Added Fullness

Fullness can be added to any pattern piece for one of two reasons:

• Add extra ease (e.g. An A-line skirt; fullness is added in the hem).
• For design/stylistic purposes (e.g. fullness added to the sleeve cap to produce a puff sleeve that has much more ease than necessary from a comfort perspective; the puff is to create 'a look', a style or a statement.)

The following design elements are created by adding fullness:

• flare
• gathers
• pleats
• tucks

Adding Fullness: Equally, One-Sided and Unequal

Fullness can be added three ways. The examples below use the sleeve, but fullness can be added to any garment part.

Adding Fullness Equally throughout the pattern piece

In this image, the sleeve is cut and spread so that the fullness is added throughout the sleeve equally, from top to bottom.  The resulting sleeve would have added fullness in both the sleeve cap and the bicep.

Adding Fullness along one side

In this image, the sleeve is spread at the bottom only, adding fullness to the bicep, but not to the sleeve cap. 

Adding Fullness unequally

In this image, fullness has been added to both sides; the sleeve cap and the bicep, but not equally to both sides.   More ease is added to the sleeve cap than to the bicep. 

Further Examples

The examples given on this page are purely to demonstrate the concept of Added Fullness, and doesn't not give step-by-step examples of how to do so.  Step-by-step instructions will be put on the relevant Garment Element page for that particular design elements, e.g. pleats, tucks, gathers, etc., on an ongoing basic. As this website is a work in progress, not all of the Garment Elements that relate to Added Fullness have yet been added to the Garment Element pages.