I believe you are correct. There is another seam, "flat felled seam," but I can't remember if they're very similar. Fitting is definitely a problem for me when sewing clothing. If I could get that figured out I'd love to sew more. Now I only quilt.

I learned to sew upholstery fabric in my shop. It was either learn or pay someone to do it. And my business barely supported me at first. So that wasn't an option. Then I started making play clothes for my kids, then came the quilting. But I didn't start quilting in earnest until after I retired.

My grandmother, who was a professional seamstress with her own business, insisted I learn to sew from the age of eight. By age 13, with her guidance, I made my first entire suit, a yellow suit with white trim, jacket and skirt. I've been making clothes ever since, and that's been decades. I've also designed a lot of clothing and done some tailoring.

Over 20 years ago, I took up quilting and have not sewn much clothing since. I thought quilting would be easy, given my sewing skills. I soon found out it is different, requiring much more precision than clothing. I have successfully done some patterns requiring accuracy to 1/32 of an inch in both the cutting and piecing. I now prefer quilting but do still make some clothes.

It's not that the 5/8 inch seam seems big to me, it's that the 1/4 inch seam seems small, since I learned sewing first.

For the person that warned about sizes on patterns, here's a way around that: Get the closest sizes to your measurements, lay out the pattern on the straigt of grain of fabric, measure each part of you and then that part on the pattern, extend the pattern with chalk lines if necessary (or reduce it), and cut on the chalk lines.

Yep I felt the same way, seams to small.
And may I add something about the patterns sizes: I tell everyone to measure your body and buy the pattern according to your largest part. I find it easier to reduce a pattern because you have the extra space to draw on rather then adding paper onto the pattern to enlarge one.

I made clothing before I ever made a quilt. My first quilt has 1/2" seam allowances. I am mostly a self taught quilter.

CAS49OR,
My daughter makes all sorts of costumes for Anime conventions that she attends and uses lots of quilting techniques in her garments, but she has no interest in making quilts. In the last few years she's learned to use a rotary cutter,
machine quilting,applique, binding; she's a lefty and has had to figure out things that I being a righty can't teach her.
She makes beautiful garments.
Sharon

quote from cricket_iscute:
For the person that warned about sizes on patterns, here's a way around that: Get the closest sizes to your measurements, lay out the pattern on the straigt of grain of fabric, measure each part of you and then that part on the pattern, extend the pattern with chalk lines if necessary (or reduce it), and cut on the chalk lines.
Don't you have to add "ease" to your measurements? I don't remember exactly but think it is 1 - 1 1/2" and I don't remember if it is for all measurements or only some. You might want to search on this before going forward.
I never was good on fitting adult measurements but did well on making children's clothes. I did make my daughter's wedding dress and made the bodice in muslin and fitted it to her before I made it in the wedding dress material. It came out very good. So, if you're making extra special items, making it in muslin first really works.

The ease is already in the pattern. I've made hundreds of garments this way and they always fit fine. I learned from a professional, my grandmother. She went to a full-time, two-year professional course to learn. I've taken well over a hundred sewing and quilting classes over the years, and haven't had problems. Sometimes, though, I use a garment ruler that is curved; perhaps you have seen them? I've developed enough skill with this through the years, fortunately, that I often alter patterns or take one part of one pattern and use it with another. For instance, if I don't like the collar on one pattern but like the rest of the pattern, I'll make a new collar piece or borrow and adapt one from a pattern I do like. My grandma could just look at a already-made style and copy it in her own garment without even using a pattern; now that is skill!

Did you know that every size increases the pattern pieces by 5/8 inch? So if you can't get one in your size, you can get another and draw the appropriate chalk lines.

Nancy Zieman has a whole book on the subject, I think.

Grandma taught me to sew on her old treadle machine. I sewed my clothes, then my children's and now grandchildren's. Always thought quilting was for old ladies. Well, now I am one and I quilt. But I also teach young ones to quilt and tell them not to wait til they are old! :)

Vanginney, It's good to know you enjoyed this class. I signed up for it a long time ago, and stopped after I printed out the pattern pieces. 28 pages! I need to sort and decide which elements to mix and match. I plan to make it in muslin to practice first.

I crochet also, and painted some muslin to weave through a crochet afghan. I'm not sure I like how the colors turned out, they kind of bled together and the focus is orange instead of burgundy and brown, so I may use it to make the shirt and paint a new cloth for the afghan.

I have fitting problems, did the class help you get the right fit?

Same here, I'm sewing a Simplicity pattern now. According to their size chart a large would fit best, but I end up removing 2.5" from the side seams so I'm not wearing a tent. That's 5" x length of fabric gone to waste. I want to learn to convert the patterns before I cut the cloth. I always like to add more length to cover my legs to mid-calve and upper arms too. Different brands are more true to size I've found.