On Unflattering Garments

A complaint often heard about crocheted garments is that they often turn out unflattering to wear. A major reason for this is that many crochet patterns don’t feature sufficient shaping. However a beautifully stitched pattern or the yarn, or both, any garment needs to be shaped to fit the wearer’s body. In this article an easy step towards better fit: waist shaping will be discussed.

Why do it? A reality check in the mirror will confirm what you already know: your body is not a tube. Whatever your specific body shape, if you are a woman the line of your silhouette is far from straight.

So, sewing together two rectangles into a tube, calling it a sweater and hoping for it to fit, seldom works. Tube-shaped garments often work better for children and men, since most of the time they don’t have a bust, and their hips are pretty straight.

Many classical knitted garments work as tubes. Maybe this is why designers often use the same technique in crochet. Knitting and crochet are different, though. Generally speaking, knitted fabrics have more stretch and drape, and therefore adapt themselves more easily to any underlaying shape. Crocheted fabrics are firmer and keep their own shape better. Crocheted fabric is somewhere between knitted and woven fabrics on the ”stretch scale”. So you can’t only look at knitting design when you design a crocheted garment or modify an existing crochet pattern. You also have to find out a little about dressmakers’ techniques, and use some of them – like waist shaping, for example.

Waist shaping makes most garments more flattering for female wearers. It is not only for the slim and slender. Ample girls can often greatly improve their looks with a waist-shaped garment. When our bodies grow (horizontally), we tend to focus on our expanding belly and butts. But our busts grow too. A straight garment which hangs down from the bust may seem like a good idea if you want to hide some of your extra weight; in reality, though, it often makes you look larger than you are. Trying to avoid this is not about self denial, but about any woman’s legitimate aim to look her best, whatever her size. So, where to do it?

Find your waist. To include waist shaping in a pattern, you first have to find out or decide where your own waist is.

Many people have a rather clear idea about where their natural waist is, or should be, or used to be. It can be more difficult to find if you have a very straight or a very rounded figure. One tip I’ve read about (but honestly haven’t had the occasion to try yet, so if you do, I’d be happy to hear about your experiences) is to tie an elastic around your belly. You then bend from side to side until the elastic stops moving about and ”settles” at the waist. Another indication is where the waistband of your skirts and trousers usually sits. This obviously doesn’t apply to your low rise jeans…

Remembering where it is – use a measure tape. Once you’ve found your waist, or decided where it should be, measure, or have someone else measure, from your shoulder down to the waist. There are some recommendations that you should take this measurement from the base of your neck down to your waist. For our purposes, I find it more practical to measure from your shoulder (mid-way between the neck and the shoulder tip). This also saves you the trouble of deciding where the base of your neck is.

If you like, you can take your measurement at the front and at the back of your body, and then calculate the average. Measuring only at the front works pretty well too. Note this measurement carefully. You will use it for every single crocheted top you make for yourself over many years. Your body’s width can vary every few months, but your height changes only slowly over the years.

The length of different crocheted garments may be very different, but whether you are making a cropped halter top or a full length coat, it will always hang from your shoulders. That’s why the measurement from your shoulder down to your waist will always be relevant.

From body to pattern – vertically. Now, pull out the pattern you want to adapt. If you’re lucky, it includes schematics with measurements. Otherwise, you have to carefully read through your pattern to find the total length of your garment.

From this length, you subtract the shoulder-to-waist measurement. The result is the number of inches/centimetres you will work before you reach the narrowest part of the waist. The actual shaping will have to start earlier.

From body to pattern – horizontally. For now, we will leave the “vertical issue”, and address the “horizontal” one. When working your garment pieces from the bottom up, where on each row will you place the shaping? The quickest answer is: at the beginning and at the end of a row. This is just one of the options, though – but not the only one.

Before this have a look in the mirror again. Stand straight, facing the mirror. Those of us who have an indented waist will spot it. The place where the waist shows is where the side seams of the garment will fall. Then turn your side to the mirror and look again. You will spot your waist again – and for many of us, the difference between the bust and the waistline, as well as the curve of your spine, will be even more obvious from this side perspective. The outline of your body that you are looking at now is not where the side seams will fall.

When this is not a good idea.Crochet can be the most simple and straightforward craft – but it’s also a wonderful technique with which you can create intricate, beautiful stitch patterns. If your stitch pattern is very complex, it may be difficult to make decreases and increases in the middle of it. You have to try and see. In some cases, these decreases and increases can work as an interesting design feature. In other cases, they may be impossible to make without disrupting the harmony and the beauty of the stitch pattern.

In the latter case, you will have to do your shaping at the very beginning and the very end of the rows, at the side seams. You still make your decreases and increases in four different places, so the “divide-by-four” rule still applies. But when you seam your garment, all the shaping will fall next to the side seams. This means that in the finished garment, the shaping actually occurs only in two places (the side seams), instead of being “spread out” around your body.