3 posts tagged “pattern making”

I am currently in search of patterning books. Since I have been looking at them I thought I would share my impressions. I have two books that were required for a class and those have been sufficient for general purposes, now historical patterns are a completely different matter. Since I work in theater I will refer to the person you are making clothing for as "the actor".

First of all there are two ways to create patterns, draping and drafting/flat patterning. Draping uses a dress form that is the same shape as the person you are making clothing for. You use muslin to "drape" the pattern onto the dress form. Then you take your muslin pieces and trace them onto paper, giving you a pattern. Drafting or flat patterning you use measurements to create a sloper or body block of the actor. A sloper is a basically a fitted bodice. Once you have  your sloper you alter it to make the design and style changes you need. There are somethings that are more easily done by draping and some more easily done by drafting. Generally you draft sleeves, collars, pants and items for men, you drape bodices for women. I draft skirts, but depending on what you are doing and how you feel about each method you could drape them.

My search for books comes from the fact that I am looking for a good sloper/body block draft to use, I haven't really needed one for women because we had a collection of dress forms, but that has changed. I am also kind of looking at books for if no WHEN I am asked to teach a class I want to know what books to require. Patterning books are expensive! And I don't have any problem requiring expensive books for class, IF they are worth the price. I wouldn't want book costs to be prohibitive, but they really are necessary and would pay for themselves if the student wanted to continue on with patterning, for costume construction, or personal projects.

Here are the two books that were used in my class, I would recommend both, but the thing to remember is that I was taking a class with a teacher, who taught. We used the book to follow the steps for drafting, draping, pattern alterations, whatever, we didn't use it to learn from. So I haven't really read these books, I just used the information in them.

This is a draping book, using muslin to create a pattern on a dress form. This is not what I am looking for now, because as I said without dress forms, draping isn't really useful. However, this is the book I used to learn, and it works.

This is the flat patterning book we used. I like it, but again that could be because it is the one I was taught with. Of course it has some quirks, the pattern marks are different, some of the measurements are in 8ths of an inch, but I like the layout. The skirt sloper I use is from this book, of course there probably aren't very many differences is skirt slopers. Again, we didn't read the book, just used the information to make different designs, move darts and the like.

Stage one is done, the whole project is complete.Newest photos first, then process photos. I didn't have a full length mirror when I was fine tuning the pattern so I was very excited when I wore the dress out and was in Target I found a full length mirror. The dress (and the mirror) makes me look tall and very skinny.

Since I have also been making headbands I used a scrap piece of fabric to make one to match the dress

At the fabric store I found some fabric that spoke to me, so the challenge was to come up with a pattern for it. It was actually the same fabric in different colors as this apron I made for a swap. I really liked how the contrasting bias looked so I knew I wanted that to be an element. After some sketching I came up with this for my design

There is contrast bias along the yoke edges, armhole and neckline. I like the look of the gathered bust, but found that generally this style is done with halter tops and I didn't want to do that because I want to be able to wear my everyday bra. The skirt is gored with A-line flare. I draped it one afternoon on my lunch break.
This is "Part 1" because I have only finished the mock up. It is however a finished mock up because as I was draping this dress I found out about the Burda Style Design and Pattern Competition and dcided to enter. I was already patterning a garment...so why not?

My last year of college I got to take a tailoring class. We designed, patterned and built our own women's suit based on the L-85 war production board's fabric limitations during WWII. It was my first tailoring class and our university was on the quarter system so we had ten weeks to do it all. Later I took more classes in tailoring, it was just tailoring from commercial patterns and we had 15 weeks, which felt like a breeze because there was no designing or patterning! This suit was built for the costume department's stock.