I've been measured

I must confess to a slight obesession with slopers. I started with Winifred Aldrich. Not bad, but that was between pregnancies and my slopers are a little out of date now. Also, I never got the sleeve right. Then I made a replica of myself out of duct tape and tried to drape a sloper on that. Not hugely successful due to my inexperience with draping. Next I moved onto a duct tape skirt, which worked fine. It got a bit expensive after that when I purchased the Wild Ginger software. Not the best money I ever spent. My fifth attempt at a Wild Ginger sloper is crumpled at the bottom of my sewing cupboard. Now my journey is over, having stumbled on The European Cut by Elizabeth Allemong. Drumroll please....



I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I got a little bit of advice from the author, Elizabeth, who is lovely, and tweaked the sloper a little to get rid of the wrinkles on the backside, the pulling at the front thighs and small amount of gaping at the neck. I'd like to show you a proper photo, but now that I am in the market for a new camera (thanks Belinda and Kristy for your info), you will have to make do with a twisted-in-the-mirror shot.

I've never been one for fitted dresses, finding them impssible to buy and elusive to fit, but I am encouraged by this sloper. And after all, it is the year of the fitted sheath. But then again, where would I wear a fitted sheath?

The methods for drafting the slopers are quite detailed, based on 38 measurements. We made a night of it! The directions given for the measurements are very comprehensive. The illustrations are all hand drawn and based on real sized person. It took me a weekend to do this, but after reading other reviews, it sounds like the process would get quicker each time. The author says that she can draft a bodice sloper in 10 minutes.

I have started drafting the sleeve, but it has been sitting on a table for a couple of weeks now and next weekend I will be sewing my children costumes for book week, so it may be a while off yet. After that I will move onto the torso sloper. I'm not sure if I will try the pants sloper, because I am pretty happy with my Marfy pants patterns at the moment.