My pattern contest - part 2

The first step for me is to create a skirt sloper. I followed Winifred Aldrich's instructions to make a skirt sloper some years ago, which has worked well for me in the past; however, the darts are a given length, and I think I might need different lengths. Also, I was post-baby then, and my waist measurement is a fair bit smaller now (and sadly, my hip measurement actually is a little bigger).

So, this morning, we followed the instructions in a Sew Stylish magazine to make a skirt sloper out of duct tape. It was a whole family affair and the kids thought it was hilarious.

I made a few changes to the instructions. Firstly I wore some cut-off panty hose instead of ribbing (and hence no photographs of the process!) . I can't recommend this, because the elasticity of the hose distorted the shape once we cut it off. We also used a silicone paper tape, just because it was left over from when I made my body double. Before we started taping, I put on my low rise jeans and then my Alice & Olivia pants and marked the top of the waistband onto the pantyhose (with Nikko, so we have also marked my stomach!) with the aim of measuring this circumference, because it is so tricky trying to guess the right spot when making below-waist trousers).

Here are some photos of the sloper. In some of the photos, I have placed the tape version over the top of my previous sloper. I used one side to make the skirt sloper and the other side to make waistband patterns (my sides are uneven, but my sewing will never be precise enough to take this into account!)





I learnt the following;

• I have almost no side curve
• the front dart is very short
• one of the back darts is very long and very wide

Below are some photos of a muslin made from this sloper. I think the only change I would make would be to move the front darts outwards maybe 4 - 5 cm. I am surprised that the back dart seemed to work...perhaps I just have a low, saggy bum. My last couple of trouser patterns have fitted fine, so this surprised me a little. They were below-waist trousers, and perhaps they were designed for saggy bummed people!



I think converting this to an A-line skirt may be a little tricky...the instructions I have have the same dart width on front and back, so a slash-and-spread method closing the darts gives the same amount of flare on the front and back. I might need to just close the back darts part of the way?