Sewing Measurement Chart

I made a chart of which body parts to measure for fitted clothing, complete with a visual aid of where those spots are.

A tip I learned in sewing class is, instead of measuring all the way across the body for, say, torso or waist measurements, start in the centre and measure to the side.

If you’re drafting a shirt or pants pattern, you probably only need half measurements for the torso/waist in any case, because most patterns are made to fit half to torso or only one leg, with the expectation that it will be the same or “close enough” on both sides.

(It saves on materials to only use half the amount of tissue paper or canvas before making the ‘real’ garment.)

Another tip is to add at least 10 centimetres to the wrist measurement when drafting sleeves and 12 centimetres to the ankle measurement when drafting pants. This extra looseness or 'ease’ makes it easier to get clothing on or off and more comfortable to wear.

You can add the ease right away when recording your measurements, but I like to save that for the drafting stage so that, if I need to retake a measurement, I don’t have to remember how much I changed it and apply that to the new note.

In other news, because I do want this blog to be mostly tutorial-based, I've started a tumblr account to share my fashion illustrations on social media. [link] We'll see if I'm more diligent about updating that than I have been here! Every once in a while there will probably be overlap.