Ease

Ease is the difference between your body measurement and the garment's finished measurement at the same place. If your bust is 36" (91 cm) and the finished bust of a blouse is 40" (102 cm), the blouse has 4" (10 cm) of ease at the bust. A garment with no ease at all would match the body exactly, which in a woven fabric means you couldn't breathe deeply, sit down or lift your arms.

The word also has a second meaning in sewing, covered at the end of this page: easing one edge into a slightly shorter one without gathers.

Wearing ease and design ease

Ease is usually thought of in two parts:

• Wearing ease is the minimum needed to live in the garment. As a rough guide for woven fabric, it's about 2-3" (5-7.5 cm) at the bust, 1" (2.5 cm) at the waist and 2" (5 cm) at the hip. A bodice block contains wearing ease and nothing more.
• Design ease is everything added on top to create the style. A fitted sheath dress has little or none. A boxy shirt or a smock may have 10" (25 cm) or more.

So when a pattern's finished measurements are much bigger than your body, that's usually not a sizing mistake. It's design ease, and it tells you how the designer meant the garment to sit. Pattern companies describe this with fit words such as close-fitting, fitted, semi-fitted and loose-fitting, each corresponding to a range of ease. The Ease Calculator shows those ranges and works out the ease for any pattern.

Ease is different in each area

A single garment can have generous ease at the hip and almost none at the shoulders or waist, and it often should. When choosing a size or checking a pattern, compare body and finished measurements at the bust, waist, hip and upper arm separately. Choosing a size on one number (usually the bust) and assuming the rest will follow is a common cause of fit problems. See Fitting and Alterations.

Negative ease in knits

Stretch fabrics follow different rules. Leggings, swimwear, and fitted knit tops are often drafted smaller than the body. This is negative ease: the fabric stretches to fit, and that stretch holds it close. The limit is the fabric: a garment with 10% negative ease needs a fabric that stretches comfortably by well over 10% and recovers. This is why knit patterns specify a minimum stretch percentage, and why making a negative-ease pattern in a firmer knit than it was designed for gives a garment that's too tight. See Knit Fabrics.

How to find a pattern's ease

1. Look for finished garment measurements, often printed on the envelope or on the pattern tissue at the bust, waist and hip lines.
2. If they aren't given, measure the paper pattern between the seamlines (not the cutting lines). Add up all the pieces that go around the body, doubling any cut on the fold, and leave out the intake of darts and pleats.
3. Subtract your body measurement. The result is the ease.

Easing as a technique

"Ease" is also a verb. Easing means fitting a slightly longer edge to a shorter one so that the extra length is absorbed smoothly, with no visible gathers or tucks. Examples:

• A set-in sleeve cap, which is drafted longer than the armhole so it can curve over the shoulder. See Sleeve.
• The back shoulder seam, often slightly longer than the front to allow for the shoulder blades.
• The upper collar, eased onto the under collar so the seam rolls underneath. See Collar.
• Princess seams over the bust.

To ease an edge, sew a row of long stitches just inside the seam allowance and draw it up very slightly, or pin the edges at their matching points and distribute the excess between the pins. Then sew with the longer side underneath, so the feed dogs help take it in. In wool, steam shrinks the eased area so the fullness disappears entirely. Crisp cottons and synthetics absorb far less, so a pattern with a lot of ease in one seam can be hard to sew smoothly in those fabrics.