Page:The cutters' practical guide to the cutting of ladies' garments.djvu/24

16 joined to a hollow; put the collar on long in the gorge hollow, and keep the sleeve tight round the back scye. If wadding or padding is used, see that it is carefully graded off, as the height of art must always be to conceal art. Put a waist-band at the waist, as it not only relieves any strain at that part, but it also holds the garment firm to the figure; have a hook to fasten the bodice to the skirt at the back, and so prevent the underclothing being seen when the wearer bends or stoops. We shall deal more fully with some of the special features of making in another chapter.

Many of the students who come to our office to study the art of cutting ladies' garments, have been in the habit of allowing all the seams beyond their marks'; this plan has many advantages, especially when cutting checked goods, or if the material is of a very ravelly nature, and when the usual $1⁄4$ inch seam would not be sufficient to stand the ordinary wear and tear. When cutting checked goods it greatly facilitates the matter of matching, and as the materials from which ladies' costumes are now being made have a distinct tendency to large patterns, we deem it advisable to show the variations necessary to meet such cases in a work of this sort.

In garments from such materials, fit has occasionally to be sacrificed to some extent so that style may be allowed full scope; especially is this the case with the sideseam, where there is no suppression taken out, the usual inch being equally divided at the two nearest seams. The reason for this is: if any suppression was taken out, it would be found impracticable to match both the vertical and horizonal stripes: hence, in order that this may be accomplished, the fit is to some small extent sacrificed; and the possible defect that would show itself would be a horizontal fold running from 3¾ to 6¾, which would be more or less as the lady's blades were prominent or flat. With most ladies this would not show itself in a very marked degree, as the blades are generally flat as compared to those of men. Still, we wish it to be distinctly understood this method is arranged for a certain object, viz., to allow of check material being made up with all the cross bars to match exactly, and not with the view of producing the most accurate fit. Some of our readers may desire to cut all their garments out without any seams allowed; if so, they may use the ordinary 1 inch suppression from construction line at back, and take out the usual 1 inch suppression between back and sidebody and sidebody and sidepiece as elsewhere described. With these introductory or cautionary remarks, we will proceed to deal with the system applied for making bodices of check material, or, to be more correct, the adaptation of

And for this purpose we proceed as follows: O 8¼ is the depth of scye as taken on the customer, on to 16 the natural waist, and on to bottom the full length desired; O to 2½ one-sixth of the natural waist or to taste, as any variation in this part is adjusted in the front shoulder; the width of back neck is fixed by one-sixth of neck; from the centre of the back, measure across the width of back desired; from 10 come in, and draw the back seam through from it to 1½, and arrange the spring in the usual way. Now measure forward from ¾ to 18¾ the half breast measure, and from this measure back to 10½, the average between the across chest and the across bust measures less an inch, and apply the front and over shoulder in the same way as we have previously described. Some surprise may be felt at this, and thinking it would have been necessary to deduct a certain amount from the measure, owing to the seams being added afterwards. A little reflection, however, would soon show, that though a seam is usually taken from the shoulder, as at A, B, yet the scye is deepened the same amount, so that the depth of scye still retains the same relative position to the neck and shoulder points. No suppression is taken out between back and sidebody at waist, but an extra ½ inch, making 1½ altogether, is taken out between sidebody and sidepiece. In other respects the system is worked in quite the ordinary way, arranging the seams either in the style illustrated on this Plate or on Plate 10, and in other details follow the same plan as previously described, so that it would be unnecessary repetition for us to go over all the points. We will only remark that the waist should be made up to 1 inch less than the nett size of the customer's waist measure, otherwise it will come out too large; even then it will do so in some very elastic materials, so that it will always be advisable to check the waist and make it up to measure by adjusting it at the under arm seam.

The leading feature to be studied in making up is, that the pattern shall match at all the various parts to a nicety, it will even be necessary to sacrifice fit to a certain extent for that purpose. It will, however, be impossible to get both the horizontal and perpendicular lines to match at all the scams, and to ran satisfactorily with the front, and as the underarm seam is the one most out of sight, that would be the seam we should sacrifice in this way. There are several methods of