Matching plaids on garments
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Have you avoided sewing with plaids because you aren’t sure how to lay out the pattern and get everything to line up nicely? It’s intimidating, and I have to tell you, I have been a “plaid-avoider” for a long time. But I decided to tackle it and see what happens. Want to come along on my trial-and-error journey? |
Supplies
(Click fabrics for direct links for purchase at Warehouse Fabrics Inc.)
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| This is the fabric I used. I didn’t make a whole garment, so I have not provided yardage, but anytime you’re matching patterns you’ll need extra yardage. Buy at least one extra “repeat” of the fabric. On our site, repeats are in the product listings. I used New Look A6963 as the pattern. I tried to choose something with few pieces, which is the best way to go with a project like this, but it can be hard with women’s garments to find something without darts and other shaping, which are going to throw off the lines of your plaid and complicate matching. |
Let’s chat
| I want to start by saying that I had this beautiful silk plaid, but not enough to make a whole garment, so I’m demonstrating on a half-garment. So if you notice I’m only cutting a half piece of something, like the back of the shirt, that’s why.Also, you’re going to see how I got it wrong a few times. I wanted to show you the trial-and-error aspect of being a newbie to this. If you mess up, don’t feel too bad!I think the important thing to understand with plaid matching is that you’re not going to get it to match everywhere. If you’re really good and experienced, you can probably do some amazing matches. But plaids are linear and bodies aren’t, so if you’re making clothes, it just can’t line up everywhere. One trick is to choose some areas, like pockets and yokes, where you simply give up the notion of matching and cut those pieces on the true bias. This gives it a nice visual effect, as well. Another option is to turn the plaid a different direction on those pieces. That’s how it was done on some of my husband’s shirts.Figure out where you want to prioritize your matching. In the center front, you want your horizontal lines to match up. Parts of the side seams, too — though as you’ll see, darts can get in the way. Find a dominant line and make that your center point for the back, front, collar and sleeves.
After posting this, I asked readers for any tips. I’ll add them here if any more come in:
Is your plaid balanced or unbalanced? A book I have has a great visual defining this, but here’s a link to something else that might be helpful in analyzing your plaid fabric. If it gives you a blank screen, reload the page. |
The process – click for larger images
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The piece at left is the back piece and the piece at right is the front. You can see there is a bust dart that is going to throw the whole plaid-matching effort on the side seams off. But below that point, I’m going to match the horizontal stripes. |
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Start by lining up any marking points between the pieces so they are on the same horizontal spot. I’m using these notches and also the waist line above them. |
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As you can see, the plaid will not be matching up above where this dart is. |
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Next I decided how to cut out my yoke. It’s recommended that you just cut it on the bias or turn the plaid the other direction so you don’t even have to attempt to line it up. Here, I figure I’ll line it up at the shoulder seam and cut it on the diagonal. If you open up the picture, you’ll see that I drew some of the plaid lines on both pieces to show where the line up. |
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This was my layout. But it turns out, it was all messed up. It took me ages to get to this point, but I had to unpin it all for several reasons. First, I hadn’t selected a dominant vertical stripe as a center point for the pieces, and I decided I should do that. Second, I realized that my center front edge was not on the grainline because I was too focused on the side seams. |
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This is still the wrong setup, because I’m going to be shifting things horizontally, but you can see how I matched up the notches and waist seam and then drew the stripes on either piece and labeled the color. |
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I was OK with where my back piece was placed so I went ahead and cut it out. But I wanted to adjust my front piece and get center front on a dominant line and also get the front edge on the grain line. That’s where the red arrow is pointing. |
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Then I slid the pattern piece vertically until the lines I drew earlier denoting the stripes were lined up with the back piece. |
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Here is my sleeve, on the left. To cut the sleeve, choose that dominant line you selected for the center back and center front and make that go down the center of your sleeve. Horizontally, you want to match up your plaid at the notches on the FRONT sleeve and FRONT bodice piece. Forget about matching at the back. It’s not going to match all the way around. I did this by laying the sleeve piece face-down on the front bodice and lining up the notches. Then I marked the stripe I had previously drawn on my bodice piece denoting a gold stripe and traced it onto the sleeve so that I could line it up just right, as shown. (Of course, I removed the bodice piece before cutting so that I didn’t cut through it.) |
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Here’s a little tip: If you were sewing a whole garment, you’d need two sleeves and two front pieces. Start by cutting one of each, then flip it over and line up so the plaids are perfectly aligned, then cut the other. In this photo, my front bodice piece is lying face-down on the fabric. It’s almost hard to see, it’s matched up so nicely. That ensures you get a perfect match, as opposed to trying to cut it two layers thick, which is bound to shift. |
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Here’s a close-up view of that. |
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OK, so let’s get sewing. Here I’m showing the back (but just half since that’s all I’m doing). The back has a large dart, so, again, my plaids are skewed now. |
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The front has a bust dart that has the same effect. |
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As discussed before, the back and front will line up on the bottom half, below the dart. But above the dart, they simply cannot. |
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When you pin, ensure that the plaids are perfectly lined up and use lots of pins, especially with a slippery fabric like silk. I used my walking foot so that it would feed evenly. |
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I have sewn the yoke to the back bodice piece, and I do like how the yoke is on the bias and it creates a cool visual effect. It’s going well so far! |
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This yoke comes over the shoulder to the front and this is how it sewed together. Remember how I was trying to line up the stripes on the front and the yoke? Well, it’s off just a smidge. But it wasn’t due to sewing. It’s due to something that my little brain just can’t quite figure out. Maybe the seam allowance threw things off? Since this is a typical pattern, it’s a 5/8″ seam allowance, which is annoyingly large. |
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So I decided to ditch that yoke and start over. This time I placed the yoke pattern face-down on the front of my bodice and redrew the lines from the plaid. It’s getting kind of messy. |
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I figure the lines will turn to a different direction, but as long as the met up, that was OK. I still didn’t really know what I was doing here. |
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They meet up better, so I’m happy with this. But … |
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When I sew the back of the yoke to the back bodice, I get this effect where instead of a bias/diagonal meetup, the lines almost actually meet up. But not quite. I could have seen this as a stroke of luck and restitched it a touch more carefully to line them up, but I’m pretty sure this was truly luck and not something that would work with all patterns of plaid. So I chuck this one, too. |
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I decide to go back to the bias-cut yoke and not try to line anything up anywhere. To get it on the bias, I lined up one of my quilting rulers on the selvage and lined up the grainline arrow on the pattern piece with the bias line on my ruler. |
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Then I removed the ruler, pinned and cut. |
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I got this on the back. |
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And this on the front. Which I hate. At this point I give up on the yoke, but I’m thinking perhaps I should have turned the design the other direction so at least my plaid wouldn’t have been attempting to face the same way. It’s hard to see, but the plaid is not symmetrical — in one direction the stripes are shinier than the other. |
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| I showed you how I did the sleeve above. I did not sew in the sleeve — here it’s just pinned in place.LEFT – you can see that partway down, where the armhole notches are, the plaid matches up and matches down the arm and bodice from there. That’s great!
RIGHT – From the back, none of the stripes match down the bodice or sleeve, but that’s OK because it’s just the nature of the curves. |
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| LEFT – here’s another view of where the yoke meets the bodice front. Yep. Still hate it. RIGHT – Here’s the side seam. You can see that below the dart, horizontally, it all lines up nicely.If anyone has any tips on how I could do the yoke better, I’d LOVE to know! Although I didn’t demo a collar, you’d just line that up with that dominant center line you chose for the other pieces. Any pockets and other details can be cut on the bias to simplify, but that also allows them to be seen. If the pockets match the top, then they will blend in and the design element would be lost. |
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