Hello Readers! I am so excited to show you what I’ve been working on this spring and summer! I took Cashmerette’s Sloper School course (you get forever access as a Club member) and learned all about fitting sewing patterns.
Let’s get this out of the way first… I’m nowhere near cool enough to be paid to make this post! I paid to take this course and I’m a member of the Cashmerette Club because I enjoy Jenny’s sewing patterns and tips.
The course walks you through the process of making adjustments to a “sloper” which is basically a “base” for drafting other garments. The Wyman Sloper (you need to be a club member to access it) is for a dress, but there are slopers out there for pants or tops too. As you can see below, I really got a great fit on my sloper by working through the course. I highly recommend it, but you absolutely have to be willing to put in the work to finish!
Why I Finally Got Started
I got a new job with some in-office face-time. At my old job, stretch fabrics were just fine with the dress code, so fit issues with ready-to-wear didn’t bother me. However, for the new job I meet with clients and I needed some slightly more formal business-wear. My attempt at a big shopping trip was incredibly frustrating. Everything was way too tight in the bust and when I sized up, it fell off at the shoulders. While skirts and pants would kind-of fit, they’d inevitably be tugging in a way I didn’t enjoy. So of course I decided to finally learn to fit properly and just sew some basics for myself that would actually be comfortable!
Cue the ultimate course in fitting…
1. The First Go
The first task in Sloper School is to spend a good bit of time taking accurate measurements, plugging them into a size calculator, and building your first sloper. I cut a 14E/F, graded to a 16 waist and hip. One important lesson is to use sitting and standing measurements to select a size. You will never get an extremely close fitting, woven garment that will also let you move around. You need enough ease to sit, raise your arms, and breathe!
Follow Directions…
I also (needlessly) did a broad shoulder adjustment and took 1″ out of the front waist darts. This is actually a great example for why you should follow instructions… Jenny clearly asks you to not do any adjustments except full bust on the first muslin. I made two extra adjustments and… I didn’t keep either of those adjustments at the end! I had made adjustments based on my “ideas” about my body from past sewing, not the objective photos and measurements I was taking.
As you can see in the photos below, the shoulders are way too wide and the waist has too much ease in the front. Otherwise, it was actually a really great fit for a first sloper!
Jenny frequently reminds you that you are going for “better than ready-to-wear” and I honestly felt like I was there, even on just this first version. If you sewed this up in a nice navy fabric, you’d still be one of the best dressed gals in the office! It gets better, I promise, but you can see how JUST grading between sizes and getting a full bust adjustment can make a great fit.
You’re probably wondering if my body is a bit tilted based on the pictures. It’s actually the camera angle, and I do not have the patience to try and edit every photo. None of the photos are retouched or edited except cropping.
2. Vertical Adjustments
You start the course doing “vertical” adjustments, adding or subtracting length to get the waist and the hip balance lines in the correct spot. I’m 5’4″ and the pattern is written for 5’6″. You can see in the images of my first muslin that there’s extra fabric at the back bodice, and the hip line is a little low on me. I ended up removing 0.5″ from the area between the bust and waist, and 1.5″ between the waist and hip. It added up to exactly the 2″, but that’s not always the case.
In the image below, I pinned out the extra fabric to see how it looked before cutting a new version. You can already see how the extra fabric at the back disappears, and the hip line is at a much more flattering level.
You can also see that the bust is a little tight, so for the next muslin I went up a bust size to a 14 G/H. At that point, I was really starting to understand why my ready-to-wear experience with blouses was not very positive.
You can see here that I took out the length in the wrong spot on the skirt, and I ended up shortening the darts in the skirt, which is not what I needed! You can see where I marked out a better dart length in the middle photo above. On the next go, I removed the excess fabric below the darts, so I ended up basically just raising up the point where the hip is the widest without changing much of the shaping.
3. Full Bum and Bicep
I finally fixed all the length issues and got the longer skirt darts back in. But I needed to deal with the tightness in the bum. Just how much of a “full bum” adjustment I needed was a surprise, and was only revealed by taking half measurements.
While my full circumference at the hip is a 16, half measurements revealed that I’m actually a 12 in the front, and a 14 plus 2″ full bum adjustment in the back. In other words, I need another 3″ in the back, but not all the length a 3″ full bum adjustment would add. I would have never figured that out without the course and I’m getting amazing fits in my new projects knowing that I need that adjustment.
Once I finessed the darts a bit, and added a 3/4″ full bicep adjustment I finally came up with a great fitting muslin. For the full bicep adjustment, it’s not clear that it is “needed” to get a good fit, but you can see in the video I shared at the end of the post, it gives me great range of motion in a fitted sleeve.
I also made my final muslin in a slightly thicker (true medium weight) fabric, because I wanted to ensure there were not fit issues being camouflaged by the light weight muslin I started with.
Sloper School really helped me learn to see a garment for how it actually fits and remove some of the mental distortions that come with those little insecurities we develop over time. I’ve always felt self-conscious about my lower stomach area. So I ASSUMED I needed some kind of adjustment for my stomach. It turns out that tightness in that area can be caused by a lack of ease across the bum instead, which was the issue I was having with a lot of my ready-to-wear clothes. And once you see it, you wonder how you ever missed those seams tilting to the back…
It may seem like a pretty big leap between the second and third muslins, but there was quite a bit of measurement taking and tiny adjustments between. The full bum adjustment was pretty large, the front skirt went down a size, and these two changes alone really fixed the fit of both the front and back skirt. Finessing of darts (MORE curvature in the front bodice, longer in the front skirt, longer in the back bodice), a tiny adjustment to the back waist, and the extra 3/4″ full bicep also made subtle, but excellent changes.
I can’t believe I’m doing this… but for the sake of science… here’s a video of me running around in the sloper so you can see how it fits.
My Final Adjustments
If you take the course, Jenny walks you through every kind of adjustment, starting with vertical, and then generally moving down the body. I was pretty lucky not to need a ton of adjustments, and I would say the following are my “core” adjustments that I’ve been making to every Cashmerette pattern since making the sloper:
- I sew one cup size up (G/H) from what I measure on the Cashmerette size charts
- I take out the 0.5″ of length in the bodice below the bust dart and above the waist
- I take the 1.5″ out between the waist and hip if the skirt is fitted. If it’s a flowing skirt with a lot of ease, I just take out 1.5″ at wherever the lengthen/shorten line is on the skirt, as there’s no defined hip point to move around.
- I cut a 12 in the front skirt and a 14 in the back, with a 2″ full bum adjustment if the skirt is fitted
- If the skirt is flowing, I cut a 14 in both the front and the back skirt and then add the 2″ in the back. I don’t mind a little extra flow in the front.
- If the top has a fitted sleeve, I make the 3/4″ full bicep adjustment. Otherwise, I stick with the regular sleeve.
It feels like a lot of adjustments, but I’m getting an amazing fit in Cashmerette patterns, and it’s become more of a science than an art to get a great finished garment. When I showed my husband, he was shocked that I could sew something that skimmed my body so perfectly, without being tight or loose anywhere. Mission accomplished!
Next week, I’m going to share what I’ve made so far with the sloper and corresponding adjustments from the Cashmerette patterns! Sneak peak is below š
Sneak Peek at What I’ve Made So Far
Thanks for reading! Are you considering making a sloper after seeing my results?
This looks really nice! I am tempted to do the class myself.