THE AMATEUR DRESSMAKER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 285, 1 December 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE AMATEUR DRESSMAKER.

ALTERING, A PATTERN.

Though teachers of dressmaking instruct their pupils to draft patterns, the amateur usually prefers to buy one, and will find it easy to make small alterations in the size. Large ones are inadvisable. To lengthen a skirt, take a strip of thin paper about threequarters of an inch wider than the length required, place it on a table, and <nvti the edges. Then cut the pattern ■ n two across the middle, lay the pieces on the strip, press them down, and tidy the sides, keeping them in line with those of the pattern. When the waist is too small —a frequent failing paste a strip of paper on each slanting seam and shape it up from the hips. In some designs two or three vertical slite may be made at the top, and stretched apart. The hips are widened by adding a strip to each seam, both slanting and straight, from the top to the hem; if the skirt is in one piece, and the top is shaped, allow a little on the side opposite to the seam. Put a tuck in the middle of the pattern to shorten a skirt; remove a snip at each seam to make it nar-

rower. Lengthen and shorten sleeves as though they were skirts. Often two strips of adhesive tape, added a few inches apart, do for lengthening. Widen sleeves with lengthways strips, near the middle. Widen blouse fronts with strips half-way betw r een the middle of the front and the underarm seam; to narrow them make a tuck in the pattern.. It will have been observed that the number of inches necessary, to enlarge a part must be divided by the number of places at which an addition is to be made, so that all additions arc the same size. For example, if the hips are to be two inches wider, and there are two seams, four strips, each measuring ■iialf rre added.