(SEE DIA. XIII.)
Join two angles of 15 deg. at the front of waist and back of seat. At
a point where the upper angle of 15 deg. is 17½ numbers wide, is the
starting point for a coat or vest. For the reason that the diagram
contains the full width of a coat, it is too wide for the pants, and the
width is taken off at the side. The front turns at point 15, where the
body begins to turn. The pants start at point 17½, and the pants and
vest lap 2½ to 3 in., just as on the body. It is not intended for actual
cutting, but simply to show the continuous form of the whole garment from
neck to ankle.
This diagram can be used for night-pants, particularly for children; but
for such purpose the distance from the starting point, at 135 deg., to
the crotch should be made 30 numbers, so that there is no strain in the
upper part and crotch. Nothing is to be cut out at the side, and may be
made without a side seam. It will well repay any cutter to spoil four
yards of muslin and make one for himself, just to try it.
This diagram shows the whole outside of the center of front and back,
from one extreme to the other, and where both extremes have about the
same circumference. The bare neck and the two bare ankles will measure
about the same. The largest part of the body is in the middle and the
center of front and the center of back run up and down in two angles of
15 deg. each, and the two angles are joined at their widest part. This
is the side view of the body, and if the body were really flat, as it
appears from a side view, the centers of front and back of a garment
would have to be cut on the same curve as the center of back and front in
Fig. II. But both centers are flat from side to side, and what appears
a sharp edge from the side view of Fig. II is a perfect flat surface in
Fig. I, and is actually flat, from side to side, but bent, as we can bend
a flat piece of tin, and for which reason the centers of back and front
can be fitted on straight lines, and must be fitted nearly so.
For illustration we will suppose that we take four boards each one a yard
wide, and set them up in a joined angle of 15 deg., like Dia. XIII, and
though we may look at its sharp edges from the side, we are compelled to
use a flat piece of material if we will fit the front and back views; and
the human form must be fitted just like it, that is, all cuts, or all
wedges, as in Dia. I and II, must be made, or put in, from the side, and
the flat centers of front and back must run parallel to each other. The
centers of back and front running parallel with the body, prevents the
sides of the diagram to be in the same harmony, and for this reason the
hips, which are the largest and widest part of the body, show themselves
as the smallest in the diagram.
Dia. XIII is one of the illustrations upon which I have worked for years,
until I have brought it out as it now is. The idea of joining the two
angles of 15 deg. at their widest part, came easy enough, but the true
position of the two points toward each other, and the fitting points, of
all the garments in detail, kept me busy for more than ten years. To be
sure, I did not work at it all the time, but on each garment I cut, I had
to change this and that, either at the neck or waist of a coat or vest,
or at the feet or at the waist of a pants, and the alterations I had to
make afterward, and other indirect losses, such as misfits, and worse,
loss of customers, cost me a fortune; but I have the satisfaction of
having been able to write down and record my experience, and if it does
me no good, it may save some of my fellow men the trouble it has cost me.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]