Beginners Pattern Drafting Info, General Info, Pattern Cutting Techniques

Pattern Help – Recreating a Vintage Dress Pattern

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I have had a question from one of my readers regarding a dress style.

The best way to develop a dress is by using a dress block, you would think that you could just place a skirt and a bodice together and that would be it – unfortunately its not as simple as that. There are a few adjustments you need to make to join a skirt to a bodice to get a good fit, and you need a little pattern cutting knowledge for that. I plan to do a post on just the subject very soon.

But for now, lets suppose you are in a rush and you have a bodice block and a skirt block, my best advice would be to first of all follow my post on lengthening the bodice below the hip line and that will give you a basic dress block, suitable for some, but not all styles.

Lets take the example above, this is the style my reader wants and she only has a bodice block, but now she has followed the blog post and created a basic dress from the bodice.

 

 

The style lines can be followed through to the back dress and an identical quantity of fullness should be added to the back skirt – remember to cut the skirt on the bias grain with a seam at the center front.

I hope this helps and if anyone else has any pattern cutting puzzles then please let me know.

Happy pattern making

Nicola x

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Beginners Pattern Drafting Info

Making The Most of Your Bodice Block

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Moving Your Bodice Darts – Example 1

This is the first in a series of posts that will demonstrate the method of moving darts around the bodice block to different locations. This post is aimed at beginners.

Moving both darts to the waistline is very easy. Lets look at the slashing method.

  1. Trace the bodice block marking in all the darts, the bust point and all other block markings such as notches.
  2. If your darts are not connected at the bust point then connect them before you begin, all changes to bust dart locations must happen through the bust point (BP)
  3. Slash up the center of the bust waist dart, right up to the bust point.
  4. Fold in the shoulder bust dart and watch the waist bust dart open up to become a larger dart. Now the 2 darts are combined at the waist.
  5. Trace around the new shape, marking in the new dart. Take the apex of the dart (point of the dart) back by 1.5 cm for sewing. If you sew a dart right up to the bust point it will look very pointy!
  6. To complete the pattern shape, fold in the dart and cut the pattern with the dart folded in as it would be sewn to get the right shape at the dart mouth.

If you want to know more about darts, this detailed workbook will give you everything you need to know!

If you don’t already have my basic bodice block you can find it here:

Modeliste Creative – basic bodice  

Or if you would like a larger size range  we also have a couple of other bodice block options we recommend.

The regular Design Cut & Wear Bodice block, or the Bodice Block with the shoulder dart removed, or the Japanese Style Bunka Bodice Block

Or maybe the plus size bodice block. They are all suitable for this technique.

Hope this helps and I will be back soon with another technique.

Happy Pattern Making.

Nicola x

 

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Beginners Pattern Drafting Info, design and pattern cutting, Pattern Cutting Techniques

Making 1 dart into 2 darts- Ideal for Skirts & Trousers

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What if my block or pattern has 1 dart and I want 2 darts!

I am often asked what to do if a block or pattern has 1 dart and the designer wants 2 darts, in the skirt or trouser style they are working on. It really isn’t that difficult to amend a block and reduce or even increase the number of darts, as long as you follow a few rules.

Measure the 1/4 waist and divide into thirds.

The first third of the waist is close to the hip and there is already shaping there so in order to keep a good fit and spread the suppression around the waist line, it is best not to plan the new dart in that area.

Mark lines where you want the darts, they do not need to be vertical lines, you can angle them gently if you want to.

Cut down these lines and along, to the apex of the dart you want to remove, keep the paper attached by a couple of millimetres – don’t worry if you do cut it accidentally , it just needs to be pivoted from the apex position ( tip of the old dart).

Fold out the old dart and balance the suppression equally between the two new darts.

The darts can be taken down as low as the hip line, but they are best at about 9 cm (3 9/16″ in length.

Here is my half scale pattern pictured above, The darts are folded in as they would be sewn and the waist now needs to be reshaped as the waist level. Where the old dart was positioned has risen slightly as the new darts were opened. This means we need to reshape the waist line run to keep a nice smooth shape.

Remove the excess and this completes the process, take a look at my 1/2 scale pattern on my much loved 1/2 scale stand!

In the background you can see an upcoming blog post in the making! If you have a dress stand I am going to demonstrate a wonderful technique for creating fitted patterns. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss the post!

If you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If you want to know more about darts check out this great dart workbook.

If you need 1/4 and half scale blocks to practice you can find them here.

Nicola x

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