Thursday 17 February 2011

Useful sizing chart for children - downloadable

I know that buying garments for women is a bit of a minefield, what with vanity sizing and all, but sewing garments for children from commercial patterns is no less tricky. Especially if your child is not a 'standard' size - my daughter for example is all round dinky with very short legs (alas! her mummy's genes won through there!) while my son is of average height but super-skinny.

And if you're sewing garments to sell, it's even worse! I never know how to label mine and generally end up erring on the side of caution. I recently bought a Japanese pattern book and want to make a Communion dress from it for the shop but I wasn't sure what size to go for. So... I put together a sizing comparison chart. It might look like a procrastination task but it's actually been very useful. I shall be passing it onto my sewing pupils and thought that you might find it handy too. So here's the link - Sizing Comparison Chart. Now you may wonder why I haven't just included it in the blog post - the answer is I created it as a Word document and can't just paste it into the blog. So I resaved it as a PDF and posted it on Google Docs instead - that way everyone can download and print it, no matter what version of Word they may be running. And it also means that I can never lose it... yes, there really is no such thing as altruism!

8 comments:

Angela said...

Thanks for posting this incredibly useful chart. When I sew for my nieces (without their measurements) I find I'm always checking out the different sizes to estimate the best one to make - so this will save me a lot of time. I also sew from Burda (slim fitting) and Bizzkids, so I can pencil those in at the end. Thanks again.
Angela

Kryshees said...

Brilliant!! Thank you for sharing

Kathryn said...

If anyone wants to email me any more sizing details, I can amend the chart. I just put in the sizes from the patterns I use! I'm glad it's useful for others too!

Judy Ross said...

Thanks for this - I'm always on the lookout for sizing charts to compare with those I use for making my blocks! I assume the measurements listed are chest/waist/hip in descending order for each size? I'm intrigued by the japanese ones - if the bolded figures are height I wouldn't have picked they'd be taller at a given age than european sizes!

Joy said...

Thanks; that's very helpful. I have random post-it-notes around my house with size comparison notes jotted down (i.e. not very useful).

Come to think of it, my Adrich drafting book for kids has some nice charts of body measurements for different sizes/ages.

Judy Ross said...

Oh, and I forgot to mention that on Fashion Incubator (Most.Informative.Site.Ever) Kathleeen provided a really handy size hangtag pictograph which you can use on garments to sell. It's in this post.

http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/history_of_womens_sizing_pt3/

Might be useful!

Kathryn said...

Sorry - I should have said that the charts are in chest/waist/hip order. I'll amend the Word doc and post it again. Thanks Judy - I had somehow missed the hangtag - I'll def be using it! Joy - I got my UK sizing chart from Aldrich. I did wonder if she does an American edition and an English one? It seems so unlikely that the two countries would use the same measurements, don't you think? And I just did a size 100 dress from my japanese book and it is, somehow, bigger than the Ottobre 92. Very odd! Of course I really ought to take Laura to try on some RTW dresses so I can do a proper compare, but then even RTW varies enormously.

Soul said...

Nice Blog

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