Hello! I think I may have overwritten my standard women's size 12 and 14 fooling around with a pair of pants. Is there anyway to restore them? If I re-downloaded the program, would it? I could print out and re-enter any measurement sets I wanted to keep.

Hi Jan.

It is not possible to over-write a standard size. I suspect you saved a copy of a standard size at one time and have since been loading that, using "Size - Load Measurements". Don't do that now. Instead, use "Size - Standard Sizes" and re-select the standard size that you want. Those cannot be over-written.

- Bob Clardy

Hi, Bob,

I didn't get a notice of this reply! So I deleted my Dress Shop and reinstalled it.

Now I'd like to get clarification on saving measurements.

1. If you modify a standard size, you get this message: "Save the changes you have made to current measurements?" I have usually hit Cancel. But say I want to save the change I made, and hit the other choice than Cancel (I forget what it's called!) I did that and re-named the measurement set something like Size 12_14 [upper body, lower body, you get that choice in standard sizes]reduced waist.

I had a bunch of files with similar names, reducing this, enlarging that. I just deleted them, too. I had made them tweaking a particular pattern fit.

Anyway, what should I answer on that message I get if I want to modify a standard size? And are there naming protocols, actually, that I'm ignoring?

Thank you!

Hi Jan.
There are two separate dialog boxes you are dealing with here. When you are in the standard sizes box and you select something there and click "Done", that box will prompt you to save what you selected. You can do that, taking the default size name that it generates. Or, click "Cancel" and do not bother to save just yet because you intend to make more changes in the "Sizes - Complete Chart" box. Do your changes there, the click on "Save As" and give it a name. There are no conventions. Use whatever name is meaningful to you. Some users go with their name and a month and year. Others name the set after some event or particular design they are working on. Whatever naming convention helps you remember which set is which.

Hope this helps....

By the way, when you reinstall Dress Shop, no measurement sets are deleted or over-written. Whatever you had saved should still be there until you manually delete them. Not super-convenient, I know, but it insures that nothing will ever get accidentally or automatically erased. Nothing.

Thank you, I will follow your directions in using the standard sizes and saving them in the future.

I deleted all my old files after I installed the new program bc they were useless trials anyway.

In the old program, day before yesterday, I swear I loaded standard sizes 14 and 12 and I printed out the complete charts of both, which is when I noticed something was wrong as the size 12 measurements were in some cases larger than the size 14. Today, with the program re-installed I printed the size 14 measurements again and compared them to the old set and now they are back to reasonable--slightly larger than the size 12--I'm talking about bust and waist, didn't look at ankles etc.

Both files were/are named Women's Size 14.

Does that mean that at one point after I modified a standard size 14 the program, when I modified the file suggested Women's Size 14 as the default file name and I selected it? I don't remember where I loaded the set from, I may have loaded a pattern which had "Women's Size 14" already loaded, and I printed the complete chart from there. But how did it get that name which competes with a real Standard Women's Size 14? Shouldn't I have gotten a message that says, Women's Size 14 already exists, do you want to override it? Or since it can't be overwritten, a suggestion that I name it something else? On both complete measurement charts the name of the file is Women's Size 14, but the numbers are different.

Bob, don't worry if you can't explain that. I just thought I'd let you know in case it mattered.

Back to sewing!!

The problem I always have when mucking around with charts is being certain about everything that I might have changed. For instance, if you select Woman's standard size 12, but also click on the "Plus" option for Fullness, you now have Size 12 Plus. Bust Front will be 20 5/16. Then, select Woman's Standard Size 14, but leave "Fullness" as "Standard". Bust Front is 19 5/8.

So, Size 12 Plus has a larger bust measurement than Size 14 Standard. Confusing, but reasonable. You can't say it is "correct", though, because standard sizing is never "correct." Standards are just averages for lots of other people. For you, you really need to do some actual body measurements if you want a fit that is better than you would get off the rack.

In any case, variations from Tall, Petite, Plus, Slim vs. Standard can make standard sizing even less predictable than it already was. Some people do start there because they have gotten moderately good fit from some particular manufacturer when they bought a Woman's Size 12 Plus blouse. But, from another manufacturer, that sizing label could involve different actual inches of fabric. You just cannot depend on standards. Dress Shop only works well when you use personal measurements and do not get hung up on standards.