The pattern instructions go step by step and I follow them, and by step six the garment is a tube and any fitting problem is now trapped inside four finished seams. This has happened on a dress and twice on a shirt. Is there a general order people use that keeps the garment open for as long as possible, or is it specific to each pattern and I just have to think harder before I start?
The one thing I would add, having learned it the expensive way, is that interfacing and seam finishing decisions happen before assembly and not after. I finished a linen dress and then decided to bind the seams, which meant unpicking a French seam I had already trimmed, and the garment ended up half a size smaller than intended. Decide how each seam ends its life before you sew it.
And press each seam as you go rather than at the end. A garment that has been pressed at every stage fits differently from one pressed once at the finish, which sounds like folklore and is not.
There is a general order and it is roughly: anything that shapes a single piece first, so darts, tucks and gathers, then anything that must be sandwiched or turned like a collar stand or a waistband facing, then join the shoulders, then baste the side seams and try it on, then sleeves, then the permanent side seams, then hems and buttons last. The pattern instructions are optimised for someone who does not need to fit, so they close the body early because it is faster.
Shoulders set the whole garment hanging from where it actually hangs. Once those are joined you can put it on and see the truth. Sides closed first just makes a bag.
Shoulders before sides is the bit I have been doing backwards on every single project.
Slight disagreement on the universal order. On anything with a lining, a fly front or a tailored collar, deviating from the instructions is how you end up sewing yourself into a corner where a piece cannot be turned. Follow the pattern order for constructed garments and use the fit-friendly order for simple ones, and know which you are holding before you start.
Read the whole instruction sheet before cutting and mark the two or three steps where the garment stops being adjustable. Those are your checkpoints and you try it on at each one. Nothing else about the order matters much.
@starschema_sy · 5mo ago
Add long basting stitches to that answer and it becomes the whole solution. Machine baste the side seams at the longest stitch length, try it on inside out, pin adjustments, unpick in four seconds. I do this on every fitted garment and it costs maybe ten minutes and has saved me from a wearable-but-wrong item more times than I can count.
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