Unit 7: Length, Waist and Hip Adjustments

Why Patterns Have Lengthen and Shorten Lines

Look at almost any commercial pattern piece and you will find a pair of closely spaced horizontal lines crossing the piece, usually labeled lengthen or shorten here. Those lines are not decoration and they are not a suggestion. They mark the one place on that piece where the designer knows length can be added or removed without wrecking the shape of everything around it.

When Scripture describes Bezalel, it says God filled him with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and all manner of workmanship. Understanding comes before workmanship in that list. Knowing why a line is printed where it is will save you more fabric than any clever trick with the scissors.

What the line protects

A pattern piece is a flat map of a curved body. The armhole, the waist curve, the hip curve, the crotch curve on a pant, and the notches that make two pieces match are all placed a fixed distance from one another. If you shorten a bodice by trimming an inch off the bottom, you have not just made it shorter — you have moved the waist curve up into territory shaped for the hip, and you have shortened the side seam so it no longer matches the back piece.

The lengthen/shorten line is placed in a straight, uneventful stretch of the piece: below the armhole and above the waist shaping on a bodice, above the knee on a pant leg, between the hip curve and the hem on a skirt. Change length there and every curve keeps its relationship to every other curve. The garment simply becomes taller or shorter.

Shortening: fold, do not cut

To remove length, decide the amount first — say 1 inch. Fold the pattern along the line so that the fold takes up half the amount you are removing, because a fold consumes fabric on both sides of itself. A 1/2 inch fold removes 1 inch of length. Crease it, tape it flat, and check the piece against a ruler to confirm you removed what you intended.

Lengthening: cut and spread

To add length, cut the pattern cleanly along the line, slide a strip of tissue paper or plain paper underneath, and spread the two halves apart by the full amount you want to add. An inch of spread adds an inch of length. Tape both halves to the filler paper, keeping the grainline arrow on the two halves perfectly parallel — if the pieces skew even slightly, the grainline breaks and the finished garment will twist on the body.

Redraw the seam lines, every time

This is the step people skip, and it is the step that shows. After folding or spreading, the cutting line at the side seam will step in or out at the alteration. Lay a ruler along the seam edge above and below the change and redraw one continuous line through the jog. On a straight seam a plain ruler is enough. Where the seam is already curved, use a French curve so the redrawn line flows rather than kinks.

The same rule applies to the front and back of the same garment. If you shorten the pant front by 3/4 inch and forget the pant back, the inseam lengths no longer match and you will fight that seam all the way to the hem.

Where to change length when there is no line

Some pattern brands print only one lengthen/shorten line on a long piece, and some vintage patterns print none. In that case, place your own line in the flattest part of the piece, well clear of any notch, dart point, pocket placement, or curve, and treat it exactly as a printed one. Draw it perpendicular to the grainline, not perpendicular to the side seam — those are not the same thing on a flared piece, and the grainline is the one that governs how the fabric hangs.

Common failures

• Removing length by trimming the hem of a flared skirt. The hem of an A-line skirt is wider than the hip; cutting an inch off the bottom leaves the skirt both shorter and narrower than intended.
• Folding by the full amount instead of half, and losing twice the length you meant to lose.
• Adjusting the front and forgetting the corresponding back, facing, lining, or pocket piece.
• Letting the two halves shift out of parallel while taping.

Work on the paper pattern with the pattern lying flat and weighted, keep your rotary cutter capped and away from the edge of the table while you tape, and label every piece you alter with the date and the amount changed. Six months from now that note is the difference between reusing the pattern and starting over.

Measuring at Three Points for a Level Hem

An uneven hem is the single most visible sign of amateur work, and it is almost never caused by poor stitching. It is caused by measuring once, in one place, and trusting it. Proverbs speaks against divers weights and divers measures — two standards used where one honest standard belongs. A hem measured from the waist on one side and from the floor on the other is exactly that, and the fabric will tell on you.

Measure up from the existing hem, not down from the waist

The waistband of a garment does not sit level on a body. It rides higher over a full seat, lower over a rounded stomach, and it shifts every time the wearer moves. The existing hem, on the other hand, was cut and sewn on a flat table by someone using one consistent measurement. It is the honest reference.

So when you shorten a pair of pants or a sleeve, decide the amount to remove and mark that amount upward from the current finished edge. If you need to lose 2 inches, you are drawing a line 2 inches above the folded hem edge, all the way around. That single habit eliminates most crooked hems.

The three points

Lay the leg or sleeve flat, smoothed but not stretched, with the seams lying where they naturally fall. Mark the new length at three places across the width:

1. Center front of the leg
2. About 1 inch in from the outer side seam
3. About 1 inch in from the inseam

You mark an inch in from each seam rather than directly on it because the seam itself is thick with allowances, and a mark sitting on that ridge is easy to misplace by a quarter inch. Three marks across the width let you lay a ruler through them and see immediately whether they line up. If the middle mark sits lower than the two outside marks, your fabric was not lying flat when you measured — smooth it and measure again.

Connect the three marks with tailor's chalk or a fabric marker, using a clear ruler for a straight leg and a flexible ruler for a flared one. Do the same on the second leg, and then hold the two legs together at the crotch seam and compare. They should match within about 1/8 inch.

Try it on before anything is cut

Fabric on a table and fabric on a body are two different things. Pin the new hem up, turn the garment right side out, put it on with the shoes that will be worn with it, and look in a full-length mirror. Heel height alone can change the correct length by an inch or more. Check the back as well as the front; a garment that is level in front and creeping up in back usually needs slightly more length left in the back, not less.

Walk a few steps and sit down. A pant that looks correct standing and exposes six inches of sock when seated is too short, and there is no fixing it afterward.

Leave the allowance you will need later

Once you are satisfied with the marked line, add the hem allowance below it before you cut. Typical allowances: women's dress slacks 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches, men's trousers 2 inches, casual pants and jeans 1 to 1 1/2 inches, dress pants 1 1/2 to 2 inches. Cut below the chalk line by the allowance amount, never on the line itself.

Be conservative. You can always shorten a garment a second time; you cannot put length back once it is in the scrap bin. When you are unsure between two lengths, keep the longer one and try again after a day of wearing it.

What goes wrong

• One mark only. A single measurement at the side seam produces a hem that swings up or down across the front, obvious the moment the wearer moves.
• Measuring down from the waistband. Guarantees the two legs differ, because the waistband does not sit level.
• Stretching the leg while measuring. Knit and bias-cut fabrics will lie longer under tension and rebound shorter after cutting.
• Cutting off the whole allowance. A jean shortened flush to the chalk line has nothing left to fold; the only rescue left is a facing.

Keep pins pointed away from the direction you are handling the garment, and set the iron on its heel between presses. A hem is a slow job done once, not a fast job done three times.

Shortening Trousers and Rebuilding the Hem

Israel was told to put a marked border on the edge of every garment, generation after generation. The edge of a garment has always mattered. It is where the eye lands, where the wear happens, and where careless work is impossible to hide. Shortening a pair of trousers is one of the most useful skills you can own, and doing it well is mostly a matter of respecting that edge.

Open the old hem first

Take a seam ripper to the existing hem stitching and open it all the way around. Work from the inside, sliding the point of the ripper under two or three stitches at a time rather than plowing through a whole seam in one push; the blade is sharp and it is very easy to nick the fabric of the leg. Pull the loose thread out with tweezers.

Press the old hem crease open with steam. On jeans and on dark cotton twill the old fold line will often remain as a visible line even after pressing. This matters: if you shorten the leg by less than the depth of the old hem, that ghost line ends up on the outside of your new hem where everyone can see it. A dab of white vinegar in the steam water and a firm press help, but plan the new length so the ghost line falls inside the fold or gets cut away.

Mark, cut, refold

With the hem open and pressed flat, mark the new finished length at three points as you have already learned, measuring up from the original finished edge before you opened it. Below that line, add the hem allowance you want — 1 to 1 1/2 inches for casual pants and jeans, 1 1/2 to 2 inches for dress pants — and cut there.

Now fold. For a clean double-fold hem on light or medium fabric, turn 1/2 inch to the wrong side and press, then turn the remainder up and press again. This encloses the raw edge entirely and needs no other finish. On heavy denim a double fold builds an unmanageable lump; instead, finish the single raw edge with a serger or a zigzag, turn it up once by the full allowance, and press.

Pin from the inside, placing the pins perpendicular to the fold so you can pull them as you sew. Check the leg circumference before stitching: a tapered leg is narrower at the new hem than the folded allowance is, so the folded band will not lie flat. The fix is to open the side seam and inseam a few inches, taper the seam to match, and re-stitch before hemming.

Stitching

A straight stitch of about 2.5 mm suits most hems. Go to 3 mm on heavy denim and topstitching thread, and drop to 2 mm on fine fabrics. Use a needle matched to the cloth: an 80/12 universal for shirting and lightweight cotton, a 90/14 for medium twill, and a 100/16 denim needle where the hem crosses the thick side seam and inseam junctions. Sew from the inside with the hem allowance up, guiding the fold edge against a marked point on the throat plate rather than watching the needle.

If you would rather the stitching not show at all, use a blind hem foot and your machine's blind hem stitch, which takes several straight stitches on the hem allowance and then one small bite into the garment. Set that bite as shallow as your machine allows; a deep bite shows as a dimple on the right side.

Keeping the original hem

On jeans with heavy contrast topstitching, many people prefer to keep the factory hem. Measure the amount to remove, fold the leg up by that amount so the original hem sits against the leg, and stitch a new seam just above the factory stitching, catching only the doubled leg fabric. Trim the excess inside to about 1/4 inch, finish that edge, and press the tuck downward so the original hem hangs where it always did. The seam it creates sits above the hem and is visible up close, but the worn, faded factory edge is preserved.

Where it goes wrong

• Cutting before opening the old hem, which loses the reference edge.
• Forgetting to check the second leg against the first.
• Hemming a tapered leg without tapering the seam, producing a hem that flares out.
• Sewing over the side seam junction with a light needle and breaking it. Slow down, hand-walk the wheel through the thickness.

Finding Length in a Garment That Has None

Adding length to a finished garment is far harder than removing it, and the reason is simple arithmetic: whatever fabric is not already inside that hem does not exist. The prudent worker foresees this. When you hem a growing child's dress or a pair of work trousers, you leave the deepest allowance the garment will carry, precisely because you can see the day coming when someone will want it back.

First, find out what you actually have

Before you promise anyone extra length, open the hem and measure the allowance. Press the fold flat and lay a ruler from the raw edge to the finished fold line. Manufacturers vary widely. A pair of dress slacks may hold 1 1/2 to 2 inches; a factory jean often holds only about 1/2 inch above a serged edge, and there is nothing to recover there at all.

Subtract from that total whatever new hem you intend to sew. If the allowance measures 1 3/4 inches and you sew a 1/2 inch turned hem, you have gained a little over an inch of visible length — not the full 1 3/4 inches, because a hem must still fold.

Rescue one: a narrow hem

The cheapest inch you will ever find comes from converting a deep hem into a narrow one. Open the old hem, press it out, finish the raw edge with a serger or a machine zigzag, then turn up only 1/4 to 1/2 inch and topstitch. On a garment with a 1 1/2 inch allowance this returns roughly an inch of length for perhaps twenty minutes of work.

Rescue two: a hem facing

When the allowance is gone entirely, a facing adds length without adding bulk to the garment itself. Cut a bias strip of lightweight fabric — bias so it will curve around a flared or tapered edge without pulling — about 2 inches wide and long enough to circle the opening plus a seam allowance. Stitch it right sides together to the raw edge of the garment with a 1/4 inch seam, press the seam toward the facing, understitch, then turn the facing entirely to the inside and press so no facing shows from the right side. Hand or machine stitch the free edge down. You have just gained back the entire old hem allowance and then some, and from the outside the garment simply appears longer.

Choose facing fabric of similar weight and fiber to the garment so it launders the same way. A quilting cotton facing inside a wool skirt will shrink differently and pucker the hem the first time it is washed.

Rescue three: an added band

Some garments will accept a contrasting band at the hem, and on a child's dress or a plain work skirt this reads as a design choice rather than a repair. Cut a band twice the finished width you want plus two seam allowances, fold it lengthwise, and attach the raw edges to the garment edge. Grain matters: cut the band on the same grain as the garment where the edge is straight, and on the bias where it curves.

What a let-down hem will show

An old hem that has been pressed out often leaves a permanent crease line and a color difference, because the folded-under fabric was protected from light and laundering while the rest of the garment faded. On dark cotton and on linen this line can be stubborn. Steam and a press cloth help. So does topstitching a row of decorative stitching or a length of trim directly over the crease, which turns an unavoidable mark into a deliberate detail. Test the press cloth method on the inside of the garment first; some blends will hold a shine where a hot iron has pressed them.

Foreseeing the next alteration

Every time you hem something now, leave the deepest allowance the fabric and the style will carry, and finish the raw edge properly so it is ready to be reopened. On children's clothing, a growth tuck — a 1 inch folded tuck stitched across the skirt or the leg — stores two inches of length in plain sight and lets down in five minutes.

Keep the iron on its heel while you pin, and keep small children clear of the board entirely. Steam burns are the most common sewing-room injury and they happen fastest to a hand that reached in from below.

Taking In at the Side Seams

Most fitting problems in a too-large garment are solved at the side seams, and most of them are solved by amounts so small they seem hardly worth the trouble. Who has despised the day of small things? A half inch taken from each of two side seams removes a full inch from the body of a garment, and one inch is often the whole difference between a dress that hangs like a sack and one that fits.

Do the arithmetic once, carefully

Put the garment on inside out and pinch the excess at one side seam until the fit looks right. Have a helper pin it, or pin it yourself with the garment on a dress form. Measure the pinched depth from the existing stitching line to the pin. That measurement is the amount you take from that one seam.

Now the key point: whatever you take from one seam you take from the other, in equal measure. If you need to remove 1 inch of total circumference, that is 1/2 inch off each side seam. If you remove the whole inch from a single seam, the garment will still measure correctly around the body but every vertical line on it — the side seam itself, the center front, any front placket or button band — will pull noticeably toward the altered side. This is the most common self-taught mistake in alteration, and it is completely avoidable.

Where the adjustment starts and stops

An adjustment does not run the full length of the seam at the same depth. Decide where the garment already fits and let the new stitching line begin exactly there, blending out from the original stitching over a distance of 2 to 3 inches. A shirt that fits at the armhole but is loose at the waist should have a new seam line that starts on top of the old one at the armhole, angles gradually inward, reaches its full depth at the waist, and then blends back out toward the hip.

Draw that line with chalk before you sew, using a French curve or a flexible ruler rather than freehand. A straight chalk line drawn from armhole to hem takes in far more at the bust than you intended and produces the overly tapered, tube-shaped silhouette that makes an alteration look homemade.

Baste, fit, then sew

Machine-baste the new seam line at 4 mm with a contrasting thread, without removing the original stitching. Turn the garment right side out and try it on. Basting is fast to remove and forgiving; permanent stitching is neither. Sit down, raise both arms, and reach forward. A garment must move.

If the fit is right, sew the new seam with a 2.5 mm straight stitch, backstitching at both ends. Only then remove the original stitching in the section you have altered, and trim the excess allowance to 5/8 inch — no closer. Finish the trimmed edge with a serger or a zigzag, and press the seam. Press it in the same direction the original seam lay, or it will show a ridge on the outside.

Modesty is a fitting question too

Fit and modesty are not separate subjects. A garment cut close enough to trace every line of the body draws attention where the wearer probably did not intend it, and a garment left far too large does the wearer no favors either. Scripture speaks of adorning oneself in modest apparel, and of the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. Aim for a garment that skims the body, moves with it, and lets the person inside be seen rather than the outline. Taking in at the side seams is one of the plainest ways to give a thrifted garment that dignity.

How much is really possible

Ready-made side seams are not generous. On a typical pair of jeans you can take in roughly 3 inches in total at the side seams before the pockets and the shaping distort. Beyond that the front and back panels stop meeting where they should and the garment goes crooked. When more than 3 inches must come out, the honest answer is usually that the garment is the wrong size, and your time is better spent on a piece that starts closer.

Failures to watch for

• Uneven division between left and right, which pulls the whole garment sideways.
• Taking the full amount all the way from armhole to hem.
• Trimming the new allowance down to nothing, leaving no room for a future change.
• Sewing over pins. Pull each pin as it comes to the foot; a needle striking a pin can shatter and throw fragments toward your face.

Letting Out a Waist: How Much Is Really There

The priestly robe was to be bound at the opening so that it would not be rent. That is a fitting instruction as much as a spiritual one. A seam let out until only a thread's width of fabric remains beyond the stitching is a seam waiting to tear, and it will tear at the worst possible moment. Letting out is bounded work, and the boundary is set before you ever sit down at the machine.

Open a seam and look

You cannot know what a garment has to give until you open it. Pick a spot on the side seam at the widest point of the waist and unpick two or three inches of stitching with a seam ripper, working from the inside. Press the two allowances flat and measure from the stitching line to the raw edge.

What you find will vary a great deal. A home-sewn garment made from a commercial pattern usually carries 5/8 inch. Some pattern companies use 1/2 inch. Ready-made clothing is often much less, and where the two allowances have been serged together as one, what you see is what you get.

The arithmetic of letting out

Two side seams, each with a 5/8 inch allowance, sound like 2 1/2 inches of possible gain. They are not. You must leave enough fabric beyond the new stitching line for the seam to hold, and enough for the edge finish. Leave at least 1/4 inch beyond the new stitching, and preferably 3/8 inch on anything loosely woven.

That is why the practical limit on letting out at the waist is about 1 to 1 1/2 inches of total circumference. Plan on that figure and you will not be disappointed. If you need 3 inches, the garment cannot honestly give it, and you should look for another solution rather than sew a seam that will fail.

Watch for what the old stitching left behind

Two things betray a let-out seam. The first is the old needle holes, which stay visible in tightly woven cottons, in linen, and in most synthetics — the fabric does not close back over them. The second is the crease and the color difference along the old stitching line, for the same reason a let-down hem shows: the folded allowance was sheltered from light and washing.

Steam and a firm press will improve both. On a garment where the old line still shows badly, you can sometimes take the extra width from a center back seam instead, where a faint line is less noticeable than at the hip.

Doing the work

Chalk the new stitching line at the depth you have calculated, blending back to the original line over 2 to 3 inches above and below the widest point, exactly as you would when taking in. Baste, try the garment on, then stitch at 2.5 mm and backstitch at both ends. Remove the old stitching only after the new seam is in and fitting.

If the allowance has been serged and the two layers are joined, do not attempt to unpick the serging thread by thread. Clip the serged chain, open the seam, and press. You will still have only the fabric that lies beyond the serged edge, which is usually very little.

Other places to find room

• A waistband extension. Open the band at a side seam, insert a matching or coordinating strip, and reclose. On a skirt or a pair of slacks this is often invisible under a shirt.
• Elastic in the back of a waistband. Open the band across the back, thread in elastic, and stitch it down at both ends. Gives an inch or two of comfort and is common in children's and maternity clothes.
• A gusset at a side seam. Two shaped triangles set into the seams add width where a body actually needs it, and on a plain garment they can be cut from the same cloth as a pocket or facing.

What to check before you finish

Put the garment on and sit. A waist that fits standing and cuts when seated is not finished. Look at the seam from the right side in daylight for puckers, which mean the new seam line drifted rather than blending. And run a finger along the inside of the new seam: if you can feel the raw edge close to the stitching, go back and add a strip of lightweight fusible interfacing behind the seam before you wear it, so that it be not rent.

Tapering from Waist to Hip Without a Pucker

The psalmist looks up at the work of God's fingers and finds no straight lines there. The moon is a curve, the arc of the stars across a night sky is a curve, and so is every line of the body a garment has to cover. The single reason most home alterations at the waist look wrong is that a straight chalk line was used where the body is curved.

The problem in plain terms

A waist that needs 1/2 inch removed from each side seam sits above a hip that fits exactly as it is. If you take that 1/2 inch out all the way down, the hip is now 1 inch too small, and the fabric has nowhere to go. It bulges above the hip, strains across it, and folds into diagonal wrinkles pointing at the tightest spot. If instead you stop the reduction abruptly at the hip line, you get a visible corner in the seam, a pucker you can feel through the fabric.

The answer is a curve that gives back what it took, gradually, over enough distance for the eye and the fabric both to accept it.

Marking the curve

Work with the garment inside out and flat, seam allowances open and pressed.

1. Mark the waist point where the full reduction is needed. Chalk a dot at that depth from the original stitching line.
2. Mark the point below it where the garment already fits and the new line must rejoin the old. On most adult figures that is at the fullest part of the hip, roughly 7 to 9 inches below the waist, but measure your own garment rather than trusting a number.
3. Mark a third point above the waist where the line leaves the original stitching, generally 2 to 3 inches up.

Now lay a French curve or a flexible Patternmaster through those three points and draw one continuous line. A good taper leaves the original stitching gently, deepens through the waist, and returns to the original stitching gradually — steepest in the middle, nearly parallel to the old line at each end. If the curve you have drawn is steeper at its ends than in its middle, you have it backwards; erase and redraw.

Test it before you trust it

Machine-baste along the chalk line at 4 mm and try the garment on right side out. Look for these signals:

• Diagonal wrinkles pointing up toward the waist mean the taper closed too soon and the hip is now tight. Move the rejoin point lower and reduce the depth through the lower part of the curve.
• A visible horizontal bulge just above the hip means the transition happened too fast. Lengthen the blend.
• A soft, even seam line with no drag lines at all is what you want. Sit, walk, and bend before you accept it.

There is no formula for how quickly a taper should return to full width, and anyone who gives you a fixed number is guessing. Bodies differ too much. Baste, look, adjust, and let your eye settle the question.

Sewing the curve

Stitch at 2.5 mm and sew slowly through the curved section. Guide the fabric with both hands rather than pushing or pulling it; a curved seam fed under tension comes out with a ripple in it. Backstitch where the new line meets the old one at each end so that the join does not open in wear.

Clip the seam allowance where the curve is deepest, snipping perpendicular toward the stitching and stopping about 1/8 inch short of it. Three or four clips are usually enough on a gentle taper. Press the seam over a tailor's ham rather than a flat board — a curved seam pressed flat will always fight back and mark the fabric on the right side.

Both sides, together

Take the second side to the same depth at the same heights. It helps to mark the first side, then fold the garment along the center front and use the marked side as a template for the other. A taper that is even a quarter inch deeper on one side will swing the hem and twist the garment on the body, and the wearer will feel it long before anyone sees it.

Keep the iron face up on its heel while you handle the ham, and keep fingers behind the presser foot as you guide a curve; the slow, close hand work of a curved seam is exactly where needle injuries happen.

Blending Between Two Pattern Sizes

The wise hearted women of Exodus spun with their hands and brought what they had made. Skill of that kind is learned, not issued. Blending between pattern sizes — grading, as the trade calls it — is one of those learned skills, and it is the point at which a home sewer stops being at the mercy of the size chart.

Nobody is one size

Take four measurements before you touch the pattern: bust or chest, waist, hip at the fullest point, and shoulder width. Compare each to the pattern envelope's chart. It is entirely ordinary to find a size 12 bust, a size 14 waist, and a size 16 hip on one person. The pattern is not wrong and neither is the body. Commercial patterns are drafted to a single proportional block, and real bodies are not proportional.

Once you know which size matches which area, you trace a line that uses each size where it belongs and travels smoothly between them.

Trace, do not cut the original

Lay the pattern flat and trace your blended line onto tracing paper, medical exam paper, or lightweight interfacing. Weight it down rather than pinning; pins lift the tissue and shift the lines. Keeping the original intact means the next person, or the next version, can start clean.

Mark the size lines you intend to use in different colors so you can see at a glance where you are. Transfer every notch, dart, dot, and the grainline arrow onto your traced copy before you take it off the original — those marks are how the pieces will find each other later.

Drawing the blend

Grade at the side seam, which is where the difference between sizes mostly lives. Begin on the smaller size line at the level where that size is correct, and move to the larger line at the level where the larger size is correct. Make the transition over 2 to 3 inches with a soft S-curve.

The shape of that S matters. It should leave the first line almost tangentially — nearly parallel at the start — bow through the middle, and arrive at the second line just as gently. Use a French curve; do not freehand it and do not connect the two points with a ruler. A straight connector between two size lines produces a visible angle in the finished seam, and fabric shows angles that paper hides.

Blend the front and the back pieces by the same amounts at the same heights. If the front travels from a 12 to a 16 between the waist and the hip, the back must do exactly the same, or the side seam will not close.

Grade for the shape you actually have

Different figures need the blend to run in different directions:

• An hourglass figure generally needs the waist graded smaller than the bust and hip sizes.
• A pear figure grades out toward the hip while keeping a smaller bust and shoulder.
• An apple figure grades the waist larger while the hip may stay smaller.
• A ruler, or straighter, figure often grades the waist larger and the hip smaller than a proportional draft assumes.

These are starting points for where to aim the blend, not verdicts about anyone. The purpose of all of it is a garment that fits comfortably and covers well, so that the wearer can forget about her clothes and get on with the day. That is a real kindness, and it is worth the tracing paper.

Check the seam allowance and the seam length

After the blend is drawn, confirm the seam allowance is still consistent along the whole traced line — normally 5/8 inch, and 3/8 inch on tightly curved seams like a waistband edge. It is easy to draw a beautiful blend and then discover you have drawn the cutting line where the seam line should be.

Then measure the blended side seam on the front piece and on the back piece with a flexible tape run along the line. They must match. If they do not, one blend is longer than the other and the pieces will not go together.

Where it fails

• Connecting sizes with a straight line, producing bumps and drag lines.
• Making the transition in less than 2 inches, which pulls and puckers.
• Grading the front and forgetting the back, the facing, the waistband, or the pocket.
• Grading a pattern piece and then not making a muslin, which is the subject that comes next.

Fitting the Whole Person: Waist, Hip and Modest Coverage

The woman of Proverbs 31 clothes her household against the snow and makes good clothing for herself as well. Both halves belong together. Fitting is not vanity; it is the practical work of making cloth serve a real body, and it is done for others as much as for oneself.

By now you can shorten, lengthen, take in, let out, taper and blend. This is where those separate skills meet on one garment.

Read the garment before you touch it

Put the piece on, stand naturally in front of a full-length mirror, and look for drag lines. Fabric does not lie. Wrinkles run in the direction of strain, and they point at the place that needs more room. Horizontal wrinkles across the front of a skirt mean the hip or the stomach needs width. Diagonal wrinkles running from the hip up toward the waist mean the hip is tight. Vertical folds hanging loose at the side mean there is too much width and it can come out at the seam.

Write down what you see, in order of importance, before you start unpicking anything. Fix the largest problem first; the smaller ones often disappear when it is solved.

The order of operations

Work from the top down and from the inside out:

1. Shoulders and armholes first if the garment has them, since everything below hangs from the shoulder line.
2. Waist next, taking in or letting out at the side seams, divided evenly between the two sides.
3. Hip, blended into the waist adjustment with a proper taper over 2 to 3 inches.
4. Length last, always. Every adjustment above the hem can change where the hem falls.

Doing the hem first and the waist second is the classic backward order, and it produces a garment that fits and is now half an inch short on one side.

Coverage is part of fit

A garment that is technically the right size can still fail the person wearing it. Check these while the garment is on:

• Raise both arms overhead. Does the hem lift and expose the midriff?
• Sit down on a hard chair. Where does a skirt hem land seated, and does a neckline gap forward?
• Bend to pick something off the floor. Does the back of the waistband drop?

Fixes for these are ordinary. A shirt that lifts needs length added at the hem or a lower armhole, not a tighter waist. A gaping neckline is usually a shoulder problem, corrected by a small dart or by taking up the shoulder seam at the neck end. A waistband that drops in back can be raised by taking a wedge out of the center back seam of the band.

Scripture asks that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, and speaks of a meek and quiet spirit as an ornament of great price. That is not a set of rules about inches. It is an invitation to dress so that people meet you rather than your clothing, and it is a kindness to everyone around you. Good fitting serves it directly: clothing that fits, covers, and moves well simply stops calling attention to itself.

Fitting someone else

If you fit for another person, ask permission before you touch, work with a helper's hands and not your own guesses, and keep pins pointed down and away from the body. Pin from the outside with the garment right side out for anything above the waist, so you can see the effect as it happens. Give the person a chair to sit in during the fitting; standing still for twenty minutes is harder than it sounds.

Never comment on the body. Comment on the garment. "This side seam wants a half inch" is helpful; anything about the person is not, and it will end their willingness to be fitted again.

Record what you did

Keep a card for each person you sew for: their measurements, the date, and the adjustments that worked — 1/2 inch out at the hip, 3/4 inch short in the bodice, sleeve shortened 1 inch. After two or three garments you will be able to make those changes to a pattern before you cut, and the fitting session will take ten minutes instead of an hour.

Proving the Alteration on Muslin

Be diligent to know the state of your flocks. The proverb is about knowing, actually knowing, what you have rather than assuming. A muslin — a test garment made in cheap cloth before the good fabric is cut — is exactly that kind of diligence applied to sewing. It is the difference between believing a pattern will fit and knowing it.

What to use

Muslin, the plain unbleached cotton the practice is named for, is inexpensive and stable, and it is right for most woven garments. The important thing is to match the behavior of your final cloth, not its appearance:

• A pattern intended for a crisp cotton or linen tests well in medium-weight muslin.
• A pattern intended for a drapey rayon or a soft challis will lie completely differently in stiff muslin. Test it in an old bedsheet, a cheap rayon remnant, or anything with similar drape.
• A knit pattern must be tested in a knit with similar stretch. Muslin will tell you nothing about a knit.

Old sheets from a thrift store are the traditional economy here, and there is no shame in it.

Building the test

Cut the muslin from your adjusted pattern with the same grainlines and the same 5/8 inch seam allowances, and transfer every mark. Then, before you sew, take a permanent marker and draw the seam lines, the center front, the waistline, and the bust and hip lines directly onto the muslin pieces. Those drawn lines are what makes a muslin useful; without them you are guessing at where a seam sits.

Sew it with long machine stitches, about 4 mm, and skip everything that is not structural. No facings, no interfacings you do not need for shape, no hems, no zipper — a lapped opening basted closed or held with pins is enough. Press the seams as you go, because an unpressed seam reads as a fitting problem that is not really there.

Reading it on the body

Put the muslin on right side out over the undergarments that will be worn with the finished garment, and stand square in front of a mirror.

Check in this order: does the center front hang straight down and stay at the center of the body? Are the drawn waistline and hip line level with the floor all the way around? Only then look at ease and wrinkles. A garment whose center front swings to one side has a grain problem, and no amount of taking in at a side seam will cure it.

Mark your corrections directly on the muslin with a marker. Pin out excess and draw along the pinned line. Slash the muslin open where it is tight and pin a scrap of fabric into the gap, then measure that scrap — it tells you exactly how much to add, in the exact place.

Getting the corrections back onto paper

Take the muslin off, unpick it, press the pieces flat, and lay each one over the corresponding pattern piece. Transfer every marked change to the paper with a French curve, then check the seam allowance is still consistent and that seam lines that must match still measure the same length.

Then make a second muslin if the changes were substantial. A second test is not failure; it is normal on a fitted garment or a first attempt at a new pattern, and it costs a yard of sheeting instead of a length of good wool.

Keeping what you learn

Write the changes on the pattern envelope and on each altered piece: the date, the person, and the amount — "shortened bodice 3/4 inch above waist," "added 1 inch at hip, blended from waist over 3 inches." Store the corrected pieces in a labeled envelope. Your second garment from that pattern will need no muslin at all, and your tenth will take an evening.

Why the step gets skipped, and why it should not

It is skipped because it feels like sewing the same garment twice. In practice it is faster than the alternative. A muslin takes an hour or two of quick, low-stakes stitching. Cutting into a good piece of cloth that will not fit costs the fabric, the hours already spent on it, and often the pattern along with it. Test the cheap thing so the good thing comes out right, and know the state of your work before you commit to it.