PMB And Me

sdBev wrote: I have to express deep deep admiration for your decision to take on PMB. I've seen so many reviews. It seems to me that most people find PMB so complex that they give up. But I know, if anyone can do it, my MYRNA CAN. (That's you by the way.)

This comment had me ROTFLMHO (rolling on the floor laughing my head off) - especially the timing of it, around 8:45 last night, just as I was getting ready to wind up and watch the news, just as I had made the "great discovery".

PMB and me have a long and twisted history. We have a love hate relationship. I don't need to read the reviews, I've lived the story. I bought PMB with stars in my eyes. THIS was going to be the cure to all my fitting woes. I'd plot in the numbers, print out the pattern, cut on the lines, sew with finesse, and I'd have amazing custom garments. Well... that didn't happen. Fast forward nine years, a lot of tears, several trees worth of paper, miles of tape, and a gazillion meters of broadcloth, and I can tell you a different story. The one that worked for me.

There is a Yahoo group for PMB users. It has many many voices on it, some louder than others, some that know what they are talking about and others that don't. Much of the advice contradicts each other. Many of the voices don't understand the software, they just think they know the answer. It's up to you to sort it out. Sometimes it pays to stop listening.

Two women helped me tremendously with how-to information, going so far as to give me a private cell phone number for my next Mother-Of-The Bride, middle of the night, melt-down. Unfortunately, they often answered the question for me rather than teaching me how. We learn best by figuring it out ourselves. Another woman sewed the most amazing clothing, incredibly fitted, incredibly well fitted. She showed it could be done.




Everything affects everything. Look at the image above. I reduced the cap ease on the sleeve on the right. Do you see how the bicep is wider and the underarm sleeve is longer? That's to fit into the armhole and maintain the finished length of the sleeve. These kinds of things happen when we make manual adjustments as well, we just don't think about them and sometimes we suffer the consequences like lessening cap ease and suddenly our sleeves are too short.

Pattern Editor is the section of the software where you can measure lengths and widths and where you can merge two files to compare differences between adjustments. When you're trying to fix one issue, it's important to know what else is happening to the garment.

For example, when I increase bicep width, the underarm is lowered. That is not an adjustment I want to make. Instead, I might decrease cap ease while measuring the bicep over and over until the cap height, ease, and bicep width are within a range that will work. It's tedious. It takes time and learning. It took years to get to the point where the software was even useful to me. In the last year, what I've learned about commercial patterns has helped me with PMB and what I've learned with PMB has helped me with commercial patterns. Our relationship is improving.

One HUGE area of learning has been balance. Each garment hangs on the body. Upper garments hang from the shoulders. Lower garments hang from the waist. If the pattern isn't drafted with balance and the shape doesn't match your body, then the garment has no hope of hanging straight. For example, if the shoulder shape is squarer or more angled than your body's shape, when you put the garment on, you force the fabric to take on your shape. To do that, it must take on wrinkles caused by pulling the fabric from here and there rather than hanging correctly.

A sleeve hangs from the shoulder and is tethered by the armhole notches back and front. The center of the sleeve is meant to move in a straight line down the arm as is the underarm seam. If the sleeve is not balanced when it is cut out (due to alterations or bad drafting) then it will not lay flat when pinned together at the underarm seam and it will not hang straight when sewn into the armhole. Balance is the reason why you see all those lines drawn on my muslins. They show me where a measurement is not working correctly.




My first few years with PMB had me convinced that I was severely deformed and so far from the norm that the task of getting garments to fit me was darn near impossible. Luckily, that didn't quite match with my previous sewing experiences only I'd become so frustrated, it wasn't pretty. I'd given up on PMB when a friend told me about Lynda Maynard's book Demystifying Fit.

Being a lover of information, I ordered the book and I'm SO GLAD. In it, Lynda teaches how to use a sloper, compare it to a commercial pattern, and make needed adjustments up front that will increase your success factor. There's a system that would take an entire book to explain. Buy hers.

Using the system is how I learned about making a petite adjustment through the armhole. Now that I consistently make that adjustment, it has removed a LOT of excess through the back underarm but not everything. I've been fine tuning ever since.

To use Lynda's system, you need a sloper that fits you well. An incredibly underutilized tool is the fitting shell pattern. The Vogue one shown above is worth the price of the pattern just for the information it contains on how to fit. Fitting a shell teaches you so much about your body. Because I was already frustrated, and because I wanted to sew successfully, I hired a professional seamstress to fit my shell and then... I had a brainwave.

IF I could transfer the information to PMB, then I could print out slopers with different amounts of ease and different seam lines. Having a variety of slopers would make it even easier to compare to the commercial patterns. That was my motivating factor and once I had the flat pattern in front of me and I was manipulating the image on screen to get it to match, I learned a tremendous amount about the software including the fact that everything truly does affect everything.

More fast forwarding and I've lost thirty pounds over the last eighteen months. My original sloper doesn't fit anymore and the armholes and sleeves that I'm producing with commercial patterns, even though I'm making the petite adjustment, are not as well shaped as I would like them to be. I was struggling with the best way to narrow the shoulders and the methods I read about weren't working. I decided to redraft my sloper.

This time around, I know that I fit into commercial patterns reasonably well. The shoulder shape of the Vogue shell fits my shoulder shape. Other than I'm a triangle, widening on the way down, beyond that petite adjustment through the armhole and another through the hip, I fit into commercial patterns quite well.

The software has a feature called Coach. The Coach prompts you when a measurement you're inserting doesn't make sense. There's also information in the Chart screen about "norms" such as center back length is normally 1 1/2" longer than center front length. Of course these norms don't fit if your body has an obvious reason for being different, such as a curved spine HOWEVER, you would learn about that using a fitting shell and know what differences to plot. I knew from working with the commercial patterns that I was mostly "normal". This time around I decided to pay more attention to the measurement information and to Coach.

My front shoulder width was plotted as 14" and my back as 15 1/2" The chart said that the back shoulder width is typically 1/2" bigger than the front. When I tried that, what a huge difference it made, eliminating more bulk under the armhole. Coach said that the front shoulder slope is typically 1" longer than the back. Since those slopes have to be balanced for the garment to hang right and since I knew I had no back issues that could be a problem, I trusted Coach, tried that, and BIG difference again.

So... I've spent two days happily plotting away, learning quite a lot, printing out the occasional muslin, and sewing them with increasing success only I still wasn't getting the armhole and sleeve I wanted. Last night, I decided to measure the depth of the back armhole on the McCall's and Vogue patterns that I have successfully sewn lately. They consistently measured 7 7/8".

Hmm... when I measured the pattern I'd been drafting, it was consistently much smaller. Smaller would pull it up into the armhole. Why was it smaller? Yes... well... if I'd measured twice and cut once, it would have helped. I was automatically raising the armhole 1" because that's what I do with commercial patterns never checking to see if the software actually drafted my armhole to the right depth. It did and not only that, it drafts the sleeve with what appears to be the correct cap height and bicep width. Go figure.

SO... this morning, I'm sewing another muslin, exactly as drafted, and I'm pretty hopeful and confident that it's going to work. Wouldn't that be fun. AND THEN... I'll have a new template to compare to the commercial patterns and I can get on with successful sewing that will benefit from learning about a narrower back, a smaller neck, and a perfected armhole shape. YES YES.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - a sense of humour that allows me to laugh when I realize I should have measured better two days ago.

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Personal Growth - David Foster, the star maker, made an amazing comment on Oprah yesterday. I wish I could remember the exact wording. It was along the lines of good is the death of great. He meant that so many people settle for good when if they'd pushed further, dug a little deeper, worked a little harder, they could have achieved GREAT.

I get a lot of criticism for my way of approaching sewing and knitting. I will do and re-do and perfect and fine-tune in my pursuit of the curious question. I've been known to knit an entire sweater, sew it together, and then - if it doesn't fit correctly or if I lose thirty pounds but love the yarn and it was expensive - unravel it and re-knit it. This will cause comments that strikes me as rather hilarious since someone else will be praised for recycling yarn from a sweater bought at a second hand store. AND... REALLY... isn't it up to me? And yet, people feel compelled to comment and some of those comments hurt BUT...

... I'm me and I really don't mind - in fact I enjoy - studying a topic in depth such as taking the time to learn about sewing techniques, to practice and perfect those techniques, or to fine tune fit as I have been with the armhole this week. I will benefit from it. Others will benefit when I share what I've learned. My garments will be as a great as they can be and getting greater rather than good enough. And everything affects everything so my knitting improves but so also does other areas of my life. All things in life are connected. Our learning affects our attitudes, our attitudes affect our learning, and it all ripples out beyond the obvious.