Handy sewing hint of the day #23

My sister and her husband left at 6:00 a.m. this morning to drive home to Ottawa, leaving their nursing student daughter with me. I am so happy to have a student/kid back under my roof. My ideal zen state is to be in sewing room working away but to have the sound of other people in the house, same as Miss Daisy and Birdie when he stays over - they sniff around at opposite ends of the yard but every once and while look over to make sure the other one is still there.

Some of us are just pack animals, and if you are, you might as well admit it.

Today I will be doing a little cleaning up after a summer of company (my son's in-laws will be here in two weeks and I am looking forward to that a lot - lucked out there) and making pickles.

I am for the first time going to try fermented dills and pickling a bunch of Jalapeño peppers. It is a mystery why someone who doesn't like to spend more than 10 minutes on making dinner is happy spending hours pickling- probably some genetic remanent of my rural background.

I am also thinking of trying a sewing podcast to go along with my Fall of Sewing. If I did that anyone think they would listen?

Now back to the title of this post and a sort, but I hope useful, handy hint.

I have talked about trimming, grading and clipping, and what is left is notches.

Often instructions, particularly for more complex patterns, will tell you to notch. If you don't know the why, many sewers just clip when they read this, but notching is very different.

You cut notches, instead of clips, in any application where you have a convex (curving out) shape that will later be turned inside. 

Now as I continue to explain this you have to take into count that I haven't taken any geometry since Grade 10, being a beneficiary of the marvellous Quebec educational system in high school that allowed you to drop all maths and sciences early on as part of the French romantic languages tradition. This used to drive my pharmacist turned science teacher father nuts and I passed Grade 10 geometry only because he bribed me with promises of pickled herring (my favourite food then in the days before I discovered Creme Brûlée ) if I paid attention during our kitchen table tutoring sessions.

Which explains why I am so proud that I remembered what convex means.

Back to my explanation of notching.

When you have a curve that bends outwards, as you do in a curved collar shape, a curved cuff edge or  more often a round edge patch pocket, once you turn that shape to the right side you are going to have a lot of extra fabric (because the seam allowance is going to have more fabric in it then the shape it turns into) pack into that shape. This means bumps and lumps and weirdness that a iron can't eliminate.

Notching removes this extra fabric so when that patch pocket is turned right side for example, it will lie nice and flat.

Here is what it looks like:

Such an easy idea, isn't it?

And so effective.

Now back to scrubbing cucumbers.

Handy sewing hint of the day #22

This one is about clipping.

Patterns tell you to clip a lot.

They don't really tell you why, how much, or how often.

Those are the important parts.

To make it plain as it can get I would say the thing to remember is you have to clip a seam allowance most of the time when it needs to be attached to some other shape that is different (say a curved neckline to a straight collar for example) or otherwise stretched in some way to liberate the fabric to go around a corner, in a insert as one case.

You don't clip seam allowances that are turned inside, when constructing a round pocket or a curved shaped collar as some examples. For that you need to notch, which is another thing all together, that I will talk about in the next post.

For now back to clipping.

This is what you need to know:

• To get the stretch advantage of clipping you can't clip like a mouse. This is no time for nibbling at the seam allowance, a victim of the fear that you are not creating a Sturdy Garment. Clip right to almost the seam allowance and be a brave girl about it.
• As security however put a line of stay stitching (straight stitches, usually a shorter stitch length) in just within the real stitching line. This will act as sort of a dyke to keep the clips for eroding into the garment. You can also, in an instance when you are doing a single clip as in clip to the large dot, iron a small piece of fusible knit interfacing under the area to be clipped, to achieve the same thing but without having to worry about having stay stitches showing later that you have to pick out.
• Clip a lot, don't be afraid to fringe it almost. This is not a here and there job. The rule is to clip as often as necessary for the fabric to be able to be pulled into a straight line - this will vary by the tightness of the fabric weave btw. A gabardine, as shown below, might need to be clipped every 1/4" or so,  a loosely woven linen every 1/2". Keeping clipping and pulling the seam straight to see how you go.

Here is an example which hopefully makes this all clearer.

A while ago I made a wool gabardine coat. The neckline was obviously round and the collar more or less a straight piece. 

Common situation and you are there every time you yourself put a collar in a blouse. 

You would also know that there is a tendency when the collar gets sewn into the neckline for there to be little pleaty things that annoyingly appear along the stitching line along the neck edge.

You are producing these little pleats you know by the simple task of trying to sew a straight thing to a round thing. 

The solution is to turn that round edge into something straight so the two edges are the same in nature and will sew together naturally.

You get that curved edge to transform into a straight one by clipping. Here is what it looked like once had clipped the neckedge on that coat:

A lot more clips than you expected right? 

True but look at how straight that seam line is, how large the spaces between the clips are - indicating to me how much this seam allowance had to be freed before it could be straight - in my mind representing in each of those spaces potential little pleats of fabric that could have been caught in the stitching line.

Pretty neat trick, eh?

Handy sewing hint of the day #21

I know I haven't done one of these in a while but it's time.

Today I want to talk about cutting.

The truth is most sewers are fairly ambivalent about cutting. Cutting out is the part of sewing most of us like least and most of us are also timid trimmers of seam allowances and other excess fabric.

I think this might go back to what I call the sturdy principle - the sense that if you trim too much and too close things might fray away and come apart after the first wash. 

At all costs we are terrified of this happening and restitch, triple backstitch and disregard trimming instructions in the guide sheets whenever no one is looking.

We need to be braver. In sewing and probably a lot of other areas too. Hand made clothing tends to wear out before it falls apart in my experience and all that excess, should be cut off stuff, can really pack up behind the seams and make things just look lumpy. I have enough lumps of my own I always say, no need in adding any more extra.

So here's what I would say about trimming.

First thing is it's not about just cutting things down but doing the right kind of cutting in the right places. There are three main types of trimming to think about - grading, notching and clipping.

Today I will share a little bit about grading, and cover notching and clipping in the next few posts. 

Deal?

Grading is necessary when you have a seam that is going to lie close to the body and be well edge pressed and you need to both reduce bulk behind the stitching and avoid a pressed- in ridge. 

To do this you trim one seam allowance down a bit and the other seam allowance about 1/8" even more than the first one. This will create a sort of step down between the two layers of seam allowances so they will blend into the fabric and make a less discernible ridge from the right side after pressing.

The rule is to have the longer trimmed seam allowance on the fabric layer that is on the outside, say the front of a blouse for example, and the slightly shorter one on the layer that is closest to the body. 

Of course in some seams, for instance in a lapel where which layer is going to show on the outside is going to change, at the break point of the collar for instance, you would switch which is the longer trimmed layer too at this point.

Here is a gab collar on the pressing point showing the different widths of trimmed seam allowance. The wider seam allowance is next to the top of the collar:

Pretty gripping stuff I know.

Handy sewing hint of the day #20 and a sort of pattern review

It has been non stop around here but I finally found time for a photo shoot of sorts and can catch up on some blog posts.

Today I want to talk about a concept I would call matching your technique to the fabric. I can give you an example with a UFO I had the great character to finally finish this week.

By matching your technique to the fabric I mean, continuing on the theme of following pattern instruction sheets with discretion and your own bright ideas, use light techniques with light fabric and heavier with heavy.

Not at all clear is it?

Examples help.

If I am sewing a military type fabric like wool gabardine I would go for military, ship shape type treatments. Hard presses with a pressing cloth and clapper, visible in fact articulated with top-stitching thread as opposed to sewing thread top-stitching, crisp edges with the top-stitching close to the edge ( the thinner the fabric the closer to the edge the top-stitching should be, the thicker the fabric the further away). It is a compatibility and matching thing:

A corduroy jacket top-stitching - some dimension to the fabric

Edge-stitching on a gab coat- notice how much closer to the edge the top-stitching is on the thinner fabric

I thought of all of this when I made this coat, an OOP Vogue in a wool mohair.

Aren't the flip flops perfect? I apologize for lack of styling but I wanted to get blogging and it's hot outside, what can I say? This is me.

The pattern number isn't really relevant is I am not entirely impressed with this pattern. 

Like many Big Four patterns it was unlined (makes no sense to me, coat fabrics need to be lined to go on and off easily and to cover the possible roughness, not to mention you are wearing a coat because you want to be warmer) and I went ahead and made my own lining.

However when I tried it on during construction I realized the sleeves were very narrow, almost blouse narrow and a lining would constrict them even further. Good thing I have skinny arms is all I can say.

So I threw out the lining, across the room actually, and ended up Hong Kong finishing all the seams instead in some silk I had left over from when I thought a grey and black blouse would suit me. I also hand stitched a patch of that fabric to cover the darts on the inside, not exactly sure why, must have been something on Netflix and I was sitting down anyway.

Now faced with a light feeling fluffy coat, sort of an upscale polar fleece, I decided to keep it as light as I could in construction. 

This meant no top stitching, no back neck facing (written about this before) and light aluminum snaps instead of buttons and buttonholes that I felt might themselves distort the fabric hand.

I also hand stitched on the patch pockets, super easy to do if you are watching the Mindy Project - slip stitched as invisibly as you can from the right side and then backstitched firmly catching the seam the pocket edges from the wrong side. In a fabric with this much texture you can't see the stitching:

Back neck seam finished with hand stitched flexible velour braid left over from when I had Chanel jacket illusions:

Those nice, almost weightless snaps from Botani in New York:

While I am not as crazy about the grey and black as I was when I bought this fabric - now my hair is grey I don't like to look monochromatic, but really this is a nice little coat for going to the mailbox or those days when you really want to face the world in your bathrobe.

Bonus shot of Miss Daisy next to a treadle sewing machine our neighbour painted for me when I was 16. It is a Challenge X farm edition and now well over 120 years old, although I see a handle is missing.

Miss Daisy has put her long back out again and is off to the playpen while I clean up the sewing room but in this picture she doesn't know that.

Handy sewing hint of the day #19 and pattern review

It is interesting to me that many Indie patterns are reviving an edge finishing technique that might of being more familiar to sewers of the 1950's than those who have stitched their way through the Big Four patterns in the decades since.

I am referring of course to bias binding.

At one stage, pre-serger, binding raw edges was a sturdy way to finish seam allowances, and for budget minded home sewers, a fabric thrifty way to make simple garments without facings.

Think of all those traditional aprons, single layer, finished with miles of seam bound edges:

On the finer side of dressmaking nicer garments have also used bias binding instead of facings, neck and armhole for instance, with the effect of finishing these edges elegantly with less bulk.

I have to detour here a bit too with my own statement of self-disclosure.

I hate many forms of facings, and never use them in my own sewing.

Too many, I feel are in the category of strange home sewing inventions that you just don't often see in well- made purchased clothing.

The top of the hit list for me are of course the notorious back neck facings that IMO plague so many home sewn garments, particularly blouses and shirts.

The thing to think about is what is the function of a back neck facing in these garments?

Basically to cover the raw edge of the back neck.

For this do you really need a kidney shaped piece of interfaced fabric that, because of turn of cloth, hardly ever fits to the shoulder seams you are told to tack it to?

Myself I never use them, either looking for shirts with yokes (the Negroni by Colette has a brilliant yoked treatment for a convertible collar shirt that totally dispenses with the need for back neck facings) or serging or binding the collar/neck edge along the back.

IMO yet again, this is a wonderful use of bias binding.

I also prefer to use binding in many necklines and armholes of sleeveless tops and dresses for the summer because eliminating all that extra fabric in facings just makes for a lighter, more comfortable garment.

And of course binding the seams around the armhole of an unlined jacket, or along the edge of a hem or the outer edge of a front facing adds a nice touch that will make you smile to yourself when you see them - a small and reoccurring pleasure that is worth the initial effort. I have just finished, almost, a mohair coat where I have done this and will post that soon.

I like binding. 

However there are a few things you should know that make applying it easier:

1. Forget the stuff you buy in those little packets. I know it is tempting to have the stuff all thin and folded and easy but my best comparison is that this stuff is to sewing what instant mashed potatoes are to cooking (apologies in advance to anyone who was going to make those up for dinner tonight). Near enough is not good enough. The fabric in purchased binding tends to be a cheaper fabric than you would use to sew a garment, and is full of sizing (starch). 
2. I always make my own bias from fabric (you can use strips of masking tape or painters tape laid on the fabric for a bias cutting guide) and use bias tape makers to help pressing the edges under.
3. Take advantage of the curvability of bias fabric. If your binding is going to be attached to a curved edge get it to your ironing board and press it into that curved shape before you apply it to the garment. It will then go in so easily and you won't have any weird pulling, puckering or diagonal wrinkles to deal with when you are done.
4. One of my rules is I never, never attach the binding, as most patterns say, by attaching the binding on the right side, wrapping it around to the back and topstitching from the right side and hopefully catching the unsewn edge of the binding on the wrong side. Instead I sew the binding, one raw edge right side of the binding to the wrong side of the fabric, then wrap it to the right side and edge stitch it in place. So much less stressful (and no turning it over and seeing you missed a spot) always nice and neat on the right side. Make sense?

A bias tape maker:

So I do use binding a lot and am interested in the number of new patterns that require it.

Patterns like this, the Lakeside pyjamas by Grainline that I made for my daughter-in-law's birthday.

I really like the shape of these for summer, and made them out of seersucker because it is the coolest fabric for hot weather because the ridges keep the fabric from sticking from to your body.

Here is my version:

The front, I had to shorten the straps about 3 inches, not sure what that was about, but I figured it should sit above and not below the boobs.

The back, overlapped for breeziness - these would be good menopausal nightwear but since DIL is about 20 years away from that I won't mention it

These seemed so tiny when I was making them, I felt I was making doll clothes, but they fit. To match the overlapped back these have sort of overlapped side seams like gym shorts.

Now a few of my own technical notes:

1. Lovely pattern style wise and easy to sew, with one exception.
2. Personally I would throw the binding instructions out the window (there is over seven yards of bound edges here). I was annoyed to no end to see this pattern described as for beginners with complicated instructions for applying narrow 1/4" seam binding. Listen by the time you wrap a 1/4" around to the wrong side there is not going to be much left and you certainly will have a tough time catching the wrong side from the right side. I suggest you use the technique described above and make your own 1 1/2 " binding so there is actually something to work with. All those poor beginners working quickly during nap time in tears.
3. The instructions for putting the shorts together with a series of complicated start and stops of the binding at various stages should be thrown out the window and way past the driveway, IMO of course. Best bet is to just bind all the pieces and then overlap the side seam sections where they should go and top stitch them down. Easy and you will have all your nerves left at the end of the process.

Final verdict, great pattern but there are much easier ways to put them together than the instructions suggest.

Handy sewing hint #18: buttonholes

I must confess that life/family and actual sewing has interfered with my blogging lately. The good news, if you think this way, is that I am full of new ideas on handy sewing hints.

Here goes, and as usual please add your own insights into the comments.

Buttonholes.

This week a notice of a new Indie pattern arrived in my in box. This detail caught my eye:

A couple of things I noticed. 

First of course was that the buttonholes were way too big for the buttons and that shirtdress was sure to come undone at some point, which is not really a great outcome for a shirt dress or the person in it.

The second thing I noticed was that the buttonhole at the top was dangerously close to the end of the placket likely to fray through. It needed to be moved down so the end of the buttonhole was at least 5/8" below the neck edge of the placket. Of course the sewer might have wanted to keep the placket ends right on top of each other at the neckline but buttons aren't staples. If you want that to happen what you really need is to end the top of the buttonhole that 5/8" or so below the neckline and sew in a small snap to keep it all neat.

All that is showing here of course is inexperience and there isn't a lot of information around on buttonhole fine points, and so I will try to make a bit of a contribution here.

First of all buttonholes freak sewers out. 

I was once followed around a fabric store by a woman with a blouse in a bag. She had heard I sewed and wanted me to put the buttonholes in her finished blouse for her. For 20 years she had sewn snaps onto her blouses with buttons on top because she had such terrible luck making buttonholes.

How nuts and how identifiable is that?

The thing with buttonholes is they are the last thing. It is entirely possible to ruin a perfectly wonderful garment in the last 5 minutes with a buttonhole disaster or buttonhole cutting disaster. I know. I once made a suit for a friend and sliced through the entire front cutting open the very last buttonhole.

I have tons of stories like that.

Truth is that some machine do a better job with making buttonholes than others. This is often a case where it is not you it's them.

My personal view is that many of the super duper computerized gadgety buttonhole systems are not as reliable as the sales person will lead you to believe. When they tell you "You will be able to make buttonhole after identical buttonhole, after the first one because the machine will memorize it" what they should add is that the "sensor" most often is just counting the number of zig zag stitches on the first side and of course if fabric layers change, as they can do in a garment, this may not be the right number of stitches to match the sides, and despite the miracles of New Machines your buttonholes can unexpectedly still turn out uneven even in your $5,000 machine.  (Does that make sense or only to me?) 

I have a former top-of-the-line for example that does this and, even worse, has a default where the sides of the buttonholes are so close together there is a 105% of cutting some of the stitches when the buttonhole is cut open.

So back to the machines.

I personally prefer old school four step buttonholes where you turn the dial - down one side, bar tack at the button, up the other side, bar tack. I have a couple of vintage Berninas and an expensive Janome that make buttonholes this way and I trust them.

This system allows you to control what is happening and that is a good thing.

Of course the nicest and completely most foolproof buttonholes in the world are make with the old template attachments, that you can buy anywhere, eBay, or at consignment shops sometimes (I got a spare at Value Village for $3.50).

Here is what those look like:

These units require you to cover, or drop your feed dogs and remove the presser foot and screw them onto the needle bar.

The buttonholes are made by inserting cams or templates of the buttonhole (including keyhole) of various sizes into a trap door in the bottom of the unit.

To operate you line up the foot, lower the presser bar and give it gas. These devices make a real racket, sort of like a tin truck on a tin road and you really wonder if this is a good idea.

The thing is that totally without any skill at all they make gorgeous round ended buttonholes with zero skill or involvement from yourself, which is kind of nice.

This week I made a short sleeved Negroni shirt for my youngest son's surprise birthday (music festival theme, hence the tie dye) and I made the buttonholes this way.

Here is the shirt:

Handy sewing hint of the day #17

Before we get into the weeds of fitting there are a few important first principles we should talk about. 

These, like nearly everything I write, are primarily the result of my own observations after decades or working with sewing students and in sewing for myself and my family.

Here we go:

There is a lot made of the big three- bust, waist and hip - but IMO some of the most potent body parts, when you are working towards fit, are lesser known measurements, or shapes. 

These include:

1. Shoulder slope. I talked before about the importance of getting a good upper body fit by working with the chest/high bust measurement rather than a bustling but as important as fitting the hanger is knowing what the shape of the hanger looks like. 

Some women have your so-called average shoulder shape for which average patterns presumably fit, most of us have shoulders that are either square (like mine, boney and they just go straight across like a ruler, detected by collars that seem to ride up) or sloped (if you have always thought you have had "small shoulders" in fact your shoulders might just be sloped, think duck, not trying to be rude here but need to give you a clear image) meaning your tops seems to just hang too loose on the shoulders or even feel like they are sliding down.

Look for where the extra fabric is on your shoulders. 

If it seems to be bunching up at your neckline, particularly at the back and your collars seems to stand away from your neck you might have square shoulders - basically the pattern is providing fabric where there is no you.

If you feel you have extra fabric deposited below your shoulder line and just too much hanging off your shoulder you probably have sloping shoulders (a good look in the mirror at your bare shoulders will actually tell you everything you need to know here).

My good friend Debbie Cook at Stitches and Seams does a nice easy description here of how to do a fast easy pattern adjustment for either of this issues.

2. Arm length. Actually no human measurement IMO can vary as much as arm length which seems to have nothing to do with your height. It's easy to measure on a set-in sleeve pattern, straight down from the shoulder notch to the wrist. Many folks need sleeves shortened.

3. How high and low your fullest part. These would be the three Bs - bust, belly and butt. Bellies are often higher than patterns think and busts and butts lower. This matters because your darts- bust, front and rear- need to end about 1/2" or more bit before the fullest part and aimed right at it. 

It's pretty simple really-  the darts pick up fabric where you don't need it and release it where you do. 

If that extra fabric is released too high, too low or too early or late you are going to get an unattractive bubble sitting in the middle of nowhere. Shortening and lengthening darts is easy, just move the last dart marking in or out, in a skirt or pant waist dart this just makes a shorter or longer dart (I personally lengthen all my back waist darts about 1 1/2" which is all you need to know about gravity and me).

In the case of a bust dart you can both move the dart end in or out so it is about 1/2-3/4" from your nipple (the more fitted the garment the closer the dart end to the bust point) but you might also have to raise it, or more commonly for larger busts lower it, so it is aiming at your nipple and not some random spot on your chest. If you do this of course you will have to redraw the dart legs so the lines from the side seam are properly aimed at this new end point.

I apologize here for not offering tons of great and useful pictures for all you visual learnings out there, but that would require far more time than I have right now, hopefully my words are clear enough, and if not let me know and I will try again.

Of course too you don't need to put a dart where you don't need them. For instance if you have a full tummy and basically your waist goes straight down and right into it, you don't need a front dart at all in fitted skirts (not sewing your darts will also add greatly to the fabric available for your front waistline too) or even only a small one. 

Remember darts are for shaping and not necessary in cases like this where there is no smaller part to be released to a larger one.

All of this brings me now to the really, really important facts of pattern choices.

Because you have shape and it is an individual shape, you are going to have to add (see previous post about making larger not making smaller for the pattern size chosen). The basic rule of thumb is to compare your pattern's ideal measurements and your own and add the difference to the seams.

Classic example would be you have a 34 inch waist and your pattern bought for your smaller 40 inch hips says the waist in that size should be 30 inches. This means of course that you have 4" to add and with two side seams this would be 1" added to each (2 X 1" for the front and 2 X 1" for the back), tapering in the top of say your skirt with this addition to the pattern's hip.

The principle applies for additions everywhere in your pattern but the big trick is that the more seams you have to divide these additions among the more subtle and successful your pattern alterations will be and the more able you will be to target them.

Listen to this, it's important, the more seams you have to play with letting out here and there taking in where you might need to in areas where you have hollows like the front of your chest or at the back or your neck where it slopes forward, the easier it is to fine-tune fit.

By contrast a seemingly "easy" few pattern pieces pattern can be a fitting nightmare because there are no shaping features for you to work with - and instituting those, adding seams or introducing darts, are fairly sophisticated and very easy to mess up.

On this basis princess seams (all those places to adjust along their length, so easy to make room for a large bust exactly where the bust is larger and return to a smaller upper chest) are terrific for fitting (enlarging darts is so much harder), as are two piece sleeves (smaller armhole and bigger biceps, smaller wrists) or panel seams in skirts and pants.

Sometimes nothing is harder to fit than a "simple" to sew pattern.

Does this make sense?

Some illustrations.

The pattern below is hard to fit, only places to add anything is at the side seams and that might not be where you want it. What about a full bust or hollow chest?

In an exaggerated contrast look at all the pre-set places you have in this pattern to adjust, you could make this one fit anybody:

Or less intimidatingly, see the adjustment spots here:

See the fitting difference between view B and the others?

Far easier to get a smooth fit here than with darts

Wonderful pattern if you want to take in the back neck and upper chest but increase for the bust or hips

 And finally, I know this is a lot right now, it is useful, ending with shoulders which is where we started, to match the lines of your shoulders with the seam lines of a pattern, this allows for adjustments in synch with your shape.

Folks with sloped shoulder for example do well with raglan sleeves, and folks with square shoulders with set-in sleeves:

Enough to think about now. 

To be continued.

Handy sewing hint of the day #16

I should call this the can of worms entry.

The last week I have been busy. I made a blazer, more on that later, did family stuff, and visited with my niece who will be coming to live with me in September while she is in nursing.

We have been working on some long overdue basement renovations to make a sort of apartment for her to stay in, and yes my mouse saga continues. Suffice it to say I now have a close business relationship with a company called Skedaddle.

Now onto the hint.

Fitting.

Obviously this is going to set off several posts at least but I think it important not to disappear into the weeds too quickly without an overview of what personally (and this really is my own opinion) I feel are the basic principles.

It is going to take me some time to get to all I want to say, but we better start somewhere.

Principle #1:

It is always easier to make something bigger than it is to make something smaller.

Think about it. 

If the neckline is too big (I have said elsewhere that sewing the facings of a neckline first and trying it on to see how the opening looks before you jump in and make a top that has a neck that swims on you is a good idea, and that is worth repeating here) you can't make it smaller really. I mean the fabric you wish you had is already gone, you cut it away and there is no way to get it back.

This matters because it leads you directly to what size pattern to buy, and to the universal truth that most women measure in odd numbers and most patterns define measurements in evens.

What are you supposed to do if you are "between sizes" or, just as typically, not one of your measurements is in the same category?

This brings us, without really answering this question yet, to:

Principle #2:

Fit the parts that the garment is going to hang on first and adjust the rest.

For an upper body garment this is the shoulder/upper chest area (essentially above the breasts, which we all know have nothing to do with your frame size) and your waist/pelvis area.

Specifically this means buy a pattern for a garment that hangs from the upper body according to your "upper bust" chest measurement - that number you get when you wrap a measuring tape across your shoulder blades (this will catch bone/frame size) high under your armpit and across your upper chest, avoiding your bust line all together. A pattern sized to fit this part of your body will most likely fit your neck, shoulder and frame pretty well (with only minor adjustments for things like a forward shoulder etc. or shoulder slope if you need them) and eliminate a lot of that awkward mobile neckline or bunching you can get if, like most woman who have matched the pattern size to their "bust," you are making a garment that is too big for the hanger.

In your head you have to translate the upper bust measurement to what the pattern calls "bust" and add extra to the bust later (two methods, remind me to write about those) and of course if you fall between sizes buy the smaller size.

So if your upper bust is 35, your bust is 38 you buy a pattern for a 34 bust and add 4" to the bust line. Try this, just doing this will eliminate an amazing number of fitting issues.

In sewing pants or skirts however you have to look at your waist and hip (the later universally defined as the largest lower body circumference) and decide what is the smaller measurement and select a pattern that matches the smaller, waist or hips, of those two measurements and then add accordingly.

So much easier to add to the side seams of a skirt or pants to fit a larger waist or too try to take in excess fabric from the crotch area and above, in a pair of pants.

To help you visualize this think of how so many older women look in pants they buy, particularly from the back view. Tons of extra fabric flapping around their hips and legs am I right? This is because, in order to get enough space to fit larger, older waists, they have had no choice but to buy a size that is way too large for their frames, legs and hips. How much easier would it be to get that fit right out of the envelope and just to cut a wider waistline?

Conversely how many of you have seen photos of sewn pants that suffered from smiley crotches and baggy fronts (some of these are even in the pattern books). Again adding to the legs as necessary and even altering for a fuller seat (will show you how to do that too) is a lot easier that trying to get rid of extra wrinkles and fabric.

Principle #3: Keep it simple and do only one adjustment at a time. Wrinkles point, literally, to the area you need to work on and let them tell you what you need to do first.

Try the suggestions above, do some simple flat pattern additions where your measurement indicate you are going to need too (as above where you can see the need for an extra 4" coming around the bust) and make up a trial pair without any further changes (if you want some "muslin" I have a vast collection of mouse pooped sheets I no longer trust).

The fact is that each pattern change you make has sort of a ricochet effect, improving or worsening another area, and if you fiddle too much in too many areas too quickly you won't really know what is working and what isn't.

And a final few words on some things I have noticed in the vast number of alteration and fixes available all over the internet.

a. Don't be freaked out by fitting. 

If you have the general idea of the why it really isn't that hard and don't let anyone tell you it is. A Ph.d. in civil engineering is not required. It's the why not the how that matters really and I am going to try to help you with that. A whole lot of adjusting without knowing what's going on is sort of like that cooking you did in the early days where you knew it needed something and kept dumping in seasoning until you ruined it, probably egged on by a younger sibling.

There really are easy ways to fix most things and IMO we can leave the complicated ways to folks who actually have a Ph.d.s in civil engineering.

b. Figure out your own body and clear your head of any misperceptions about it. What your family told you was probably wrong. I spent years altering for the big hips I was told I had and it wasn't until one high forceps, one broken clavicle delivery (poor baby and not me) and a C section that I realized I have narrow hips but a big butt. Completely different alterations. I will do my best to help you figure out where you might need to alter, keeping it simple of course.

c. I dispute all that advice about measuring clothes you like the fit of and using that as your personal ease preference etc. If you had that many clothes that fit maybe you wouldn't need to sew. Sewing your own clothes means you hope for better that RTW, and fortunately that's not all that hard.

More later, busy week but my mind is going to be churning on this one.