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How to Fit With Confidence
When you sew clothes that fit your body, you feel empowered. This class will teach you fundamental skills to learn how to fit with confidence. Download the free fitting journal to document all the new skills you learn along the way.
Non-Members: $49
Seamwork Members: Free!
Introducing
How to Fit With Confidence
Get comfortable fitting your me-made clothes with this fun, helpful video class.
How to Fit With Confidence teaches you how to “fit what you see”. You’ll learn several fundamental concepts to help you understand fitting as a whole, such as diagnosing fit issues on a muslin, lengthening and shortening, increasing and decreasing width, pivot alternations, fullness alterations, and how to adjust darts.
By the end of this course you’ll be able to:
- Keep a curious mindset so you can get the best fit without the stress.
- Gather your tools and resources, with a list of supplies and fitting books that we trust
- Ask the right questions—and diagnose fitting problems on a muslin
- Pin and transfer markings from your muslin to your paper pattern pieces
- Shorten and lengthen pattern pieces between different points of measure
- Slash and pivot to add or decrease volume
- Increase or decrease fullness in a certain place on your pattern
- Shorten, lengthen, and move darts to get them to the right point of fullness
- Use the free Seamwork Fitting Journal to track all of your measurements and adjustments
Skill Level
Intermediate
Expected Length
10–12 hours
Free Pattern & Sewalong
Sew a pattern from start to finish
Meet Your Teacher
Haley is the Pattern Designer at Seamwork. Her background in both apparel design and teaching gives her a unique combination of skills that helps her guide students at all levels.
Meet Your Teacher
Haley is the Pattern Designer at Seamwork. Her background in both apparel design and teaching gives her a unique combination of skills that helps her guide students at all levels.
Course Lessons
Lesson 1: Welcome!
Get comfortable fitting your me-made clothes with this fun, helpful video class. When you sew clothes that fit your body, you feel empowered. And when something fits well, you feel good in it. This Seamwork Fitting Series will teach you how to fit with confidence. There are so many fitting met...
Lesson 2: Fitting Mindset
What’s inspiring about learning how to fit clothing? You’re learning how to take the time to get to know your body and honor it with the gift of beautiful clothing. It's an act of self-love! In this lesson, let’s explore ways to fit without stress. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you ...
Lesson 3: Tools & Resources
Just like you need your sewing toolbox to sew clothes, you need a toolbox for fitting. In this lesson, we will help you gather the right tools to empower yourself with everything you need to know to fit clothes to your body. Let’s start with books! When you are just beginning, pick one book that...
Lesson 4: Measurements, Size & Ease
Did you know that ready-to-wear sizes don’t correlate to sewing pattern sizes? This is especially true for bra cup sizes. So forget what size you are when you shop for clothes in a store, and let’s focus on finding the measurements that will help your me-made clothing fit you perfectly. In this ...
Lesson 5: Sew & Diagnose a Muslin
How do you know if a garment fits well? A better question to ask is: do you like how the garment looks and feels on your body? While garments have certain design intentions, you gotta be comfortable actually wearing the thing. The only way to get that comfortable fit is to sew up a muslin. In...
Lesson 6: Reshape Seams
When you are first learning how to fit, it's important to note that even very small fitting adjustments can make a big difference. If you see a bunch of wrinkles, don't stress out. A simple pinch or slash at the side seam might actually take care of all of them! In this lesson, you'll learn how ...
Lesson 7: Shorten & Lengthen
Alright, you've learned how to diagnose your muslin and make minor tweaks, but now it is time to dig a little deeper to learn some basic adjustments. There are several types of fitting alterations that you can do, depending on where you need to make a change, but each of them involves slashing ...
Lesson 8: Increase & Decrease Width
Ready to learn a little more about slashing patterns? In this lesson, you'll learn how to slash to increase or decrease the width of an entire pattern piece. This adjustment is exactly what you did in the last lesson to lengthen and shorten your pattern pieces—it's just on a different axis. So d...
Lesson 9: Pivot Alterations
What happens if you want to add or remove fabric in a specific area, without affecting any other seams? In addition to slashing your pattern, you’ll also need to pivot it to add or reduce room. Like the other adjustments you've learned so far, pivoting involves slashing the pattern along a line ...
Lesson 10: Fullness Alteration
Alright, you've learned the basics for how to slash and pivot, so now it's time to try a fullness alteration. This type of alteration is slightly more complex, but only at first glance. Imagine that you want to add some fabric at the bust. How do you accomplish this without also adding width at...
Lesson 11: Adjust Darts
The human body is a complex shape. We all have curves in different places. While patterns are designed to fit as many people as possible, there is just no way to make all of the details fit everyone exactly the same—and this is really true for darts. If your dart isn’t hitting at the right plac...
Lesson 12: Your Fitting Adventure
I hope you enjoyed this introduction to fitting class. These are concepts and techniques you will carry with you throughout your entire sewing and fitting adventure. It's tempting to rush through fitting or try to identify an individual fitting adjustment that will fix all of your problems. To l...
What’s Included
You’ll get:
- 12 lessons to help you learn how to fit
- A list of tools and resources
- A free downloadable fitting journal
Plus:
- Seamwork members get access to a private forum in the Community to ask fitting questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do I need to have prior fitting experience to take this class?
- Nope! This class teaches fitting fundamentals, so you don’t need experience.
- Can I get access to the private forum to post my fitting questions if I am not a member?
- Our Community is private so you need a membership to be able to post questions and read the forum. The Community is a safe, encouraging space and we want Seamworkers to feel comfortable knowing who they are chatting with.
- Are patterns included in this class?
- No, you can use these fitting principles on any patterns, including Seamwork patterns.
How to Fit With Confidence
When you sew clothes that fit your body, you feel empowered. This class will teach you fundamental skills to learn how to fit with confidence. Download the free fitting journal to document all the new skills you learn along the way.