What do you struggle with when it comes to fit?

Hello friends, and welcome back to the blog! Today's post is a little different from what I had planned, which was originally titled 'Understanding Fit'. The plan was to take a general look at where you can run into fit issues and some things you can look at to avoid this. It would have overlapped with some of the things we have already talked about in previous blog posts and, while giving an overall view of the topic, wouldn't have got specific about any one area. Initially, I thought that it would still make for an interesting read, but recently I began to rethink this.

A couple of weeks ago, we published 'Understanding Ease & How It Affects Fit', and your response to that post was super encouraging and interesting. When we write these blog posts, we want to be bringing you content that you both enjoy and find useful, so it felt like we were on the right track. I got messages from many of you, not only letting us know that it was a helpful post but sharing your own struggles with fit. It quickly became clear that another general post wasn't going to cut it, and we needed to delve into this topic much deeper. So that is what we are going to do!

In 'Understanding Ease...', I talked briefly about mixing and matching sizes in a pattern to get the right fit, so this is one of the things we are going to be looking at that in more detail. For example; how to choose a size with more ease at the bust without the neck ending up too big, or how to adjust a pattern if you have broad shoulders. We'll also be looking at other things such as length adjustment, adding or omitting waist shaping, and bust adjustments.

While every pattern will come with its own unique challenges for working out changes, we hope to give you as much information as possible about making fit adjustments for different garment styles to give you the confidence to try it out for yourself. Once you begin making even the smallest change, it can open up a world of possibilities in your making, and hopefully lead to your most treasured and regularly worn FO's!

We're going to be starting gently with a post on adding or removing length to the waist and sleeves two weeks from now, but before then, we have a fantastic post from Hanna Lisa about understanding gauge coming next week. Gauge and ease are both huge factors to consider when making changes to a pattern, so having both of these posts to refer to is going to make the next few months a lot easier to get our heads around. If you missed our post on ease, you can read it now right here!

Before I go, I do have one thing I'd like to ask you...

...what do you struggle with when it comes to fit?

As I plan out what fit topics to tackle over the next few months, I'd love to hear your thoughts! We want these posts to be as useful as possible, so if you struggle with certain fit issues and would like us to tackle them here, please do let us know! You can comment below or email me directly at claire@making-stories.com.