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Terry I no longer buy skirt patterns. There's a great little book on Amazon under $12.00 that teaches you how to draft your own patterns. Skirts are pretty basic and you will learn a lot about sizing by using it. Think about what you pay for a pattern and compare the cost. It's the best investment I ever made. No more altering patterns, they are drafted to fit me. Juno

Try:

You are looking at McCalls 6038, so since it is a multi-size pattern, the easiest alteration is to choose the largest size, for instance the hip, and taper down to the smaller size, i.e. the waist. For example if your wife's hip measures 36" (size 12) but her waist measures 24" (size 8) taper the cutting line from the hip size 12 line to the waist size 8 line. For a slim skirt this is a fairly easy alteration.

If you run across dramatic differences in the bodice it gets more complicated. And there are many custom alterations for non-standard body types. ;-}

On the other hand, TSWLTH (The Store We Love To Hate AKA JoAnn's for the newbies) is having a Simplicity 5/$5.00 coming up soon, and I'm going to stock up on a couple of new patterns for DD's scrubs. I had one perfectly altered six years ago, but I need to start over from scratch, marriage agrees with her so much her shape has changed. ;-}

I should have added: Be sure to transfer all alterations to the waist facing. With this pattern, you may also be able to make some alteration in the darts, front and back but mostly in the back.

pattern

Hello Terry,

Meant to say welcome to the group on your intro post but I thought you might just be a passer by. Seems like you have jumped right into it.

I am a *long time rank amateur* and lurker here. I came into the sewing hobby in quite a circuitous manner as well.

I have encountered some of your frustrations as well and many more ( no spoilers here :) ).

There are some fundamental and complete sewing books found cheap (< $5.00) on used book web sites that have already been suggested to you. The Readers Digest and Singer sewing book (don't let the

1950/1970/1984 copyright fool you into thinking they must be outdated). I read through them completely. I find i am cracking those books everytime i hit a snag or sewing term i do not know and they cover lots of technique/terms/examples, etc...

Here are some partial online links i found in my bookmarks when i was surfing for free stuff right away( once upon a time).

The info is incomplete (they are trying to sell you the book) but what is there may give some helpful ideas and some appreciation for what dress design methodology entails . You may have to extract the method and apply to your problem.

I suggest reading these in the following order.

I can look for more links i have if these are not useful ? hth robb

Hey Robb,

Thanks for the reply. I ordered, and received, the 1995 Readers Digest and the latest Readers Digest Sewing books. The 1995 seems to have a lot more information than the present but the present version is still good (take my opinions with a grain of salt). The 1995 version came to us in *pretty good* shape but I see a trip to the book binders in the near future. I've also purchased a Sewing Guide for Dummies (meh) and another beginner book.

It is a very technical hobby - one that suits me to a T. I dig laying out the material and working through problems. I'm also a big sucker for mechanical gadgets so the sewing machine et al. ranks right up there with my cool gadget stash. If I were many years younger it would have been a nice profession to get into. I have been to the tailor many times in the past to get my suits altered and had always spent extra time chatting and looking at the different fabrics - a habit that hits the wallet with great force. Those were the 9-5 days.

Again, thanks to all that help with no regard for personal gain. I have turned to the Usenet groups many times in the past (I dig baking bread too) and it hasn't let down again.

Terry

I'm going to suggest you borrow a couple of books from your local library on pattern alteration. The two beginning books I'd suggest are Fantastic Fit for Every Body, by Gale Grigg Hazen, and Palmer and Alto's Fit for Real People. Because you seem to be more technically oriented, the book that I really like is Leichty, Pottberg and Rasband's Fitting and Pattern Alteration, A Multi-Method Approach, which is more systematic and analytical than the other two. The third one is expensive, and the content sends some folks screaming for mercy, but if you like it, you generally really like it.

The thing you're really going to have to learn to do when fitting is figure out how to read the wrinkles and sag marks in the fabric -- that's the real key to figuring out what needs doing. In general, once you get the lengthwise grain straight up and down at CF and CB, and the crossgrain parallel to the floor at bust and hips, you can adjust the rest by trial and error, much of it at the side seams.

Kay

These are some of my favorites.