Grading a pattern: Depew 3009

Good morning beautiful readers. Today I got an email from a customer asking me if there was a way to make one of my patterns smaller to fit her much more petite figure. I proceeded to try and explain how in an email and realized half way through that it would be much easier to do so in a blog post!
Not to mention, some of you may find this handy in the future.
~the following tutorial can be applied to just about any dress, blouse or skirt pattern and can be used to grade the size up or down~

The pattern in question is Depew 3009, a beach dress cover-up pattern based off a vintage French pattern.

Beach Dress Cover-Up

The pattern is only in one size, Medium/ Large with a 30" waist and 38" bust.

And the customer, we'll call her Miss S, needs to size the pattern down to a 25" waist and a 32" bust.
So, we need to subtract 5" from the waist and 6" from the bust.

These subractions need to be evenly distributed between 4 spots for the bodice and the skirt. Here's where we do the math:
Bodice Reduction = 6"÷ 2 (cutting two of each pattern piece) = 3".  And 3" ÷ 4 (front, back, and both side seams) = 3/4". Doing the same for the skirt (5" ÷ 2 = 2.5" then 2.5" ÷ 4 = 5/8")

BODICE:                                        SKIRT
Center Front:        3/4"                                 Center Front          5/8"
Center Back:         3/4"                                Center Back           5/8"
Left Side Seam:     3/4"                               Left Side Seam       5/8"
Right Side Seam:   3/4"                              Right Side Seam      5/8"

This might help.

The portions highlighted in yellow will be where you'll make your subtractions. First trace each pattern piece off of the pattern sheet. (Don't trace them double as they are laid out for cutting, just do the halves as they appear on your pattern sheet. Make your reductions and be sure to graduate a bit on the bodice pieces between the 3/4" at the bust and the 5/8" at the waist.

Now for the red. On the bodice front you'll need to redraft your darts. (simply copy the old ones from the pattern sheet, centering the dart over the line that you reduced the bust front at). Do the same for the bodice back.

At the skirt, you'll want to move your pleat lines towards the side seams. You removed 5/8" from the center front so move your pleat lines over 5/8" each. Do some measuring and make sure that your closed darts at the bodice front will match up perfectly with the side pleats on the skirt front as they do in the pattern illustration.

Now since these proportions are much smaller than the original pattern, we can assume that Miss S is a bit shorter too. The bodice may need to be shortened a bit to match... the same may go for the the straps as well. And lastly, the belt will need to be shortened by 5".

That about sums it up. As with any pattern that has been heavily altered, make a muslin version first so that you can test the fit before cutting into your more expensive fabrics.

Whew! I got so into this that I forgot to eat breakfast! I'm going to take my over caffeinated shaky self downstairs for some food before I break something expensive :)