Long Jackets and Mini Dresses

I just can't wrap my head around getting the pattern to match exactly having to separate templates to work with. I stay away from system skirts and use the jacket layout for my Mini dresses but you can tell that the bottom part doesn't match the top. I have looked everywhere for a tutorial but there are none .

I had that problem a lot, even being very careful to use the same color and the same overlay, etc. Sometimes seemed that it would be impossible for things NOT to match!

How I deal with it now, is that I will make the top (bodice, etc) first. When it is done, I will copy the bottom portion of it, resize it a bit, and paste it on to the lower/skirt template. The down side is that you will not be able to do a greyscale layer over it for wrinkles and folds (because it would affect the color a little and defeat the purpose) but a little artful stretching and pulling helps.

If the bottom (pant or skirt) needs to be full length, then I do the above as a top layer, make the rest underneath it as normally (with greyscale layer etc), make it match as much as possible, then do some careful erasing on the edges of the top layer (usually at about 50% opacity on the eraser) to get rid of white borders from stretching and to match up wrinkles, folds, etc.

And even still, sometimes they don't match PERFECTLY which must be an SL lighting thing but usually I am very happy with it.