One of the biggest pet peeves is seeing unmatched prints, stripes and plaids on RTW (ready-to-wear) garments. It seems so lazy! Especially on higher end garments. (This shirt isn’t high-end but still! Not even the slightest effort to match the plaids..)
Since I’m a production manager as my day job, I know that it costs extra to match your seamlines. It uses more fabric, requires special markers, and increases the sew price charged by factories. So I can see why people cut costs by not matching prints, plaids or stripes.
But that’s the wonderful thing about sewing your own clothes, you can take the extra time to get it right!
When I cut out the Coral Garden skirt, I wanted to get it perfect. Matching the print along the centre back seam is a little touch that makes it extra special, and adds to the beauty of the print. It would be really distracting if there were mismatching coral pieces along the back. Plus, most of my readers are people who sew, you guys would spot the mis-match right away!
I thought I’d share how I matched the print along the seamline. If you have a different technique that works for you, please let me know!
NOTE: you may need more fabric than your pattern asks for to match prints, especially large-scale prints.
Also, we’ll be cutting our fabric open, with the printed side facing up.
First, cut out your first piece you need to match. In this case, I’m matching the centre back seam. I have to cut two side back pieces. Instead of cutting the piece once, through two layers of fabric, we’ll be cutting this pattern piece twice through a single layer of fabric.
When I laid out my first piece, I had a general idea of where to place my second piece. Especially with a very large print, I needed to make sure if I was cutting a half-shape along centre back, that I also had enough room to cut out the other half of the shape along the opposing seamline. (This may be a bit confusing! Watch and hopefully it will make more sense as I go.)
Here’s my left back piece. I’m going to be matching the right edge to the right back piece. Press under the seam allowance along the centre back seam. This will be the line we need to match against our right back piece.
Then, lay the left back fabric panel on the fabric, matching the print pattern as you go. See how I’m lining up the dark coral squiggly lines?
Now, take the pattern tissue, and press under 5/8″ seam allowance. This will help us line up our right back along the matching line.
Line up the folded edge of the pattern tissue along the left back fold line.
The edges should meet, fold to fold, with no space between.
Now pin the pattern tissue to the single layer of fabric around all edges. After pinning around the edges of the tissue, lift off the left back fabric panel. Unfold the centre back seam allowance on the tissue piece, and pin along the edge.
Cut out right back skirt piece.
All this hard work and attention while cutting out will pay off when we sew up the centre back seam. I inserted an invisible zipper, and stitched the centre back seam below, and look! A beautifully matched seam.
Close-up of the invisible zipper – yes, it matched up on the first try!
From far away you can’t even tell there’s a seam – which is the ultimate goal. You may want to baste the seam before stitching for even more accuracy. Baste the seamline, press open to check the print matching, and if you’re happy with it, stitch the seam.
Hope this was helpful. Stay tuned for photos of the finished skirt!
AWESOME! I was never taught how to match prints and patterns! This is great. I am gonna have to try this! Thanks for sharing!!
I agree – this was a *really* helpful tutorial. Thanks for taking the time.
Fabulous tutorial! The skirt looks stunning! Like there is not even a seam there. Perfect!
That’s amazing. If I didn’t know there was a seam there I’d think it was one piece! Looks great!
This is fab, your seams are perfect! I’ll definitely be referring back to this post – thanks, Tasia!
I would add, as an afterthought, and becuase this is the kind of step I don’t always take, that it would be *really important* to make a muslin first to make sure fit is perfect. Otherwise an extra cm taken in here and there would mess up the matching.
Great tip! I will definitely try this sometime. The skirt looks like it will be a fun design. Can’t wait for the big reveal.
Thank you for the tutorial! I confess that I am sometimes lazy about print matching – I’ll match stripes and plaids, but bigger designs? Not unless I think it’s going to look weird. I like the tip about folding back the seam allowance, I hadn’t thought of that!
Perfect timing – I’m about to make a top with a centre front seam from a print. This will make it a whole load easier :)
Thanks for the tutorial!! It has very easy to follow instructions, it’s always hard to make prints to match, I will use yout tutorial next time!
Great post! Very clear and VERY helpful. Will bookmark this page…
Excellent, clear, instructions. I love matching a print as exactly as possible, even though it is fiddly to get just right: the satisfaction is so worth the extra effort.
Wonderful. That skirt is going to look perfect! I always have trouble with this. I just cut and hope for the best…… not the greatest technique. Will definately use this in the future Thanks!
Very clever! The thought of matching up prints overwhelmed me before but this makes so much sense.
OMG! I think you just saved my sanity. It seems so simple and a no brainer, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to do this. I could have benefited from this tutorial long ago. Thank you so much for posting this for this dumb person! ;)
Ah, nice tutorial. Makes sense and so helpful.
thanks for the tutorial. I recently finished a paisley jersey dress that was an agony to match. It took two hours to lay out and cut, but the result was worth while. Today I was in a waiting room and saw a girl in a nice plaid coat. Then I looked at the mismatched checked at the seams – it screamed cheap, factory made!
I never thought of folding the edges! What a great idea – thanks!
Wow! Thank you for this fabulous tutorial. You have really demystified this for me. I love your blog, by the way.
Oh wow! I’m glad that so many people found this helpful! It was one of those ‘aha’ moments when I was thinking about how to match up the print…after deciding it was definitely necessary, I wondered if there was any firm rule on how to match prints? So I thought, if I don’t know, there are probably lots of others out there who don’t know either…
@Clare: Really excellent point! I didn’t think about it, since I’ve made this skirt five times, but you’re right. If you’re at all concerned about fit and think you may have to take in or let out the seam you’re about to match.. make a muslin first, to perfect the fit.
@Gail: I checked out your paisley, you did a great job matching the print! It’s such a sign of good quality when the prints or stripes or plaids match perfectly.
@Carla: Thanks for the compliment on my blog – I love writing it!
Hey Tasia
I can’t wait to see the finished skirt ! Matching pattern is also one of my obsessions, and it makes such a nice difference at the end !
Thanks for sharing, I’ve been doing this exactly but I don’t think I’d been able to explain it as clearly as you did….
Oh! this is a great tute! Thanks for the tips:)
Tasia, this is SO helpful! You made it look so easy, I’m sure I can do it, too!
This is a serious lifesaver!
This is such a fabulous tutorial!! Thanks so much :)
Thanks Tasia, this is great! And very inspiring. I must admit, I never think to match a more abstract print. I would do it for a stripe or plaid – and now I’ll be doing it for prints. Thanks for the very clear instructions too.
@Rachel: I wouldn’t always match a print, but for this project I wanted it to be extra special. Now that I’ve done it and realized it’s not so bad I’ll probably aim to match all my large prints going forward.
@Darci: Of course you can do it! And if you get stuck when you try just give me a shout.
@petite josette: Thanks and I’m glad my tutorial was easy to follow! I find pictures make all the difference.
So tutorials are a hit and super useful – is there anything specific you wish there was a tutorial on, that you’d like me to do?
I’ve been meaning to thank you for this! I just returned to re-read this when considering matching stripes. So, so helpful :) Hope you’re enjoying your time away!
I have a weekly post on blogs that i discovered to be very useful and share it with my readers. This week i am proud to present a link to your blog. Your blog is so useful and interesting to read.
Thanks, Tasia! This will be a great way to match when using a pattern! Here’s another tip: fabrics with repeating patterns usually have marks in the selvages to let you know when it the pattern begins. For instance, the fabric I’m using has cross. Imagine cutting two pieces of the same fabric and then putting them side by side, so that the left selvage of one piece is next to the right selvage of the other piece. The patterns should match up. The trick is knowing how wide of a seam to sew. I am sewing a duvet cover and trying to match the side seams (one 60″ wide panel for the middle, then another cut in half lengthwise for the sides). I cut the sides longer than the middle to allow for the pattern repeat. Now I need to figure out where the seam needs to be to match. I might be able to adapt Tasia’s technique.
Very late to the party but this tutorial is BRILLIANT(sorry I get over-excited when I read good sewing tips) Thanks a lot for this how-to!
This is awesome!!! Any tips on matching up prints in the bodice (since the seam is not a straight line and will never match up completely)? How do you decide where the print should line up?
Wow – this is a great help! Thanks so much for posting your step by step directions. Unmatched seams has ALWAYS been a pet peeve for me as well…and I’ve seen it on some surprisingly higher priced fashions.
This is one sewing gaffe that should never happen :)