Pattern Making

Recommended Lesson Order

To begin, start by viewing our lesson on “How to Read a Ruler”, where you will learn how to read both an imperial and metric ruler and have access to free downloadable charts and tables to assist in converting inches to centimeters and centimeters to inches. Then, move to our lesson entitled, “Measuring the Female Body” so that you will be able to identify and extract the necessary measurements used in pattern making.

The next steps are to create a library of slopers. Slopers will become the foundation for all of your future designs. Start with our lesson on how to draft a “Straight Sleeve Sloper”, which will introduce you to body measurements, drafting terminology, tools and techniques. In our “Drafting a Shoulder Dart Bodice from Measurements” lesson, you will be able to draft a bodice from actual body measurements, from those of your dress form or from those listed on our Women’s Bodice Global Size Range Chart, The latter is one of the many free downloadable files we provide to our subscribers.

When you have finished drafting your bodice sloper, you will be able to advance to our dart-pivoting series of lessons where you will learn how to transfer darts to other areas of a bodice and draft a series of different necklines. To complete your set of foundational slopers, move to a “Basic Pant Sloper”, a “Straight Skirt Sloper” and our lesson on how to “Convert a Bodice Sloper to a Fitted Torso Sloper”. You will have now the beginnings of a valuable sloper library and will, by then, know how to use the most common pattern making tools and understand common pattern making terminology, such as “squaring off”, “trueing”, “blending lines” and the “slash & spread” method. Once you complete, a few Beginner sleeves and collars in this section, you’ll be ready for our Intermediate and Advanced pattern making lessons.

These Intermediate videos will teach you how to draft patterns from body measurements and how to complete more complex lessons, such as drafting a legging, a panty and a tent dress. You will also learn how to draft a series of interesting sleeve designs, such as the princess puff, leg o’mutton and a structured two-piece sleeve. In addition, you will be introduced to pattern grading techniques so that you can size your patterns larger or smaller. Our knit sloper series will provide you with a complete library of ‘cut & sew’ knit slopers. Then you are ready to move to our advanced lesson on drafting a women’s jacket.