Ease – Explained – What is ease?

There is a lot of confusion out there about ‘ease’. I have read some rather misleading definitions on many a web page. Here I will give a detailed explanation about ease. You can also download your free PDF Ease Allowance Chart below –

Why have ease?

Ease is incorporated into a block or a pattern to allow the wearer to move, therefore ease is “allowance for movement”. Ease allows the wearer to breath, bend, sit down and move around. Ease is particularly important in children’s’ and babies wear and again becomes important in older peoples clothing.  If there is too little ease in a garment then the “look” of the garment may also be compromised, skirts will ride up, trousers will wrinkle and jackets will be restrictive. Therefore getting the right quantity of ease in your patterns and garments is important.

Ease Allowance Chart Free Download

Hopefully the above chart will give you a guideline for classifying the quantity of ease that a garment contains but lets look at the meaning of ease.

Ease is the difference between the measurement of the body (without clothes) and the measurement of the block, pattern and ultimately the garment that fits over the body.

Lets look at a real example – Using my basic bodice block in the Modeliste Creative Range available on Etsy.

The bust measurement the size 12 block is designed to fit is a 90.5 cm bust (34 1/16 inches). That is the measurement from the size chart I used to draft the block and relates the the measurement of the actual body the block is drafted to fit.

When I drafted the block I allowed 6.9 cm ( 2 3/4″)  ease over the bust as ease in this block range, as its developed for a curvy figure.

Therefore if we measure the block itself the measurement will be 94.4 cm (38 3/4″). This is the body measurement plus the ease.

If we produced a pattern from this blocks and made no changes to the block, then this quantity of ease would stay the same. However, usually during the course of making a pattern, we either reduce or increase the quantity of ease as we create the pattern. The extra we add in or take away during the pattern making process is called design ease.

We now have 2 types of ease –

• Block Ease
• Design Ease

There is a third type of ease, we will come onto that in a moment. The information above relates to woven fabrics or stable knits. If we are dealing with stretch fabric then this is where we come onto another type of ease.

• Negative ease

Negative ease occurs when a block or pattern is smaller than the body it is designed to fit. Negative ease becomes important when drafting patterns with over 18 – 20 % stretch percentage. If you are drafting patterns with a stretch percentage of under that amount then you can use a woven fabric pattern.

Adjusting patterns and blocks for stretch percentage and negative ease percentages is a book in itself and I have come across many different methods in my career. That’s a topic for another day!

I hope this helps and as always, if you have any questions or comments then please let me know.

Happy Sewing,

Nicola