Drafting my Own Pattern

Hello again! Today on Simply Saturday we’ll be taking a look at how I went about drafting my own pattern. Let’s get started!

So with this project, I wanted to try and make a copy of another outfit; you know, a reproduction. As it happened, however, the outfit I’m trying to copy only exists in my imagination, since it’s from a book I’m writing. 😉

As a result, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. So, I took out my dress form and set to work. I used this black twill tape to map out the pattern I wanted. I was a little unsure over whether or not this would actually work, but I was pleasantly surprised!

Then, I filled in those spaces I mapped out using scrap fabric, which also had to be hand-sewn together in order to fit properly.

I repeated those steps on the back, making a pattern that could be cut on the fold.

After taking the fabric pieces off of the dress form, I laid them out on butcher paper, traced them, and I had paper patterns! It was actually pretty satisfying when my idea worked. 😉

I then turned those paper patterns into a fabric mock-up. Don’t worry, this fabric is not what I want for the final draft. 😉 It actually fit the dress form (and by extension, myself) pretty decently. The back piece, especially. The front needs a little tweaking.

The next step was the sleeves, which I quickly sketched out a pattern for using the sleeve pattern from this project as a base. I just elongated it in order to make 3/4 sleeves. I left the bottom few inches open, in order to have a nice little draped part.

Drafting my own pattern – Wrapping up

And, I’m still working on the skirt part, so this is about where I am now. I hope you enjoyed this post. Do you make your own patterns? ~ Emily