After the Mabel disaster, I began my Moneta project by tracing a few inches of waist from the front and back bodice in both L and XL sizes.
As usual, I fall right between L an XL on the size chart (why is there a gap?) except for my waist which skewed all the way to the top edge of XL. After tracing my mini-test pattern, I then cut strips of material from my main material, after first checking that it was an area of “extra” material. Then it was a matter of sewing them together and trying them on to see which one fit. Knowing that the XL was a much better fit than L gave me the confidence to continue on with the project.
Very smart to test it out. Can you make a custom wait of an in between L and XL without changing the rest of the pattern? Or do you have to make the better size and then take it in? I'm such a neophyte, I have no idea.
It's fairly simple to straddle between two sizes. They are both there on the pattern and you simply draw your pattern line between them. It turned out the XL worked well for me, and for the uniforms I just added about a centimeter in the waist to keep it from stretching to the limit there.
It's nice to be able to read these posts of yours about sewing and finally have a firm grasp on what you're talking about!
I wonder what people who are truly XL do when they make their own clothes? You're not XL by any stretch of the imagination. Do they have separate patterns for people who are "plus" size? Just sort of thinking out loud here.
This pattern goes up to 3XL, so that's nice. But mostly you have to go with a plus-sized pattern, which are different from the "regular-sized" patterns. Burda Style is particularly annoying in this regard. I think once you get too big for the largest plus, it's all about grading the largest size up. Or designing their own patterns.