Felix Sew-Along: Choosing a Size
Today in the Felix Sew-Along we're going to talk about selecting a size! I'm going to use my measurements as an example so that you can see how I selected the size for the two Felix dresses above, and how they ended up fitting on my measurements.
Before we get started here's a bit of intel on the two dresses above. On the left above I'm wearing the longer length with flutter sleeves, and on the right is the shorter length with the 3/4 sleeves. Both dresses have rayon as the self fabric and are lined with silk habotai, and all fabrics have been pre-washed so I can throw these in the wash on delicate/cold and air dry with no trouble. Okay with that out of the way, lets talk sizing!
The first thing you’ll need to do when figuring out what size to make is to take some measurements. The three measurements needed to select your size are bust, waist, and hip, and with the Felix, the most important measurement is going to be your bust. The shape of the Felix dress is pretty full from the shoulders, so in my case I based my selection on my bust size.
For the bust measurement (1) you’re going to measure around the fullest point of your bust, wearing whatever type of bra or undergarment you plan on wearing under your garment. It’s a good idea to have someone help you take your measurements, especially the bust, if you can as having your arms up and holding the tape can affect the measurement a bit.
The waist measurement (2) will be at your natural waist. On many people this is the smallest point of your torso, though on me, it’s pretty much a straight shot from one measurement to another. If you fall into my category a good rule of thumb is your waist is generally where you hands want to end up when you put them on your waist. It’s also where you bend from.
The hip measurement (3) will be the fullest part of your hips and butt. Typically this is approximately 7″ below your natural waist, though it can be higher lower depending on your body. You want to make sure you get around the full circumference so you don’t end up with tight hips!
Once you get your measurements you can select your size on the size chart. If your measurements fall between two sizes, for instance if your bust is 34.5˝, you’ll want to round up and choose the next size up.
My measurements are shown highlighted on the chart above and as you can see I fall into 3 different size ranges (shoutout to all my other squares out there). If you fall into different sizes for each measurement like me, you can either go with a straight size of the largest measurement or blend between sizes to get a better fit.
As I mentioned before, you do want to consider the bust measurement as the most important measurement so that's where the finished measurements come in.
I've highlighted the size 8 measurements above and as you can see my waist and hip measurements do fall within the finished measurements for the size 8. I would probably not recommend going down more than a size in the hip or you'll start to lose the swingy feeling of the skirt. If you’re more than a size apart you’ll likely want to blend through the waist from your bust to hip size.
As long as your waist measurement falls within the finished measurement of the smaller size you're blending plus a few inches of ease you should be just fine. We'll talk more about blending in our next post on basic pattern adjustments, so look for that on Monday. If you have size questions in the meantime, let me know in the comments below and I'll do my best to help out!
