I have been meaning to write this story for a while, and I’m finally getting to it now.
Some background to start us off…A few years ago I stumbled upon a pattern company called Cashmerette. (Rant incoming.) They are an incredibly size inclusive company–their sizing goes from 0 to 32, with cup sizing from C to H. Next, Jenny Rushmore (the owner and a great person) published a book, started a pattern club, published another book, and solidified herself in my mind as a top tier pattern designer. Early in 2024 they began teasing out about something big and awesome. And then they announced Sloper School. Sloper School was a 9 week intensive course during which we used the Wyman Dress Sloper pattern to make ourselves the ultimate dress sloper.
Okay, let’s take a step back and figure out what a sloper is. In technical sewing terms, a sloper is any pattern without seam allowances. For the purposes of Sloper School, it is a basic pattern with minimal ease based on your specific body. Remember how I talked in this blog post about blocks that pattern designers use? A sloper is basically making a block for YOUR body. Isn’t that awesome? There are lots of courses available that can walk you through taking your measurements and drawing lines on paper to create your own sloper from absolute scratch. Sadly, for us curvy/busty people this is either very difficult or totally impossible. If I had a body double (once 3D printing is cheap enough I’m going to print me), I could drape a sloper onto it and I’d be sailing. In fact, I could drape every garment I sew and make them all without patterns. But, whoa! That is not the topic for today.
The Wyman Dress Sloper has a basic double darted front bodice, single darted back bodice, and a single darted front and back pencil skirt. It also has 2 very fitted sleeve options–a one piece sleeve with an elbow dart or a two piece sleeve.
Through the course of nine weeks we took our measurements, decided our base sizes, and started adjusting. There was a systematic way to work through all the different fit points to make the changes in an orderly fashion. Basically we started at the top and worked our way down and around. The school included 8 live fit clinics on Zoom where you could email in pictures and receive feedback directly from Jenny live on Zoom. Also you could just email in pictures and receive feedback over email. The customer service through this whole process was astounding. Totally amazing. And even just watching the fit clinics and seeing other people get help was really eye opening for me to know how to address my own fit issues or to help someone else with their fit issues.
The first toile/muslin I made was a complete failure. It utterly and completely did not fit. Through the course of the nine weeks I made 5 front bodices, 3 back bodices, 2 front and back skirts, and 2 or 3 sets of sleeves. I lost count a little bit. And somewhere in the middle I was so confident that I cut into my good fabric, and yeah. That one got trashed. But I did get it to my liking and I did crank out a bunch of dresses this summer using my Wyman pattern as the base.
My final thoughts on the process:
The side of me that likes instant gratification didn’t like waiting so long between each step. But I did manage to convince myself to lean into the process and be okay with it taking a long time to get a new dress. Honestly, that last part was probably the hardest. I needed dresses so badly and I just had to wait and wait when I could have had access to all the lessons right off the hop and done all the adjustments in a way shorter amount of time.
My final pattern is not perfect, but it is way better than a RTW dress would be on me. And I can continue to tweak as I sew each individual dress. Fabrics act differently, so i like to leave room for changes on each individual dress.
Now I am even more passionate about helping you achieve your dream fit on garments. Truly.
Happy sewing and fitting, friends.
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