30 Sewing Fit Tips That Make Handmade Clothes Look Expensive

We all know that a sign of a luxury garment is a good tailored fit and if your sewing projects aren't looking or fitting how you imagined it might not be your sewing skill it might be your fitting process. In today's video I'm going to be giving you 30 hacks that I teach my students inside the DPL Atelier so that their handmade clothes can go from home sewn to high-end expensive luxury. We're going to be covering measurements, tools, analysis and easy amendments you can apply to your patterns and your garments. You'll want to stick around to the end for this one because there are some simple yet powerful tips. Let's jump into it. It all starts with accurate measurements which you won't be achieving if this little guy is out of shape. So did you know sewing tapes can stretch and warp over time therefore if yours has been knocking around your creative space for some years you might want to measure it against a fixed ruler to ensure you're still getting accurate results. If the measurement increments are a little out of whack then it is time to purchase new and replace this. Now of course a golden rule with measuring is not to take a vanity metric and suck in it's not to distort your measurements and push out you want to stand as naturally as possible and you never ever ever want to take your measurements over existing garments like t-shirts because they can even add a couple of centimeters and distort your results. That being said you may have seen many a dressmaker take a measurement with their fingers tucked under the tape measure. This is because they are trying to incorporate a little bit of ease. Ease slash tolerance very annoying different terminology in the industry I know but this is the wiggle room we incorporate into our garments so that as the wearer we can move around quite comfortably especially noted in woven garments where the fabric doesn't stretch but what if you want to design or draft something that is a little more tight fitting like this jersey top I'm wearing here or like something like a swimsuit. Now when you take your body measurements we're going to then want to incorporate negative ease this means we are deducting from the circumference or whatever measurement we've taken in order for the stretchy fabric to stretch around our body and cling to it as intended. If you've taken your measurement with the two fingers underneath you've already added ease and then you'll have to look at deducting even more ease in order to get that result. For me personally I take the true measurement as the designer I can then decide whether I would like to add or remove any ease. The next tip is about identifying accurate areas of your body be it your waistline or your hip line now your natural waistline as we should know by now isn't always the narrowest part of your upper torso. When I was in uni they also taught us to locate it with two finger widths above your belly button but even that as a guesstimate can be quite inaccurate. The most simple and accurate way to locate your natural waistline is to simply tip side to side and where you crease is where your waistline lies. Similarly when we are looking at our hip measurement don't get it confused with your hip bones this is actually more like your high hip measurement. Your hip measurement should be the fullest part of your lower body usually around your buttocks and so just make sure that you are lowering that tape measure and taking that parallel to the floor your horizontal balance lines your waist your bust your hip should always be as parallel to the floor as possible. Another common measuring mistake is actually measuring far too long across the shoulder many people start to measure on the drop of the arm and this if we are always circling back to considering garments will actually be more of the sleeve head than it is the shoulder seam so a tip on locating this is to go from the base of your neck and down stopping the measurement in line with your armpit crease. This is going to give you a nice accurate shoulder measurement without distorting the sleeve head. Here's an industry hack for taking your armhole depth now you may have reference pattern cutting books that give you a nice little figure template and they show you that the armhole depth is somewhere down here and if the model raises their arm like this it kind of stops somewhere around here. How are you meant to take that measurement accurately every single time especially on yourself? If you do try this on yourself you might need to do a few yoga classes for the flexibility it's always going to be easier with a friend family or loved one to help you however an industry hack to find your armhole depth as I put this tape measure around Matilda's neck is to pop it around loop it under your arms and where it comes flat on the back and the tape measure meets is the distance of your armhole depth. This is going to give you an accurate read every single time you might want to put a pin or a marker in there as I say you're going to have to be quite flexible to do that if you're measuring it by yourself but that is going to make sure that there are no discrepancies there's no variations and that you are drafting your patterns accurately every single time. In a similar vein many people take a arm measurement that alternative to the shoulder measurement being too long the arm measurement can be too short because many people take it from the top of their arm straight down like this. Now laws of physics a curved line is always longer than a straight line and so I'm holding my tape measure in my hand here and I'm going to run it as down the center of my arm as much as possible across my elbow and as I bend my arm and put my hand on my hip I can feel that tape measure getting longer in length and so you just want to be a little bit dexterous with this one I will admit but you want to always take your arm bent and you can turn around have a little look there and check that measurement so that when you're drafting your clothes your sleeves aren't going to be too short the moment your human body starts moving. Now don't forget that necklines on garments every time we take a measurement we do so with the garment in mind necklines are curved not straight and so make a soft v around your neck with the tape measure rather than doing the circumference halfway up here this is going to yield an inaccurate measurement. Still with a focus on the top half of the body I want to help you locate your cross back measurement now this is the broadest part of your back if you take something flexible like a piece of paper and you drape it over your shoulder like so where this paper breaks away from the body is the broadest part of your back so that's going to allow you to take the tape measure from one end to the other and take the accurate cross back measurement every single time. A similar tricky measurement and yet you wouldn't think it is your waist to floor your hip to floor or anything like that a lot of people hold the start of their tape measure where you've got the one millimeter increment at the top at the waist and you take it down to the floor if you bend to pick that up again you're going to notice that a curved line which is what's created when we bend down is longer than a straight line this is going to distort what's going on. An easy fix is to turn your tape measure the other way so that the start of the tape measure is at the floor and instead of measuring your waist to floor or your hip to floor you're going to measure the floor to your waist or the floor to your hip and this is going to give you a nice accurate easy to do on yourself measurement every single time. It's also going to make taking your body rise easier now you may have seen suggestions to sit on a surface and measure from the surface to your waistline that would be your body rise but an easier way to calculate this is to deduct your inseam measurement from your outer leg measurement and that is going to give you your body rise every single time. Finally then on a similar vein when you come to adjust the length of your trousers or a dress or a skirt you might find yourself bending down to roll up the hem before standing up again cannot say it enough curved line longer than a straight line so even if you're at home right now please stand up I want you to bend down and touch your toes and I want you to feel the fabric of your garment rising up as you bend forward an easier way to adjust the length on any garment is to first roll it up as you're stood straight and pin that in place you can then take a measurement of the folded fabric you're going to have two bits of folded fabric back on each other you can take that measurement before applying it to your pattern this is a much much easier for you to adjust the length of your me maids at home. Let's talk about tools for a second because these really can enhance your fitting process so remember when we located our natural waist earlier in the video you'll want to equip yourself with a waist marker this little thing can be something as simple as a piece of string that you tie around your waist or I've just put a piece of velcro against a elastic here and you'll be able to secure this around your natural waistline and it won't budge so therefore when you're taking your measurement from the waist to the floor or your nape to your waist you're going to have it accurate every single time. Another quick tip if you are using a waist marker as thick as this is to measure consistently either to the top or the bottom because this is about an inch and so if you are measuring from the nape to the top of the elastic for your nape to waist but you're measuring from the bottom of the elastic for your waist to floor there is an inch difference there so just make sure that you are consistently measuring either to the top or the bottom every single time. Next up did you know that this shape here on a trouser pattern is meant to reflect your crotch curve? This is if you cut your body in half and had a cross section of your body it is meant to be the exact same shape as between your legs. If you equip yourself with a flexible ruler and you tuck this between your legs and press to secure the shape this is going to give you a subtle shape to cross reference to your trouser patterns so that your crotch curve hopefully avoids many rounds of fitting amendments. One of my favorites but if you have any spare plastic packaging knocking around it can be a great tool to trace off more complex areas of existing garments so if you've got something that fits you like a glove that you already love and you want to mimic the sleeve pattern or the armhole just pin the plastic around the garment trace over it and it will give you a nice accurate copy. When it comes to analyzing your fit it is so important to wear your garment with the intended accessories or additional garments therefore if you are designing a dress that you intend to wear with heels please fit it wearing heels this is going to affect the length clearly but equally you want to wear the underwear you intend to wear or if you're drafting a coat designed to be put over many layers you want to make sure that you are layering up with jumpers and whatever you intend to wear underneath just to check that that coat is comfortable and fits you there's nothing worse than a really tight coat once you've started layering up for the winter. Another tip for assessing your shoulder seam alignment I'm talking about a basic block which is the foundation of any well-fitting garment is you want to ensure that your shoulder seam runs from the base of your ear the back of your ear down to the center of your arm or your sleeve head this is going to make sure that you've got the correct alignment and it's a really good indicator whether you need to add more to the back to bring it forward or add more to the front to bring it backwards. Don't forget you can't see your own back a photo can but I will also die on the hill of taking photos of your make to disconnect from what we see in the mirror it really helps us analyze the fit from an objective point of view which we are all you know very guilty of with the inside our head but tips to take a photo of your me made include selecting natural daylight so that you can see all the details and the wrinkles doing so at eye level you don't want to take a distorted view of your makes that are either top down or bottom up and you can also if you are doing this process by yourself invest in a bluetooth camera shutter remote or like my phone does you can just say smile and it will automatically take a photo if I prop my phone up against the surface and then once you have those photos print them out and analyze them you can circle elements of the design you can highlight the drag lines the folds the wrinkles you can do detective work you can draw over it if you would like to shorten or lengthen and all of these clues that you have now added to your photo point towards a fitting map which you can apply to your patterns and finally something that also makes a solo fitting process easier is to try your me made on inside out now this one comes with a disclaimer because this won't work on a symmetrical pattern or if like me with scoliosis your body has severe asymmetries because once you flip the garment inside out you are reversing the left and right sides however I don't try to highlight my severe asymmetries and so I often draft clothes that are balanced if your design is a balanced symmetrical look then this can make pinning out excess that much easier don't forget unless you've lucked out and sewn a wearable twirl and what I mean by that is a sample garment that you were originally constructing to test the fit and design elements turned into something you could actually wear unless you're sewing one of those don't forget you can draw on your twirls it's fun it's interactive and it is a great way to assess and make changes there and then ultimately it's a working document it is not a precious thing and so that's what it's for analyze it review it draw on it amend it and whilst you're drawing on your twirls I really want you to get into the habit of transferring your horizontal balance lines now this can be your bust waist your hip your thigh your elbow it's going to help you analyze your fitting and see if the balance of your pattern is off balance lines are telling you whether your garment is rotating forward whether the pitch of the side seam is perpendicular to the floor so let's remove the guesswork and let's have an accurate fitting process and when it comes to amendments always adjust your length before your width or some people like to think top down send out because a lot of changes do have a domino effect and so how I like to remember this is that l comes before w in the alphabet width adjustments that you make on the wrong length are width adjustments you're going to have to make twice now just because a dart on a pattern is already outlined for you it doesn't mean you don't have the power to control the shape of that dart as long as the dart starts in the dart leg opening and finishes at the dart point we actually have a lot of wiggle room to customize this to our body so you can either curve the dart in one direction to remove fabric and you will make it tighter to the body or you can curve the dart in the other direction and create different shape dart legs the original to add more fullness and more volume for a fuller shape so don't feel like you are pigeonholed into the rules of the existing pattern you still have the power and the discretion as a designer in order to make changes in addition you can always grade between seams so if you check the sizing chart on your pattern and you are a 14 at the hip and a 12 at the waist you don't have to just cut out a 14 you can grade between sizes and so blend your seam lines between your bust waist and hip so that you can cut out a pattern that is already a lot more customizable to your unique figure and finally my friend it is worth noting that the same pattern will have an effect on fit by simply changing the fabric so it is always always worth to twirl twirl twirl now a twirl is a prototype garment it is a sample often constructed in a cheaper fabric so that you are not constantly cutting into that expensive silk but it will have similar drape properties and weight properties so that you can test how that fits to your body if you are constructing something in a heavier weight fabric you might want to add excess seam allowance to give yourself that wiggle room for fitting amendments and so those are your 30 hacks from taking accurate measurements to small changes you can make to and if you work through these four chapters methodically i promise your next sewing project is going to look like you paid a lot of money for it so if you found this video useful please don't forget to like and subscribe i share tips like this all the time and of course if you want to go deeper the dpl atelier is where we work through it together as we have a dedicated module called the contour module full of tips and tricks like this where we deep dive into it i'll leave the link down below for now stay safe keep creative and i'll catch you on the flip side