease. And it takes those two things into consideration. And then that allows you to kind of reasonably and sensibly pick a size rather than just going, oh, I don't know. I kind of think it's this one, but I'm not really sure. We do a little bit of math. Actually, the math on this one I found to be very, very simple and easy. But in the end, you're going to feel a lot more confident in the size that you pick because of doing these few calculations. So let me walk you through my Fast Fit Worksheet for Butterick 6873, which is here, and show you how I arrived at the size that I chose. I have gone ahead and taken my measurements. I take my measurements every single time I do a Fast Fit Worksheet. Normally, there are not many changes at all. But if there are, it's important to go ahead and catch them now, obviously, especially if it's been a minute since you made something for yourself, which for me, I haven't made anything for my bodice in a while. I've been making pants lately. So important to take your measurements every single time. Don't skimp on that. And then we need to refer to the body chart. So that is what is on the pattern itself. So if I am a 40 inches and 40 inches in the bust, that corresponds with size 18 on the body chart measurement. So I write down size 18 and that equals 40 inches. So I know that's one for one. My waist is 34 and a half, which falls in between an 18 and a 20. So I'm going to go down, always size down if you fall in between, especially in big four. So that means I'm an 18 again. And that equals 33 inches, according to this chart. So and then I'm a 45 in the hip. And again, that's in between the two sizes. I'm going to size down. So that's a size 20. That is a 44 inch hip. Now the hip on this pattern and the bust a little bit don't really matter. The waist I think is what is most important. So that's what I'm going to focus on the most. When you pull out your pattern pieces and you look at your bodice front piece, this piece here, you can see they have provided finished garment measurements for the bust. That's this one. And then the waistline is down here at the waistline indicated by that. So that's what we're using for the finished garment measurements. They do also have them on the envelope as well. If you want to refer to those, you can. They don't include the finished hip measurement because it's kind of insignificant because the skirt is so alien. All right. So now we'll go to the finished garment measurement chart. And for the bust size 18, 43 inches. So we write down 43 inches. And then for the size 18, the waist is 33 and a half. All right. Now, and this is not applicable. All right. So now we're calculating ease. And that's the difference between the body chart size and the finished measurement size. So the body chart size for the bust is 40. Finished measurements is 43. So that's a three inch difference, three inches of ease and the bodice. And the waist, there is a half inch of ease. Because like I said, it is a very close fitting waist. If you look at it on her, if it's the waist the closest, there's a little bit more room here and there's a lot of room here. So the intended fit is how the designer figures this should fit everybody. And that is number one plus number four. So it's your measurements plus the pattern ease, ignoring everything that they have determined body size should be or pattern size should be. So it should be 43 in the bust and 34 and a half plus a half is 35. Look at me not even needing my calculator. And now we are going to compare number three, the finished garment measurements to the intended fit. So 43 and 43 are the same. So I know for sure that I'm cutting a size 18 in the, that's not inches, size 18 in the bust. And then in the waist, there is a two and a half inch difference. But remember I size down here in the body chart size. So if I go to size 20 in the body chart size, that's going to take me up to 35 inches right here for a size 20. So I can write down 35 inches, do all of this again, finished measurements are for a 20, 35 and a half. And the pattern ease is the same as it should be. And the intended fit is also the same. So if I make the size 20 comparing the 35 and a half to the 35, that's a lot closer and a lot less work than going sizing down to the size 18. So I am going to remove half an inch from the waist for a size 20. So I've got a size 20 here. Why don't I keep doing inches? Removing half an inch from the side seams, which is really only, gosh, an eighth of an inch on each one. Is there a center back? There's a center back as well, which usually my back is like narrower than my front because I have like a full, like a protrusion, a belly protrusion. So maybe I'll just do this from the center back. And that'll get me my little bit that I need to remove from the center back. Okay. And then my hip, I'm still going to do a 20. So that's how you do the fast fit worksheet. One thing to note is if let's say the size to cut here is more than one pattern size in between each category, 18, 20, 22, for example, if you go 18, 22, 26, that's going to be a problem. I don't like to jump more than one size in between each category. So 18 to 20, that's one category, 20 to 22, that's one category. That's fine. If you're jumping more than two sizes in between each one of those, then I would consider, like if you were making a 22 in the waist, for example, I would consider doing a 20 in the bust and then doing a small bust adjustment. Does that make sense? I would figure out how to get these, you know, all in line, which is one size, only going up one size each category by doing the different small and full adjustments that you would need to do there. All right. The last thing I want to check is the sleeve on this pattern is a drop shoulder. I don't know which version I'm making, but I don't think I'm going to have any problems with the bicep because, again, it's a drop shoulder, and then you either add on a band, you add on the sleeve, or you add on the ruffle. So again, I think I'm going to be good there. That's one thing you're going to have to just check in fitting. You might need to carve out some of this under the arm, but nothing we can really do about measuring for that right now. All right. So there you have it. Like I said, it's a pretty straightforward little path that we go on, a little bit of a journey that we go on. But hopefully when you get to the end, you arrive at a place where you feel a lot more confident about the size that you were going to pick and you know whether or not you're going to be swimming in the pattern. And if that's something you like, that's great. If it's not something you like, you can kind of analyze that at this point. Okay. And one last thing before you go, if you flip to the next to the last page in the workbook, then you know there's this little social media checklist. So if you have a sewing account and you feel so inclined, follow along with this. Today's prompt is to post a picture of the pattern and then the fabric that you're using so people can kind of get excited about your project. In the next video, we are going to be talking about alterations. I am going to be getting out my ditto form, my trusty little gal here, and sort of like tissue fitting the pattern after it's cut out on to my ditto form. So once you get your size figured out from the fastlet worksheet, meet me back here and we'll talk about alterations.