We started with a trouser fitting question that came in before the session. It is worth watching even if you are not making trousers, because the corrections involved are the ones almost everybody meets.

The real lesson in that half is order. Fit problems on a trouser are connected to each other, so if you change four things at once you cannot tell which one worked. Do one thing, sew it, put it back on, then decide the next.

Then we went back to the twist shoulder dress from last session and I did what I said I would: drafted it flat for my own measurements, cut it, sewed it and put it on myself rather than on the form.

Demonstration Steps:

• Worked through a trouser with a loose waist, a roomy hip, bagginess in the back and a front crotch pulling in too far, taking one correction at a time and refitting between each.
• Took the waist excess into the back darts rather than off the side seam. Removing it at the side stops the side seam hanging straight and clean, and the front already sat well because of the shaping over the tummy.
• Divided the excess across the darts instead of loading one. Two centimetres spread over four darts is half a centimetre each, which is a tiny move, not a redraft.
• Checked the dart lengths in the back. The dart nearer the centre back is the longer one and the one toward the side seam is shorter, particularly if you have a curved back.
• Deepened the front and back crotch curves a little at a time to take out the bagginess, scooping from the deepest part of the curve and leaving the centre front and centre back lines alone so the rise does not get tighter.
• Unpicked the seam and chalked the new line rather than cutting. Nothing gets cut until the refitting is finished, because any one of these steps may need to come back.
• Explained the knock-on effect: scooping the crotch pulls the sides in by itself, so the hip and outer thigh often need no work at all once it is done. That is why you do not touch them first.
• Levelled the centre back afterwards, and only if it still sat high once the crotch was right, taking the side seam as the zero point and dropping the back by the amount it stood proud.
• Showed the triangle that appears at the front when the inner leg is too long, with the fabric riding up between the legs, and dropped the crotch point to clear it.
• Warned about overdoing that. Drop it too far and you get tension across the top of the leg, which reads as stretch rather than bunching. The fix is to go out a little at the same point to give that extension back.
• Set the target at about two inches of ease overall, and cautioned against tightening the sides while the toile is in a thinner fabric than the finished trouser will be.
• For a straighter leg, went out slightly at the inner leg at the hem and blended up to the knee line, and took any remaining width in at the hip itself rather than below it.
• Put the twist shoulder dress back on the form and hand gathered the shoulder area to test an idea. It looks better gathered, and better again with the gather sitting higher.
• Then drafted that same dress flat for my own measurements rather than draping it a second time, because I have a shorter torso, a larger upper body and a straighter waist than the form.
• Started from hip circumference, about 105 cm, halved to roughly 52 cm for one pattern piece.
• Added an inch to each piece, then a second inch after a member reported her mock up needed more ease in a very stretchy jersey. That is four inches around in total.
• Measured shoulder neck point to dropped shoulder at 45 cm and marked that distance down from the top edge, then did the same on the back.
• Measured the underarm opening at 24 cm and the distance from underarm to hip at 39 cm, which gave the whole skeleton of the piece.
• Added about an extra inch at the shoulder to supply the fabric the twist eats up, which is easy to forget until the twist will not sit.
• Set the sleeve opening from an arm measurement of 28 cm, halved to 14 cm, then made it 15 cm so it would not bind.
• Curved the line from underarm down to hip slightly rather than leaving it square, and drew the taper in without cutting it yet.
• Cut it on the fold in a cheap blue jersey with a half inch seam allowance rather than 1 cm, for the margin, then sewed the shoulder and the side and left the arm opening.
• Gathered the sleeve with elastic thread by hand, adjusting how much fullness to pull up until it looked right.
• Tried it on and read the fit honestly: the shoulder dropped too far, there was too much drape overall, and it was too long.
• Took the shoulder in, tightened the sleeve gather and shortened it. Those three changes together transformed the look.
• Worked out where the excess drape had to come from. It was in the upper portion, above the armhole, not at the hip, and because that edge sits on the fold the same amount comes off both layers.

Questions & Answers:

• Q: Can we go back and finish the pattern for the black draped dress?
• A: Yes, and that is the second half of this session. I wanted to get it to a finished pattern anyway, and I would rather sew it in black so I can actually wear it.
• Q: I made a mock up and it needed more ease in the hip circumference.
• A: That depends entirely on your jersey. If yours is very stretchy you will want more than I allowed. Add an extra inch per pattern piece, which is two inches around, and go up again if it is still snug. Taking a jersey in later is easy, letting it out is not.
• Q: Would you show how you would make this for yourself rather than on the form?
• A: That is exactly what I did. The form will not tell me the truth about my own proportions, so I measured myself and drafted from those numbers, then cut it and put it on.

The honest verdict is that this silhouette is not mine. I am petite with a broad shoulder and a fairly straight waist, so all that fabric at the top drowns me. It suits a pear shape far better than it suits me.

That is worth saying out loud, because the answer is not to abandon the design. It is to control the drape: less fabric, a shorter length, a tighter gather at the shoulder. Once those three were done I liked it, and a band turned in at the hem would take it further still.

If you are petite, take this as the rule. Reduce the fabric before you decide the style does not work on you.

Next time I am going to choose another top for myself, decide what I actually want from it, and drape it from the start.