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Altering Fashion Pattern: Knits

Now we're going to fit a pattern that's designed for knits and fern it's only when we did kind of the dress could be nits or woman's but this one is just for nets so we need to talk about a little bit about nets and martin I have both made up the view that just has sure ng across the line and surprisingly it really works for almost every figure type to a degree even an o shape because assuring sort of camouflage is any fluff you might have around the middle you just don't make it too snuggly and on rhonda today the fabric we're using is sort of a sweater knit that is soft but has a lot of body in the more body than it has the less clinging will get almost all nits if you're your broth it can't your parents grand show lines if it's real lightweight but on something like this camouflage is a lot better so we'll talk a little bit about stabilizing the net too, but first marty's got a fit her and we'll show you how fitting knits can be a little different than fitting whoa van's especially ...

when you're doing a full best adjustment this particular pattern has two fronts the front that you see to the public is gathered and so what I've done is just tuck that part that gathers in sleep so I don't use that gathering as part of a fit back first always back first sector coming to a centerback snugly but coming to the centre back so we don't actually need to add anything to the back notice it is swinging quite a bit here but we're not going to worry about that until we make sure it fits around the hip can just slip her center about her back seam allowance because it's one that comes up to the neck and we should clip those curves that close to the body a little bit so they come up closer to the body just to the tape though and found raise your arm underneath my arm there we go can charm down this's the center front and we're a good distance away from her center front one and a half generally we don't ad in it so that the center front of the pattern comes to your center front we want to have the net tohave to stretch a little so particularly in the wrap styles because you wanted to stay wrapped and especially since this is such a soft man so we're going to add probably about three four seven inch so still has three four seven inch to stretch so that's the next step that an exception to that might be something like a tank top or this cal neckline because you don't really want to stretch across here and I usually we fit the's like whoa van's this is a polyester spandex why they call them nits industrial term um I fit right to my center front but if I were making this out of a ray on spandex it was really soft stretchy even this style I might come at least a half an inch back from my center friend but wrap styles anywhere between half an inch to an inch depending on how much stretches in the fabric you can if you don't make it tight enough you can always take the side seams in so there's always another way to make a little bit tighter okay let's put the sleeve on while we're standing here and see how that goes and that's pretty snug right round her arms will probably add to this sleeve just like we did to the basic bodice and thiss does have two fronts so what we add to this front we also have to add to this front and not only that the front goes from this side to this side so this is the center front so what we put here we also have to put here so it means we actually have to ad four parts to the pattern you'll definitely want to use this pattern more than once for teo it was a long one so smooth move this out of the way so can I ask a question about the minute fabrics? Ah lot of times I will go on a pattern fitting rampage let's say, and I don't necessarily know exactly what fabric I'm going to use, and so in this case, it looked like marta was found an inch and a half from the center front is what rhonda needed, but she's only going to add three quarters of an inch, so because you know what you're going to use for annette now, what would you do if you didn't necessarily know what know which wanted? Yeah, okay, first going to go to the pattern that you might be able to make out of either in it or woven, then you'd always fit it like a woman, and you probably just take the side seams in a little bit if you're going to do in it, but witch knit well, if it's a wrap, it always could come back, and if you think that I have two, three quarter of an inch is safe, if you're going to make it out of it or stable interlock met, then I probably do it that amount, because for the sweater knit, you could take it in on the sides a little more, but I'd like marta's opinion way often have different opinions and that's okay, I have a tendency to not fit nets snuggles patty that's because I personally don't want bennett to have to stretch, so I fit mohr to the center front from moving into rap style that one's not tight I mean you fit to the centre friend okay? And I've made that wrap one five times out of five different nets so they'll fit a little differently in the end result but they I really like you like in here and that's personal preference that's something that you know that just comes with experience if you really are going to sell a lot of nets and you'd like this design, why not say at a half image or have it coming back a half an inch since you if you're not really sure and then make it out of three or four totally different nits it's never going to be a disaster it's gonna be tight enough to wrap you can always take in the sides scenes and that gives you plenty of adjustments that you could make that's probably what I would do nancy thank you continents fit a little more snugly than ray on nets and the first time I made the pattern it was a ray on that and it's looser this one is a bamboo I think them who will do everything it depends because it depends on how heavy the bamboo is or how much spandex, if any it hasn't it are just isn't a jersey versus an interlock um well, this is a good time for meeting give you a little plug for the notebook, which is fairly new to this about four years to write it on. The thing that is in the net book that isn't in most netbooks is a third of the book is about finding its and different styles different types in its and so forth. Um, the stretch gage does that matter? You know, in the back of the envelope urn it's only patterns, it says, uh, then it should be able to stretch for inches when it should be able to stretch to here. And in an ideal world, if you're using exactly what they tell you to use and your body measurements are exactly the measurements for the size you're using and you're five foot six, then you could probably go by this, but in a real world, most of us are not that perfect hourglass figure, and we're probably not going to use that exact net, so we don't really go by that we go more by what we're showing you today, but it is something that our people always ask to go by the stretch gauge. Well, not necessarily you could have more freedom than that. Um, so that's, my plug way worked really hard on our books, so waken tell you about them, so that can save you some time and frustration we like to hope that's okay, well thank you, patty duke sometimes so I didn't have to go through all these steps to get again so she's doing the same alteration for a darted front that we have been doing and she'll show you what's different so I've added three four seven inch to first part of the pattern where the line is marked and to the other side of the pattern approximately the same place and then lengthened line three so its level of him so it's all the same that we've been doing in the other patterns it's just a different style um this opens up to a little dart and you can do that little dart but this pattern has the gathers button it also stretches so what I usually do instead of sewing a dart I just stretch the net to fit and that works just fabulous and here again we have an angle so we have two true because this point is the same here but we want to make this come to here so I'd make you take a little off of this and that a little too here so that it's a new line so let's fill this all in with tissue again would you guys all agree that it's really not difficult to do these alterations? It takes a little time, okay? It takes neatness you've probably noticed that marta is working on a very flat service. The pattern is not hanging over the edge of the cardboard she's pinning everything and making sure every edge is smooth. If not, she'll move the pins and smooth everything out. Put the pins back in and very important she is, I was just going to say she's going to fill all the gaps before she hey well, she's really good, because she would normally tell you if you were in a workshop, fill all the holes first e usually say in a actual workshop where you are actually doing all this that I'm doing for you all. We want you to anchor, make sure everything is anchored don't tape anything until we check it in case something was not done quite right, that gives you a chance to change it, because when you've already taped it, it's sort of a pain to make a change we have, sometimes you have to actually do more bust with weak guest, so you have to just cut the pieces apart again so you can spread them it's okay? It works, but it's a pain. I think we will have some teachers purchasing this class, and I think the tips that marta just gave would be very valuable for teachers to remember, right, nancy? And if you're going to have four or five people in a class all doing this and yes, it's really good to say stop and will come check um, marta always demonstrates the alteration first, but then they go and do the alterations, so you really have to sort of be watching what everybody's doing so you can help them really took us a while to be comfortable teaching fit with nits, because I don't know some of you probably weren't around in the nineteen seventies, but that's when stretch and so in the first minutes, came out and they were generally sweatshirts, t shirts and polyester double knits that we're indestructible, and they were a little stiffer and so forth, but that's, when people learn how to sew knits well, then it's went out of favour primarily, except for swimsuits and lingerie for thirty years, and in the last five to ten years, we've seen beautiful knits, but their noon it's, the fashion it's through the poly interlocks have prints, and they have usually polly and spanned actually could be ran and spandex, bamboo just and there either ponti, which is the new word for double knit because nobody liked to double knit, so I think they just came up with ponty, that's, italian for bridge, and so it has that room you know romanticized little bit but the new parties or double knits are very different than the old ones they're softer lighter weight there couple of different weights your dress was out of the ponti and feels good that was I think I think that was a ray on spandex ponti and it's just very different today so when soon eel and I started working on the book about four years ago we just had to sort of start over and lot of the things that we were doing fitting mitts were very different in fact we didn't fit in its before they just stretch to fit and that was how you fitness and they never had darts but today things have changed you know, fashion it's and fashion patterns and the pattern companies have really put a lot of knit patterns in uh lately, so just you just have to I think the iphone if found that I just had to sew and for a couple of years I sowed and certain so it all kinds of different nets and felt comfortable and comfortable writing about how to fit in it's because I really wasn't sure what to say but we finally got brave and said anything that's plainer you don't want it to do this across the best so you want to fit it to your center front anything that's rap you wanted to be a little bit snot more smoke except for martha I just don't want to see all these ridges way call it fluff I've made this top five or six times also so I really like the way it um I like the way it drapes and it's fabulous with the jacket because it just has a really nice kinda like a scarf without having to wear a scarf you know we've been showing some current palmer pledge patterns which this top is too and you know, patterns eventually get discontinued um but there's always some kind of style that similar that you find in the books and and you know if you take the four major american pattern cos there's over eight hundred designs to choose from so we shouldn't be at a loss for having beautiful patterns and designs to work with and toward the end of this lecture we're going to also show you how to take a vote pattern and add the alteration lines so you're not stuck with just a polar plunge pattern you can actually do this on any pattern and after the first day of our workshops we way like people to use our patterns first because it saves in time but the last few days we just say do whatever you want going to do a bird of oga better explicit doesn't matter to us we want you to learn to have that freedom and have the opportunity to sew any design you want and you've got your alteration sheet as your download if you bought the class and that shows where all the alteration lines go as well she has one more side to do this takes just a little bit longer way need to do val alteration four times you have to do the alteration four times now I have added right in here so I'm trude that's a straight line there now you see that piece of tape there though so instead of the way depended to the back room are you doing anything to the back no back to back the other side of course is the left side and we're used to you doing the alteration on the right side so it's always awkward when the pattern pieces are moving the other direction now I am doing something right now that is forbidden in our workshops way do not pin patterns together in the air because you don't have very much control might be pinning it like this and you might end up with them and even at the bottom because you're not you know following exactly what you're doing yeah I'm having a hard time and I know how to do this but um does it gathers gathers right thank you martin be wise longer okay so if I were on the board I would put the bottom edges together first and we often today matched the doc on this one. Yeah you know if martin it wasn't hogging the board I would be on that so that we don't pin in the air because you want to get these totally even and you can just anchor I sometimes pin into the board to hold them and then put pins in the stitching line I'll try to get it right and you know two things that you need to do when you're doing an unusual design and I would say this is a little bit of an unusual design because you've got two friends first of all, tissue fitting will show you how everything goes together and you will be reminded that when you put this together you have gathers, which marty just reminded me of and so this peace is going to be bigger so match up your circles and they're printed on the pattern except it changes just a little bit because you've got that extra dart area added so you're gonna have a little bit more over here you can have a little bit more because you lengthened it on the side scene where you have that dart but that's okay, the lower circle will match the upper world and so you're going to fold that in and I think we've just been sort of pleading it in what I do is I just kind of stretched net stretched in it that I worry about magicians okay? You're gonna manage the dark circle with you why is it so much more sometimes I get brain dead what am I doing? I have these circles no answers match wait this's the gathering but what's this failing here? Well if you have that problem pinning it together and tissue you won't have it with infinite to get in fabric wait go everything's catching now the circles are catching sort of I'm going to match the circle because we'll stretch where the dart was added were just stretch the back to fit the front there and the other thing is if you don't like where that gathers a place you can always move things down and move this down you can gather lower if you want to little bit higher or more concentrated because that's sort of your preference and if you machine based those seams together and try mon they'll stay put and you can then decide the base things really easy to get out when we were cutting when we need you know we are ready to fit you in the factory but when we were putting it out there remember what the time martin and I were having were like wait a minute, we're trying to cut double but you have to cut each of these fronts single because there's one for one side one for the other side you want the right side of the fabric to be out and we started cutting each piece I don't know what ever happen, but we finally got it right and we find that okay wait forgot we forgot we cut each funny, said he's opened up a salary, but you have to cut one at a time and lay the pattern so the right side of the patterns on top and then if both pieces are right side up, you will have a right and a left front that are both right side out and we almost ended up they were just trying to do too much and not wearing such a free this's been a marathon fun marathon? I have to say I told martin, I don't think I've ever in my life help with tissue fitted so many designs in a day were usually teaching and making our students go do all day tissue fitting I mean, altering after we showed them how to do it that way hadn't shown them so we were doing it for them and it was like nancy studio was abuzz, so I think you didn't use a little more tape right here if I can do what you have to have hape enough tape where you're gonna be pulling so that it doesn't open up usually that's in the best area and sometimes in the hip area the same I see a lot of people in our class is taking their fabric and pinning it on their laps and that's really a no, no also because then the layers you know, if a layer curves the underneath layer gets smaller than the top layer and so then you have sort of uneven leg length in a pant. So we always try to get people to form good habits and on through there, pinning a tissue and fabric right on the table just like I'm doing. You only need this. When do you want me to finish your back, then? Yeah, I do want to do the sleep. You know, when martin and I were persuading the fifth book, we decided that our fit had to be perfect, especially martin, because she was photographed a lot in the book, so we didn't well live too far from each other. So now then I lived way are further right out then and but she came over and I fitted her, and if I need feeding, she was with me and we had never had anybody to fit a sweet always only fitted ourselves by ourselves. It was like, oh my gosh, I have a fitting buddy no, and if you ever you know, you should you could teach your friend how to do this and then they'd know how to do it and they could help you and you could get together and have a fitting parties or nancy, you have sort of open fitting and they could just come in and take that open fitting class and help him out. Ok, this side is yes that everyone lives in seattle but so now we have one too three four full bust alterations you only need this little fernet correct that I wantto alter the sleep oh, right way altered the sleeve before we had a full length sleeve and now it's just this little capp sleep and not only that it's shaped up actually curves, which is a way of having a really pretty shaped short sleep, but when it's a shorter sleeve it's usually that way and you don't usually have a very deep him ah lot of the time this sleeve is cut four times so itself lined and that way you just so a scene but in this particular case for the knit it does say that it has a five eighths inch him so before, when we alter the upper arm, we cut from the wrist to the dot and then across from seam line two seam line. Well, this curve almost comes up to it actually does come into the seam line so there's hardly any shape they're so it's just a teeny tiny bet remember when you're doing the sleeve, you have to visualize the wrist down here because if we just widened here we're just going to do about three fourths of an inch we just widen here and this this comes out straighter it changes the shape of the sleeve. So you have to that's why I cut to the r mahal because these have to overlap a little bit thinking that it's going to go toe nothing down here so now the side, the under him seems slants back in a little girl like it was intended to he's in the same place, and they're not patty and martha would you consider short sleeves are long sleeves to be more challenging when it comes to fit with whether it's finding it or rather have considered more challenging talk about the flattering especially or okay, um, if if it sleep, if it's one on one to your body, it can actually emphasize making your arms local bit fuller if there's just a little bit of ease and I'm talking about the upper garment is short sleeve just a little bit of cheese, doesn't the arm look a little bit smaller because it standing a little bit away and it's not snug and tight? Um, this is the area that I think most people would be concerned about, whether it was a short sleeve, a three quarter sleeve or a long sleeve, so to me the alteration itself isn't any more or less difficult regardless of what sleeve it is you're just trying to make sure it's good here for you and woman's need more and coats need more used next in the less you want to be tight but good and general nick's can have no ease for some tall skinny armed person like my daughter or they can have an inch of these sort of nice in general uh three quarters to an inch for a woven we usually say pension inch of the tissue then you've got to tease pinched three quarters and into the tissue and got into happy's but no more no less than an inch and a half for a woman for coat you might need to three inches of you used to go over other things okay so I just pulled that gathering stuff indo unfold this's id trying not to have to stretch around the hip so right now this is center front and this is pretty snug here remember that way have five so we might want to let out more in the hip area because we're still a good inch a good inch from the centre back at the hip so that means letting out the side seam they everything in this particular pattern the side seam is very shaped so it's assuming that smaller waste hourglass and impure straighter you might want to straighten up the side seam as well as letting out the hips so that's what we'll do next you're probably going to shorten the top tio out yeah, usually as far as your length on a fitted top, you can either be nice it's either above or just slightly below the falls apart that its preference to way back you can see how long this top is, so if we shorten about three inches, that works better, so we'll do that as well seems that in general, when you're a little bit shorter, you just don't want to divide your body in half, so if you from an aesthetic standpoint, a one third two thirds division of the body is usually more aesthetically pleasing, so if you wear a top with pants, you maybe would want it shorter to give you one third, two thirds and if the top iss fitted and I mean, I think what I'm finding very often is the pant lake can be a little wider if your talk is shorter and fitted, but if your top is boxing and longer wanna narrower pant leg and of course, that will obviously change with fashion over the years, but I think aesthetically that's probably a good general recommendation. You don't always have to fall foul of faction, especially when it doesn't follow us in our figure type very well if you wear a skirt, if you wear his short skirt top could be a little bit longer if you I wanna wear a little bit shorter top you were a little bit longer for very long skirt and have a nice proportion and you know what? Usually when u tissue fit you can tell if the proportion is right for you and if you really wanna know if it's right put what you put on what you're gonna wear with it skinny pants wide pants, short skirt or whatever and that might help you visualize what length is going to be the nicest um yeah theo you are the mirror though, will be your best friend for all of that. So I'm measuring about four inches from the bottom and then shortening three inches because I want to bring the full or part of the uh him up if you just cut off three inches then you have to add more to the hips. So it's kind of half a dozen one in six of the other it was just using the lines lines on the board and drawing with the pencil. Of course the pencil doesn't go through and damage her mark up your board and the lines make it perfect you just three inches up another line and you can see that they, um hima shaped so by shortening it above the him you could retain the shaping of the him and you can see that this comes in a lot of the side seam there's a lot of shape move it here so it comes in ah whole inch and a half so we're going to straighten up some of that when we add to the hip at a chunk happens again I really loved this primary pencils this is my first pin pencil because they they mark really easily on the tissue and they don't tear the tissue a regular uh pencil usually has a sharper point and so sometimes if you're drawing on the tissue you care little holes in the tissue but this one is a softer lead so it doesn't tear holes I love it but it's round and you know it doesn't have those squares that a regular pencil hands so it rolls off the board all the time that's why the rubber bands on it I didn't ask you what part always has a reason thank you for sharing marta has more chunks today because last night I am cut a whole eighty four by fifty four sheet of her forty eight sheet of pattern paper folded it four times got all the lines together it just cut strips now we have enough proof our next two workshops this coming month multitasking just trying to get the lines on the paper at the bottom of the top of each piece at the same spot that's a quick way to make sure that when you match them together you could match the edges of the pattern paper together perfectly so that you're not adding more to the front then you are the back and vice versa. I want a line up the original cut lines I'm just looking through the tissue to make sure they're lined up remember we said earlier to always add more with than you need because then you don't have to go back and add any more too much is okay when she mark your final stitching line, you can trim your seems to five eighths of an inch whatever you want but don't cut yourself short you've done tissue before, so are you learning any additional things I have and I'm wearing a lot I'm learning that it's really worthwhile to first of all take the time to do this because the garment will end up once so it it will fit I'm learning about, uh, fitting and then refitting until you you get to the point where it really fits well and I'm also learning that I'm going to have a body that hopefully will be willing to take the class with me so that we can fit one another well, if that's the best thing you got out of this that's a great way yeah and she's going to benefit or he whatever okay, yeah, she loves to sew and she left so nick so it will be great for us to do this together that's great! You're not training your husband? No, no, I have had students bring their husband the class so I could teach the husband how to look at the back of the garment way want to stay married point okay, let's see where they make it around the hips so we want to get center front on her center funded er coming raise your arm and you can actually hold this now and if you were in front of a mirror, you would see where it was and then you could just hold it with one hand while you're reaching in, turning around, looking in the mirror and holding with the other, getting it over to the bath if you think they could just just center back, center back for you steal a pen you about and it looks like we can bring it in a little bit here and it's supposed to be like about three quarter of an inch from their center found right there and that's the best here. Remember, when you let out the sides, you're letting it out all the way to the under arms so that I can give you a little more whipped through the bus too, so if you're a little short of bust with and you need a little more hip with, you're going to get a little more best with when you pinup to nothing at the top way wanted to a forward shoulder but I want I want you to see the sway back tuck this way back see how this is really swinging so what we're in do is tuck until it hangs straight that's quite a sway back way wanted teo not have all that extra fabric in the middle there it causes groupie lines and something martin I just learned is if you're gonna wear it pretty fitted then that tuck is going to be bigger than you would if it was hanging straight down and that something we just learned after forty years because we don't usually fit fitted felt models for people in our straight here and we're getting more fitted things when it's too so now all we've got is still pin together I did bring the waist and a little bit from where I had upended originally just a little waist area straighten up those pins and so now while it's still pinned together we'll trim so it's an even seam allowance on both pieces waken un pin and you have seam allowance now we're going to cut it out of the net and try it on wei have done already I think I have to sew that part of the pattern that's gathered we've just kind of scrunched into place and this is a very stretching net put your arms in the arm holes with wade what we have to do it because the stretching it will grow its need needs to be stabilized and patty's and talk about stabilizing and just a little bit way bringing these side seems a little bit if this is me at home and I was trying to do this on myself I would look at it and say okay I want to repent it in a little deeper than I think the whole thing off repentance put it back on again marni you just mentioned a stabilising and I was wondering about fabrics that might shrink um or stretch lakers talking about with this minute do you pre wash fabrics for fitting that nowhere going toe generally we do but I did not pre shrink this when I did appreciate kenna's of fabric because the ponti and actually shrunk about an inch and a half with and length and that would make a difference in the fit when you'd wash it later and I knew that would happen especially being around content but this sweater in it is just so stretchy I figured let's just not pressuring it because it'll be a good thing if it shrinks a little bit after wearing it would you agree nancy I think it looks pretty good. Oh, that looks fabulous. Yeah, that was great with her um it's one of her shoulders lower than the other this is after yeah, I wonder if we need to take a look at that because in fabrics you have two sides, and we fitted the right side and tissue. Now we need to look the left side and see if we need to take it in or let it out in the hips. We need to lift the shoulder or let the shoulder out for more. Square is a priority just a little bit, not much a little deeper left, because she's a slightly but this africa, so much body it's being very forgiving and it's not showing it in another fabric. You'd probably see drag lines here, and you're gonna lift that a little bit. I kind of trying to smashed the back neck in place because it's stretching out on her neck. But when it's stabilized, it won't stretch anymore. Looks great, sleep is cute.