by Sandra Betzina
Scripps Howard News Service
Perhaps you have made a pattern before and like everything about it but its width. The skirt would be perfect for ballroom dancing if it were a little fuller and made in a swishy fabric such as silk taffeta. With a few small changes on the pattern, you can get exactly what you want.
If you want to change the pattern permanently, go ahead and cut up the pattern; but if you want the pattern wider for only one skirt, make a copy of the pattern and keep the original intact.
The circumference of the skirt will be listed on the back of the pattern envelope. If it isn't you can measure between the seam allowances on the pattern at the hemline to determine the sweep of the skirt. Now measure a skirt with the amount of fullness you like. You may have to go to the store and find one. If so, measure it there.
Then compare the skirt circumference of the one you want to the circumference of the pattern. This will be the total amount you need to add to the pattern. Divide this amount in half to determine how much to alter the front and back pattern pieces. If the pattern pieces for front and back are cut on a fold or cut with a center back seam, tape paper onto the pattern at center front and center back. Fold in half along the fold line or center back seam and trace the pattern onto the added paper piece so that the full front and back are now represented.
Once we have pattern pieces that represent the entire front and the entire back, we are ready to roll. If your intent is to increase the circumference of the skirt by 20 inches total, 10 inches in front and 10 inches in back, then five cuts will be made in the pattern, spreading the skirt's width by two inches at each cut. To determine where to make the cuts, measure the waist seamline on each pattern piece.
Do not include side seam allowances in this measurement. Divide by 4; this measurement will equal the space between the dots. Place your first and last dots along the waist seamline at the side seamlines, spacing the remaining three dots using the measurement determined above.
Perform the same procedure for the bottom edge of the skirt, spacing five dots across the bottom. Connect the dot on top to the corresponding dot on the bottom with a pencil or pen. Slide a piece of paper, large enough to accommodate your expanded pattern, under your pattern piece. Starting at the bottom of the skirt, cut the pattern apart, leaving it intact at the waist seamline.
Spread the bottom of the skirt pieces so that there is a two-inch opening at the bottom of the skirt that tapers to zero by the seamline at the waist. Since the pattern is still attached at the waist, this can act as a hinge. Tape the extended pattern pieces to the paper.
If you taped up the center back seamline to make the whole back, cut down the center and add center back seam allowances.
That's it; pretty simple.
(Columnist, sewing expert and author Sandra Betzina is host of Sew Perfect and owner of Power Sewing. Send e-mail to powersew@aol.com or write to Power Sewing , 95 Fifth Avenue, San Francisco, Calif. 94118.)
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