Reply To: Maximum Number of Inches You Can Increase a Waist or Hip Before You Have Problems

[the_professors_assistantKeymaster]

Hi there! It’s very exciting to hear you’re trying to recreate a vintage pattern! 🙂 From what I understand you can increase waist and hips however much you want. (It’s the bustline where you start running into problems and start to worry about armholes.) That being said, if you’re considering taking a pattern and making it larger overall, you may want to consider pattern grading. We don’t have a tutorial on this yet, but I did find an article and maybe it will be helpful. http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/4424/quick-reference-for-cut-and-spread-pattern-grading Regardless, I would make a copy of your pattern so you can preserve the original. You can make a copy using a tracing wheel. Check out our tutorial on this. When you’re ready to start sewing, make a muslin. This means to use a cheap fabric like muslin to test the fit. You just have to baste your pieces together, enough so you can try it on and decide if you need to make anymore changes. Also, make note of how much fabric you use and this will help you out when you’re ready to do the real thing. I’d love to see a picture when you finish!