Today I’m going to give you a peek into Joi Mahon’s fitting book Create the Perfect Fit, Measuring and Pattern Fitting for Real Sewing Solutions. I’ve found the method this book details to nicely expedite the process of adjusting the fit for new sewing patterns.
While Joi does state that a muslin needs to be constructed to determine what final fitting adjustments are needed, her method strongly emphasises making adjustments to the pattern before sewing up a muslin, thereby minimizing the number of muslin iterations needed to get the fit just right. In the introduction she summarizes the book with the statement, “Measure yourself, measure your pattern”.
The book then goes on to describe how to do that in great detail. I appreciate that the chapters are arranged such that they cover the vertical adjustments for a given area before the horizontal adjustments. This saves a huge headache. It’s easy to sew up a muslin and immediately get overwhelmed with not knowing where to start to get it fitting right. But if you think about it, you can’t very well work out what adjustments need to be made to narrow or widen an area if the sections of the garment aren’t falling at the right levels on your body. For example, if you’re short-waisted and you stitch up a muslin for your new shirt pattern without any preliminary adjustments, the waistline on the shirt is likely going to fall well below your actual waist. Then to be able to determine whether the waistline of the shirt needs to be taken in or let out, you will at a minimum need to pin up the length in the middle of the shirt to raise the shirt’s waistline up to the proper level to meet your waist. You may have been able to figure that out all right, or you may have ended up with a headache and a lot of frustration.
This book takes pattern adjustments to the next level by showing that not only do you want to make those vertical adjustments first, but you can make both those and the horizontal adjustments before making your first muslin. At that point your first muslin will likely be close enough to fitting you properly that you’ll only need minor adjustments to get the fit just right.
If you typically need pattern adjustments in the bust area, you may find this book worth the bust fitting section alone. Joi breaks up the bustline measurements into several segments to create a better fit throughout the area. Vertically she covers shoulder-to- apex, bust curve, and underbust to waist.
Horizontally she covers upper chest, full bust, full underbust, apex-to-apex (here’s where you get rid of button placket gaping), and apex to side seam. That seems like a lot, and it is, but each area is addressed individually, so it’s not overwhelming. From going through all these measurements, you’ll learn specifically where you need to make adjustments to get the pattern fitting you, rather than making a general full/small-bust adjustment, then still needing to tweak the fit.
The chapters in Create the Perfect Fit cover the following:
- Chapter 1 – Measuring and Pattern Protocol is a quick introduction to the process, along with the tools you’ll need, most of which you’ll probably already have on hand as a sewist.
- Chapter 2 – Vertical Torso Adjustments
- Chapter 3 – Horizontal Torso Adjustments
- Chapter 4 – Vertical Lower Body Adjustments
- Chapter 5 – Horizontal Lower Body Adjustments
- Chapter 6 – Vertical Arm Adjustments
- Chapter 7 – Horizontal Arm Adjustments
- Chapter 8 – Ease and the Polished Fit provides some basic guidelines for adding fit ease, along with a list of measurement areas that aren’t likely to require any ease.
- Chapter 9 – Garment Application Workbook – All of the adjustments through chapter 7 are demonstrated on a fitting shell pattern, which shows how to closely fit the body without including any style ease to complicate the process. In this chapter Joi discusses how to apply the same strategy to fashion patterns for a variety of garments. While this chapter is both helpful and inspiring, the guidance provided is mainly a high-level checklist of measurement areas to address. No projects are worked through to demonstrate the specifics. With that, someone who hasn’t worked with pattern alterations before may feel a bit abandoned if they try to extrapolate the adjustment instructions for the fitting shell patterns to a fashion pattern with a complex design or a lot of style ease.
- Chapter 10 – Real Bodies, Real Fit contains photos of several different women, including Joi’s 10-year old daughter, wearing the muslins that were created for them by going through the adjustment process with the fitting shell pattern. Each woman illustrates a different figure type. A list of adjustments is noted for each person, along with a brief description of what additional changes were made at the muslin stage.
One thing that isn’t mentioned or shown in the photos that would still be helpful for fitting the muslin is to either draw vertical and horizontal balance lines onto the fabric or use gingham fabric to help ensure that after the adjustments the garment continues to hang level all the way around the body.
Overall I’ve found Joi’s method helpful and hope you have the opportunity to look through Create the Perfect Fit to determine whether it would expand your understanding of garment fitting and provide a useful tool to add to your pattern fitting skills.
I read this book, and while it was a good introduction to fitting flat patterns, I did find that it was was more in-depth than I needed- the first chapter or two was sufficient, and then I still needed to buy a more conventional fitting book that quickly covers specific adjustments.
Great point Kathleen! Often seeing the technique being applied in real time can go a long way towards clarifying the concept.
My fitting was usually lackluster before I took Joi’s class at a sewing expo and then read her book, and then it was like a revelation. It just makes so much more sense to me to break the body down into her fitting areas and to apply changes that way than to apply the more typical pattern changes that I learned from older books. It has really revolutionized my pattern fitting, and I recommend her method to anyone who just has not been able to make the more standard methods that are taught work for them.
Nice review, Jodi! I have lots of fitting books and I really like Joi’s approach because it’s different. If you ever wondered why a traditional FBA does not work for you I highly recommend this book or the Craftsy classes!
Certainly there is something to be gleaned from any book one picks up in the world of pattern adjustment. I really disliked Joi’s book for not quite getting to the point. The same with her Craftsy class to be honest. One person asked a question and from memory, she reiterated the question about 8 times before Joi finally answered the actual question rather than waxing lyrical about all the other superficial paraphernalia to do with pattern fitting. She doesn’t believe in FBAs, I understand her rationale. I’m an F cup in a size 12 body so I have one specific fitting issue. But her method of expanding the pattern horizontally in different sections just doesn’t add the fabric the way an FBA does. I suggest anyone keen to investigate this book borrows it from the library prior to purchase – or I could send you my copy FOC!!
As an HH cup I also have one main fitting issue. However, none of the standard FBA’s really works for me. In fact they tend to make things worse. Most FBA’s add width between apex and side seam and length between apex and waist. Joi’s method of working with quadrants for the bust area can be very helpful if you need extra fabric in the apex to apex region, or length above the apex because your upper bust is full and your underbust curve is relatively short. So I agree her method doesn’t add the fabric in the way an FBA does, but for some of us that’s a good thing!
I’ve found separately addressing the areas comprising the bust to refine my fitting of that area as well.
Great idea to borrow from the library first!
It is a great book! The only thing I found missing are fitting tips for pants.
I agree Lena. It seemed to me that a lot of the work on pants would be the same as the work she detailed on skirts, but including some examples on pants would have helped people to bridge the concepts from skirts to pants. However, it’s hard to get away with discussing fitting pants without addressing the crotch curve and all the areas it affects, and I don’t see how that could be handled well with this technique.
Thanks for the review. Could you comment on this book compared to any other pattern fitting books?
Hi Lynn, a couple of other fitting books that I also find very helpful:
Sarah Veblen’s The Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting covers the fitting process through constructing multiple iterations of muslins. She includes a ton of photos that help you learn what to look for in general and sleuth out what’s causing an area to fit incorrectly while working on a specific project. Subsequent photos for each problem show what she has done to correct the issue.
In Fit for Real People, Pati Palmer and Marta Alto have you pin the actual tissue pattern to your body and pin the adjustments into the tissue from there. In addition to the examples of this being done on several different women of varying figure types, they also include a lot of diagrams of flat pattern adjustments to illustrate what generally happens to the pattern for each adjustment.
The main difference between the three books is the medium in which the fitting process begins. Which approach someone finds works best will probably come down to personal preference. I find learning different techniques for approaching a task like fitting helps me to understand it better, and I seldom restrict myself to one technique. So I’ve found all three of these books helpful, as well as several others.
I’ve found this book very useful. It’s very logical but it really gets you thinking about the shape of your body compared to the shape of the pattern. One of the most useful tips is to treat your front and back differently – this may be an obvious point to more experienced sewists but for me it’s really revolutionised the way I think about my waist measurement, for example.
Jenny, I had a similar experience of becoming far more skilled in fitting with being able to grasp what’s needed well enough to know that instructions like “take the measurement, divide by 4, and add the adjustment evenly to each section” or “measure below that point the industry standard of x inches” are not likely to provide accurate results. And also to understand what to do in place of those instructions to get a good fit. The waistline is a good example for me too, because I have a very narrow lower back, while gaining most of my weight in the abdomen. This makes the waistline measurement across the front of my body substantially longer than across the back. Understanding that kind of thing lets you focus your adjustments to the areas that need them.
Sounds like a great book. Does it cover how to determine if you need some of the typical alterations I hear about, mainly swayback, sloped shoulders, narrow/wide shoulders, or full-tummy?
Her method accommodates those adjustments but you’re not going to be able to turn to a page that says “Sway back adjustment” or “narrow shoulder adjustment” because what you’re doing in her method is changing a pattern to fit your proportions both vertically and horizontally as a starting point before you get to a first muslin so that the first muslin is much closer to your final fit than it would have been straight out of the pattern envelope.
That’s a great way to clarify that Steph. Looking through the specifics I found the following:
Swayback gets covered in the vertical back measurements of shoulder to full back (the most prominent point of the shoulder blades) and back neck to waist.
Sloped shoulders isn’t handled directly with a measurement. The length from neck to shoulder is included, which leads me to conclude that the angle of that seam would be finalized at the muslin stage.
Narrow/Wide shoulders (upper back) are addressed with a measurement across the back with a note to focus on measuring at the widest point which often, but not always, falls over the shoulder blades.
Full abdomen is covered with a vertical measurement from the waist to the fullest point on the abdomen to add length to your pattern above the full hip.
I have used Joi’s book too and agree with you totally! Her work is excellent – she teaches a class on fitting on Craftsy as well which is a great adjunct to her book.
Great point Kathleen! Often seeing the technique being applied in real time can go a long way towards clarifying the concept.