Lazy Review: Palmer/Pletsch Full Busted DVD

I’ll start with a disclaimer – I bought this DVD from the Palmer/Pletsch website and paid full price and am not recieving any compensation what-so-ever for this review.

Now with that out of the way… this DVD is awesome!

For those who don’t know, Palmer/Pletsch is responsible for the book Fit for Real People which seems to be the go-to guide for fitting and adjusting patterns in the sewing community. I don’t own the book yet, but based on how useful the DVD is I’m certainly going to hunt it out.

My biggest fitting issue is my large bust. Most commercial patterns are drafted for a B-cup but I carry an H so adjusting the bust is always the first step for me… now.

Until this year I’d never heard of a full bust adjustment (fba) and honestly it didn’t occur to me that it was even possible but as I read more I was stunned and now I’m just plain obsessed. I’ve had a bit of a play with a princess seam adjustment, using this fabulous tutorial from Sew, Mama, Sew! but I was struggling to find tutorials for other types of bodice. Enter Full Busted? Sew Clothes That Fit.

Purchasing off the Palmer/Pletsch website was incredibly straight forward and easy – from memory I used Paypal and the DVD arrived here in New Zealand within a week which is a super quick turn-around. The DVD cost US$19.95 and international shipping $6.92.

The content includes 2 hours in which the host, Marta Alto, walks you through adjusting every style of pattern you can imagine:

All the adjustments are based on a simple slash and spread method to add width and length at the bust apex but keep the shoulder and arm holes fitted to the body. The host is just great. She explains things so simply but encouragingly and you can tell she obviously enjoys teaching. As someone who works in an adult education function, I can say this lady knows her stuff and communicates all the right information – I was never thinking “oh boy, I’ll need to go look that up”, and as a visual learner, everything was clearly displayed.

Another great thing is that the format flows from the simplest of adjustments through to real adjustments on real people of all ages, shapes and sizes, including the tutor herself.

The patterns are generally from the big four, and although Palmer/Pletsch produce a line of patterns for McCall’s (with adjustment lines already printed on them) they only use a couple of these and don’t push them at all.

Bottom line, I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you are bigger than a B, you can learn so much from this and if not – they do plenty of other fitting DVDs on their website.