Your shoulder slope measurement influences the fit throughout a garment. Take a little time to get to measure your shoulder slope and it will be easy to adapt your patterns to match. In this chapter of Teach Yourself to Sew Season 3,  Judith Neukam instructs you on the importance of measuring your shoulder slope. What is your shoulder slope, you ask? It is the angle at which your shoulder descends from the side of your neck to the top of your arm. When you measure your shoulder slope, you’ll be able to see if it is a steep angle, or a relatively flat and straight slope, parallel to the floor. There is no right or wrong shoulder slope to measure. The key is to have your patterns, hence the garments you sew, match the shoulder slope you measure on your body.

How do you measure shoulders slope? An easy method is to enlist the help of a friend who can trace your shoulders onto paper taped to the wall. This will give you a life-size shoulder slope measurement to compare to a pattern or patterns.

It’s also a cinch to include your shoulder slope measurement right into your pattern-cutting surface.

Teach Yourself to Sew was created with beginners in mind, but sewers of any level can use these tutorials to brush up on their skills.

This detailed tutorial is one video in the comprehensive Teach Yourself to Sew series.

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Teach Yourself to Sew

Judith got her first taste of sewing when she took the free lessons that came with her mother’s sewing machine purchase. Judith was 9 at the time. Soon after, she was sewing her own clothes and feeding her passion for the craft. In her Teach Yourself to Sew series, Judith shares her enduring love of sewing…