Making Room for your Busts the Easy way, sort of

One huge reason I like Burdastyle patterns and some Simplicity patterns, they understand that a women sewing isn't always B-cup, and with this knowledge they make patterns for women with larger busts.

Pic 1:  Pattern Adjusted for the Bust

Pic 2:  Front and back side by side

But, you buy a pattern that only accommodates a B-cup. What do you do now? You would need to do all the things you usually do to determine what size to make. Here is the what you can to do after this. For every bust cup after B add 1/2 inch to lengthen the pattern under the breast dart.(Depending on the ease of the pattern it could be a little more or maybe a little less.) In Pic ! that is exactly what I've done, by bust is a D cup so I added 1 inch of length under the breast dart. I have only tried this method with patterns that have a breast darts, I don't know if it works for other types of patterns for certain (a princess seam would be similar but not exactly the same).

In Pic 2 the patterns are side by side, when cutting out the fabric, you will need to add to the back  pattern piece whatever you added to the front. So I added 1 inch to the bottom of the patter piece when cutting the fabric out.

Now, I am very tall, nearly 6 ft, so adding 1 inch to a garment  is not a big deal. BUT, if you are shorter you will want to make an adjustment to the bottom of the pattern. For example if you are 5'5" you won't want to add any length to the bottom of the back piece, the pattern is probably already too long.  This is where things get a bit tricky and odd for me. BUT, I tried it because I made a couple of jackets for a shorter person. The first one came out longer than I wanted it, but the second one was a work of art. Or so I thought. I made the 2nd jacket shorter from the bottom. I shortened the front 3 inches and the back only 2 inches. Where as the first jacket was 3 inches too long, with not adjusting the length.