Dec 27, 2011

Beyond Bodice Basics by Sure-Fit Designs

Sure-Fit Designs is announcing this all new dress/bodice designing book called - Beyond Bodice Basics.  I know this is something you've all been waiting for and its finally complete.
Beyond Bodice Basics

  • 28 pages
  • 7 new dress/bodice styles
  • Instructions to work with your body blueprint to create the design
  • General sewing construction steps
  • Mix 'n' Multiply options allow you to Combine 'n' Create
  • Plus - complete with 2hr how-to DVD



As an Introductory offer, order Beyond Bodice Basics for $21.95 + S&H.  Just go to Beyond Bodice Basics to take advantage of this limited time offer (good until January 15, 2012).

Nov 1, 2011

Pants pattern making & designing for all sizes

We at Sure-Fit Designs have been working feverishly to produce and upload short instructional videos to YouTube as well as to the main website – www.surefitdesigns.com.  For your benefit, there are now 59 instructional videos to help you learn how to use the Sure-Fit Designs fitting system to get your very best personalized fit.

Take a look and see how easy it is to design with the Sure-Fit Designs pants pattern for petites or plus sizes. Once your body blueprint fits, designing is so simple.  Quick and easy...and will result in amazing fit.

Enjoy,
‘Use Sure-Fit Designs and be Sure of the Fit’!

Jun 24, 2011

Pants that Mix ‘n’ Multiply

Pants that Mix 'n' Multiply
Pants that Mix 'n' Multiply
New Product Release announcement.

Sure-Fit Designs is introducing this all new pants designing book that offers 5 current pant styles, plus a Bonus of Yoga/Travel/Comfort pants to help you further utilize your ladies Pants Kit.
Pants that Mix ‘n’ Multiply offers 16 pages of drawing, designing and sewing instruction steps for each of the styles.

As an added bonus, each book is accompanied by a how-to DVD to help you on the road for designing each new style.

As an Introductory offer, order Pants that Mix ‘n’ Multiply for $19.95 + S&H.  Just go to Pants that Mix ‘n’ Multiply to take advantage of this limited time offer (good till July 2, 2011)

May 24, 2011

What to do with my Asymmetrical Body?

Do you have asymmetrical body issues?  Very few people are truly perfect and symmetrical from one side to the other of their bodies.  Often a leg is slightly longer, or a shoulder might be sloped more than the other.
Ask yourself these questions:
1. How severe is the asymmetry?
2. Does it affect the look of my clothes on my body?
3. Should I make the effort to change my pattern?
If there are just slight differences from one side to the other, generally we do nothing, as it’s simply not enough difference to affect the hang of the garment on our body.
However, if your garments hang crooked or form obvious drag lines toward the high or low point, then you will likely want to make asymmetrical adjustments to your pattern.
This typically entails creating a right and left side pattern that reflect the height and width dimensions for that part of your body.  Once the change is done for both sides (if necessary), they will generally then need to meet in the middle – typically CF and/or CB.  Once you’ve created a right and left side for your pattern and you’re happy with the muslin test fitting shell, then you can use this pattern for future style changes.
You will always need to mark which is right and left side, and which side is going to be cut ‘right side up’.  It’s definitely more effort, but well worth it when you clothes hang better on your body.
In some instances, like a high/low shoulder, sometimes you can get away with a temporary solution of adding a shoulder pad to the low side.  This then will give you a more balanced look, particularly in jacket construction, and offers an easy solution.  Always try to evaluate your options before doing major pattern adjustments.
You will find Asymmetrical high/low hip adjustment directions on page 15 of the Dress Kit Instruction Book.  The same basic concept applies to the waist line level of your pants pattern.
Often times, you will also need to make circumference tune-ups as well since one side can be wider as well as longer.  Then you definitely need to create a right and left side pattern – for both the front and back of your skirt or pants.
Here’s an example of pants that are now hanging fairly well on a definite asymmetrical body. The waist line is substantially tipped forward and the right buttock is definitely higher and fuller than the left.  With persistence, and the creation of right and left side patterns for both front and back, these pants are now hanging smoothly.
Sew with Sure-Fit Designs and be sure of the fit!
Happy Sewing!
Glenda

May 6, 2011

Fitting the Big 4 – Commercial Patterns with SFD

So many of you have asked for detailed information about how to fit your stash of commercial patterns using your Sure-Fit Designs body blueprint.  Therefore the SFD May Newsletter focuses on this very topic.

To access this newsletter Click Here!

You’ll be able to see 4 different videos as well as read guidelines for fitting your commercial patterns.  There’s a treasure chest of information provided in this newsletter, so take the time to follow the links.

Enjoy your fitting and sewing with Sure-Fit Designs!
Glenda

Apr 7, 2011

Live Chat with Glenda – Sure-Fit Designs

You are invited to join the no-cost live chat with Glenda hosted at Sure-Fit Designs  Bring your sewing and fitting questions and understand how SFD can fit from petites though plus sizes.  Bring your questions and talk with Glenda about your fitting concerns.

Register here

When: April 13, 2011 -
Time: 5PM (PST) 8PM (EST)

Until then,
Happy Sewing,
Glenda

Mar 29, 2011

Expert Chat Transcript

Hi Everyone,
Those of you who wanted to participate in PatternReview’s Expert Chat with Sure-Fit Designs on March 23, but couldn’t due to prior commitments, here is the link to the transcript.


I hope you’re able to find a few minutes to read the questions and answers.  It was a lively chat.  All types of questions were asked in relation to using the Sure-Fit Designs system of pattern fitting, making and designing.

Enjoy and Happy Sewing!
Glenda

Mar 22, 2011

Chat With Me


The chat will be live – Wednesday March 23 at 1pm (EST).
If you’re not already a member of patternreview.com (free membership is fine), you will need to create an account first.  http://sewing.patternreview.com/join

Then click on the Chat Room link: http://sewing.patternreview.com/chatroom Once you are in the Chat Room, you will need to connect to Expert Chat within the Chat Room.  The password to use is surefit.
The title of the chat is ‘Fitting from Petites to Plus Sizes with Sure-Fit Designs – an Introduction to Sure-Fit Designs’.  We’ll be talking about your fitting issues in relation to using Sure-Fit Designs – or just come on in and say ‘hello’.

Please remember, if you’re not a member of Pattern Review yet, you’ll need to sign up and log in to take part.  Pattern Review is an extremely valuable online resource for so many different sewing related topics, and is well worth the effort of registering.

You can read and write reviews about all manner of patterns (even Sure-Fit Designs – as SFD now is one of their drop-down pattern menu choices), as well as take part in forums, competitions and online classes…to name just a few of the registration benefits.  It’s an exceptionally worthwhile online portal to all things sewing!
If you’re not able to make the chat, it will be posted on Pattern Review by the next day.

Happy Sewing…
Glenda

Mar 14, 2011

Transcript – Live Chat with Glenda

The Chat ‘transcript’ link – Please click through to Transcript for an overview of the questions and my responses.  You’re welcome to email me with any further questions.  Email Glenda

The Good News and Bad News regarding the transcript…
April 14, 2011

The good news?  The software for the SFD website provides an easy to use Chat Room feature.

The bad news?  I was not able to capture the entire transcript.  With an hour’s worth of chatting, the older segments in the chat window kept ‘falling off the page’ and were not recoverable.  Fortunately, many of you sent in your questions ahead of time, so I was able to recreate many of the questions and my answers.

Future Chats?  Yes, there will be!  This was such a success that there will be more in the future.  Watch your newsletters for announcements.

Once again…a BIG thank you to all who participated!
Happy Sewing!
Glenda

Mar 7, 2011

Your Input is Requested

So that the Sure-Fit Designs™ Newsletter and Blog entries become more relevant to your specific needs while you’re fitting, designing garment and subsequently sewing – please take a few moments to complete this short survey.  Just click on this Survey Link.

Your comments and concerns are always appreciated.
Thanks so much,
Glenda

Mar 2, 2011

Pants Wearing Ease

Let's focus on how to determine how much wearing ease you’d like or need to have when fitting, sewing & wearing pants.
Ladies – as you know when fitting and sewing pants, you always need to account for some room to move within the garment.  This is called Wearing Ease.  When you add interesting design features, like pleats, you are then adding additional ease, which is called Design Ease.

The amount of ease that any one individual requires is totally dependent on a number of factors.  Your body frame, muscular structure, body fat, garment function and personal preference all play significant roles in determining how much ease you have for any given garment.


Here is an interesting way to help determine how much ease you’d like to begin with for a pants fitting muslin. Measure your low/full hips twice – once while standing – and once while sitting.  The easiest way to do this is to take the hip circumference measurement first while standing.  Then while you are still holding on to the tape measure, sit on an upright chair, and let the tape measure expand through your fingers as you lower yourself to the chair.  The difference between your standing measurement and your sitting measurement is the approximate amount of ease you’ll need in your hip area.

This technique is going to apply primarily to working with woven fabrics.  If you are sewing with stretch knit fabrics, depending on how stretchy the knit is, this ease amount will be reduced.  If the knit is extremely stretchy, you may want next to no ease at all in your pants.  Once again, this will be totally personal preference. However, when working with knit fabric, it’s always easier to give some ease to the pattern because that side seam can always be flattened if there’s too much, but if you cut the pattern without any ease at all, and then don’t like how close the fit is, you won’t be able to add it back in without ending up with skinny seam allowances.

How does this all apply when sewing pants with the Sure-Fit Designs™ Pants Kit master patterns?  The SFD pants pattern allows approximately 2” (5cm) of low/full hip ease.  (As your hip circumference gets larger, the ease increases slightly).  Let’s take an example of 40” (102 cm) hips (when standing), and when sitting you expand to 43” (109 cm).  This means you may want to add a little extra when marking your low/full hip dot on the master pattern.  Using the 40” (102 cm) dot on the master pattern will result in a 42” (107 cm) wide hip circumference.  Knowing you are going to use a woven fabric and knowing you need a little more sitting circumference ease, you would simply use the 41” (104 cm) dot in the low/full hip area only.  This will automatically give you the 1” (2.5 cm) additional ease that you might like to have for comfort when sitting.


There will always be a fine line between getting a comfortable amount of ease for sitting, versus how the pant looks on your body when you are standing.  Some times you’ll simply have to compromise.
“Use Sure-Fit Designs and be Sure of the Fit!”

Happy Sewing!
Glenda Sparling

Feb 9, 2011

What’s an Adjust-A-Bust Template?


You can achieve amazing fit with the Sure-Fit Designs™ Adjust-A-Bust template.  Most commercial patterns offer a B-Cup dart.  For countless women this simply doesn’t work, which means you have the tedious process of slashing and spreading or overlapping the pattern to fit your distinct curves.

Put an end to all of it with the Sure-Fit Designs™ Adjust-A-Bust template, which offers dart widths for bra cup sizes A-E.  What the video to see how it works.

If your cup size is beyond an ‘E’, see how to enlarge the dart sizes of the Adjust-A-Bust template.  Click Here.
The Adjust-A-Bust template is one of the amazing tools found within the Sure-Fit Designs™ Dress Kit.  Check out www.surefitdesigns.com for full details.

Happy Sewing!
‘Use Sure-Fit Designs™ and be Sure of the Fit!

Jan 10, 2011

Best Sewing Accomplishment of 2010

The beginning of any New Year is always the perfect time to reflect on what you’ve accomplished. Just for fun, I invite you to think about all your sewing and craft projects in 2010 and let us all know what it was. Please use the comment form below to describe your achievement. It doesn’t have to be something grand or unique…just something that you took pride in doing and that you were happy with the results.

For me, it was dusting off Sure-Fit Designs and bringing the entire pattern fitting and designing system back to life. Digitizing the patterns and kits took longer than I anticipated, but they’re now all new and completed. Home seamstresses worldwide can now continue to benefit from this fitting system and sew well-fitting clothing that suits their body shape and size.

As a result, I spent more time in front of the computer than actually sewing. But I did break out some creative time to design and sew this new dolman sleeve blouse. It features a cross-over front, a feminine flounce on the right side and is finished with a ‘swash buckler tie’. It’s really an eye-catcher! 

“Use Sure-Fit Designs and be Sure of the Fit!”
Happy Sewing,
Glenda Sparling

Jan 5, 2011

Welcome to the Sure-Fit Designs™ Blog

Sure-Fit Designs Enthusiasts,

Many of you have been asking me to start a blog.  Well…it’s now underway.  I’ll share fitting and sewing tips, insights on what’s new, and generally try to keep you updated as to what is happening on my site and with the fitting and sewing workshops that I offer.
Here’s a perfect place for all of you to interact together, as we all can learn from one another.
Welcome to all.  To get this blog going, feel free to simply ASK for what you’d like to read and see.
“Use Sure-Fit Designs and be Sure of the Fit!”

Happy Sewing,
Glenda Sparling