Such Treasures

I got the pattern drafting book from the library, How to Make Your Own Patterns. It is good! I’m going to buy it; I’m not sure I need the other one I mentioned the other day.

I read a good bit of Don McCunn’s book on Thursday and Friday. Now I understand some of the theory behind pattern drafting. The problem with the Dorothy Moore book I was following before is she didn’t tell me why to do things — just do this, this and this. Then when something didn’t work, I had no understanding with which to make a judgment on what to try next. The other down-side is now blatantly obvious to me — no directions for making patterns for men.
On the other hand, Don McCunn said some really simple things that totally make sense and give me an understanding of what I’m doing. For instance, fabric can’t curve every which way at once. The goal of pattern drafting is to get the fabric to contour over the curves of the body. If the body curves in just one direction, the fabric can do it as is. If the fabric has to curve in 2 or more directions at the same point, you need a dart. I just didn’t know this on a simple, practical level.

Another difference –> Dorothy Moore has you put in a standard features like darts, without any direction as to what width, length and direction of dart to use. Don McCunn gives you “ease” for those darts and during the fitting, you smooth the fabric around the body’s contours and voila — the excess fabric becomes the dart you need. The dart are fitted to the body. That makes sense to me.

I don’t need any darts for Jeff’s shirt, though, as it is knit. Knits can curve two directions at once, thanks to its ability to stretch.

By Saturday morning, we took Jeff’s measurements — this time according to Don McCunn’s more complete directions. I drafted a pattern for the basic front and back of his shirt. I found that I almost didn’t need any ease when working with knit. After two fittings, we have a great fit! Yahoo!

You should see that practice fabric. It was fun to use a red permanent marker and make marks all over it for where I wanted seams to go.
Tonight the plan is to take his arm measurements and create a sleeve. The sleeve should require very little fitting, according to Don McCunn. Then I will have a finished shirt pattern! I can hardly believe it. I’ll keep that as a finished set-in sleeve pattern and use a copy of it to convert to a raglan sleeve.

So I do have more to do, but I am thanking God for small victories that give me the confidence that I can do this (with His help). I also thank Him for leading me to good resources.