Garment from Neck to Ankle.
(SEE DIA. [XIII].)
Join two angles of 15 deg. at the front of waist and back of seat. At a point where the upper angle of 15 deg. is 17½ numbers wide, is the starting point for a coat or vest. For the reason that the diagram contains the full width of a coat, it is too wide for the pants, and the width is taken off at the side. The front turns at point 15, where the body begins to turn. The pants start at point 17½, and the pants and vest lap 2½ to 3 in., just as on the body. It is not intended for actual cutting, but simply to show the continuous form of the whole garment from neck to ankle.
This diagram can be used for night-pants, particularly for children; but for such purpose the distance from the starting point, at 135 deg., to the crotch should be made 30 numbers, so that there is no strain in the upper part and crotch. Nothing is to be cut out at the side, and may be made without a side seam. It will well repay any cutter to spoil four yards of muslin and make one for himself, just to try it.
This diagram shows the whole outside of the center of front and back, from one extreme to the other, and where both extremes have about the same circumference. The bare neck and the two bare ankles will measure about the same. The largest part of the body is in the middle and the center of front and the center of back run up and down in two angles of 15 deg. each, and the two angles are joined at their widest part. This is the side view of the body, and if the body were really flat, as it appears from a side view, the centers of front and back of a garment would have to be cut on the same curve as the center of back and front in Fig. [II]. But both centers are flat from side to side, and what appears a sharp edge from the side view of Fig. [II] is a perfect flat surface in Fig. [I], and is actually flat, from side to side, but bent, as we can bend a flat piece of tin, and for which reason the centers of back and front can be fitted on straight lines, and must be fitted nearly so.
For illustration we will suppose that we take four boards each one a yard wide, and set them up in a joined angle of 15 deg., like Dia. [XIII], and though we may look at its sharp edges from the side, we are compelled to use a flat piece of material if we will fit the front and back views; and the human form must be fitted just like it, that is, all cuts, or all wedges, as in Dia. [I] and [II], must be made, or put in, from the side, and the flat centers of front and back must run parallel to each other. The centers of back and front running parallel with the body, prevents the sides of the diagram to be in the same harmony, and for this reason the hips, which are the largest and widest part of the body, show themselves as the smallest in the diagram.