Reed Sew-Along: Choosing a Size

Today we’re going to talk about selecting your proper size. The first thing you’ll need to do is get some measurements. You'll only need two measurements for the Reed skirt: your waist, and hip.

The waist measurement (1) 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 if that makes any sense. It’s also where you bend from.

The hip measurement (2) will be the fullest part of your hips and butt. Typically this is approximately 7″ below your natural waist, though on others it can be lower. 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 measurement falls between two sizes, for instance if your bust is 34.5˝, you’ll want to round up and choose the next size up.

If you fall into different sizes for each measurement as in the illustration above, you can either go with a straight size of the largest measurement or blend between sizes to get a better fit. I would highly recommend blending if your hips and waist fall into different categories though. We'll be showing you how to blend between sizes in our next post, so don't worry if you don't know how to do that already.

You can also check the finished garment measurements to see how those compare with your measurements, just remember that you will want ease with both measurements or you'll have a hard time moving around!

If you’re a straight size and don’t need to do any pattern adjustments you’re good to cut your pattern pieces. If you fall between sizes as I do, or need to make an adjustment, we’ll have more about that in our next post!