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