Small Bust Adjustment

Most pattern manufacturers make patterns for a B-cup bra size. So if you're an A cup and you find that your bodices don't fit well, you may benefit from a small bust adjustment. And the first thing, if you're unsure if you're an A cup, the first thing you wanna do is take two measurements. One is the high-bust measurement, which is about right here. And then the second measurement would be your full-bust measurement, which is your full bust area. Roughly there. And then you would subtract the two measurements. And if the difference is an inch or less then that means you are an A cup and you might benefit from a small bust adjustment. The second thing you wanna do, is you wanna make a copy of your original bodice pattern and just so you can always have your original for future reference and to make other adjustments. And one of the important marks to put on your copy is the bust apex point which is usually a cross or circle with the X in it. And that one you definitely wanna have onto your copy. And then when you make your copy, there's just four lines that we're gonna draw from it. And the first one would be going up the center dart to the bust apex point. And then the second line you wanna draw is about a third up on the arm's eye, or the arm hole. And again, you wanna hit that bust apex point. And then you wanna just continue that line through the center of the waist dart. And then the fourth line is anywhere between the apex point and the bottom of the pattern. So anywhere. And so those are the four lines that you're gonna draw. And then you're going to cut your copy of your pattern. And I like to cut on the dart first, or the bust dart first, and I'm not gonna cut all the way through to the point I'm just gonna, 'cause we're gonna hinge that, and that'll... And then cut up from the waist dart and then keep going up. And you don't wanna cut through. You just wanna hinge it again. So it just kind of slightly together maybe. Cut a little bit more. And if you end up cutting through you can just use a little piece of tape and tape it back. And then what you wanna do is you wanna, you're going to close these, the original dart to make it a little shorter and narrower. And if you wanna eliminate the dart altogether you just bring the dart legs completely together. But if you want to keep a dart you just kind of overlap it just a little bit. And then you tape, let's go back there, tape to secure. And then you're gonna overlap again, this part. And you're still, what you're doing, is you're just kind of shortening the darts and decreasing that width. So our original dart was this wide and now we're just gonna make it a little bit narrower. And then you wanna tape to secure. And then you have some little pieces out here. You can just trim those up. Tidy it up a little. Same thing with this one. And then the last line is where I'm just going to even that up so it's right in line with the bottom one, the original. And then you would just tidy up your darts a little bit Draw a center line through your new dart. And then the same thing goes for your bust dart. And then after you get your new darts drawn, you want to definitely make a muslin of your new adjustment and just to make sure the fit is good. Or if you need to make more adjustments you can always just peel off the tape back and move it to where it'll fit better. And hopefully you only need to do it once, but you may need to do fittings a couple of times just to get the fit right. And that is a small bust adjustment.