A while ago I fell for this amazing 70s jumpsuit pattern

I’ve never made trousers before, never mind a jumpsuit, so this is a slightly ambitious project. I ought to make a muslin but there doesn’t seem to be any such thing as a cheap heavy weight knit fabric available round here; any muslin would cost as much as the real thing. Probably not worth it for such a costumey garment. In my experience knit fabric hides a lot of fitting issues anyway so I think it’s not totally reckless to dispense with the muslin.

The first problem I have is how to alter the pattern to fit my decidedly non-standard frame. Here’s the pattern size chart and what I measured from the tissue (inches). In passing, is there a better word for crotch length/depth? I’m sure I’ve seen some clothing catalogues use ‘rise’ which sounds slightly more elegant. For the moment I’ll stick to the terms used in A Perfect Fit.

Measurement	Chart	Pattern	Ease
Bust	36.0	37.5	1.5
Waist	27.0	34.3	7.3
Hips	38.0	41.5	3.5
Back waist	16.8	16.8	–
Crotch length	–	30.8	–
Crotch depth	–	13.3	–
Side leg length	40.5	40.5	–

There's a lot of ease at the waist in the design and quite a bit at the hip. This isn't clear from the pattern picture! I don't normally like a very large amount of ease, and also the pattern sizes are slightly bigger than my actual sizes, so I suspect I may find myself taking the side seams in a bit.

I added length at all the lengthening lines to make the pattern's back waist, side leg, and crotch length match mine. Thank goodness for tape dispensers. I also had to lengthen the arms although I wasn’t really sure how much. The pattern size chart didn’t have arm length and it was hard to tell with the raglan sleeves where I should measure from. I just held up the tissue against myself and guessed.

The other thing I ought to do by way of adjustments is to take account of my extra-small chest. Although the pattern should fit my bust OK it will be far too big for my chest and shoulders. I'm not really sure what to do about that as I normally start with the size that fits my chest and do a full bust adjustment. I'm hoping that as the pattern has a centre back seam and a front zip fastening that'll give me enough scope for dealing with any problems round the chest when I baste it up. I should be able to take the centre back seam in at the top a bit. Fingers crossed.

So that’s the pattern adjusted. Now I just have to find a large flat surface to cut on.