M. Müller & Sohn Review: Ease Made Easy

Thanks everybody for telling me about what pattern drafting resources you use. This has been really helpful and interesting. For everybody who still wants to comment and tell me about their pattern drafting experience, please, please do so. Here is a link to my previous post on the topic. I would love to hear from you.

I have also started putting together my review of the M. Müller & Sohn pattern drafting system and have noticed that I have quite a lot I want to write about. Therefore I have decided to tackle this step-by-step in three different posts. Today's post is on how the M. Müller & Sohn system miraculously simplifies and demystifies ease in their volume on pattern construction for dresses and blouses.

Most pattern drafting books I have been using over the years barely ever mention the topic of ease allowance. They show you how to draft a basic fitted sloper but often don't even say how much ease goes into their version of a fitted sloper. Take Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Women's Wear, for example. Aldrich gives two bodice sloper options as a basis for blouses and dresses: the close fitting and the easy fitting bodice blocks. However, she does not mention how much ease is used in each block. On reading the step-by-step drafting instructions more closely, you'll find that her close fitting bodice block has 10cm (approx. 3.9 in) ease across the bust. If you compare this to, let's say, the Vogue Patterns ease chart you can see that according to Vogue's standards of ease, Aldrich's close-fitting block is at the loose end of of a fitted sloper, not a close fitting one.

Source: The McCall Pattern Company

My personal bodice block has 7cm (2.8in) of ease, which is at the loose end of the closely fitted pattern according to Vogue's chart and more tightly fitted than Aldrich's version. So clearly "close fitting" is not an accurate description for a bodice block, because it can mean anything from 0 cm according to the Vogue table to 10cm according to Aldrich. More than anything ease in a close fitting block is a matter of personal preference and in order to know what my personal preference is it helps to be given a choice of how much ease I want to use.

When you draft a bodice sloper with the Müller & Sohn system you choose the amount of wearing ease you need first and then add these figures to your personal measurements. Ease is added at four different points in the draft, the chest, the back, the armhole width and depth. There is a handy chart in the book that gives you guidelines on how much ease to use depending on how close or easy fitting you want your block to be. Knowing how much ease your block has and knowing how to add it to your block gives you more control over your pattern and a better understanding of how pattern drafting works.

Since I have been working with the Müller & Sohn system ease is no longer a mystery to me. It still takes a bit of experimenting, of course, but I no longer feel as if I'm groping in the dark. So far none of the other pattern books I have laid my hands on explain ease and how to add it to your pattern at all, so this makes the Müller & Sohn system really stand out for me.

What about you? Do your pattern drafting resources tell you about ease? Do you find wearing ease in pattern blocks easy to understand?

Well, that's it for today. Next I will be posting about how the Müller & Sohn system is really helpful when drafting for figures that deviate from the standard proportions. Until then happy drafting everyone!