Little Black Dress... Pattern Cutting

After undertaking a series of research including fashion, theme, sampling, etc; I produced a range of designs  from which I then selected a garment design to manufacture.

After finalising and selecting a design to manufacture a Specification sheet was created in order to work from. This sheet is vital for the making process and must be at hand at all times; the sheet shows front and back views of the design drawn as technical flats – showing details, seams, and stitching, etc.

Once the Specification sheet is completed and ready to work from; the pattern cutting can begin. The first step in the pattern cutting process is to trace around the basic block; in this case a dress block. After cutting a length of pattern paper, I drew a line straight across the width of it with a long ruler; this line enabled me to place the dress block onto the paper lined up correctly making the process more accurate. Placing the waist line of the dress blocks along my drawn line; with side seams together, I traced around them ensuring I marked on all the important markings, for example; waist lines, darts, Centre Front, grain line, etc. To make this easier you should always weight the block down with something to prevent it from moving whilst tracing.

 Once the block is traced off properly you need to make sure you label them correctly by stating what the garment is, i.e. Dress, the piece, i.e. Front or Back, the size, and if necessary your name (if anything goes missing then it can easily be returned to its creator).  Also remember to mark on this that it is the 1^st Draft; you may need to come back to this at some point.

Once I had the basic dress block traced off, I was able to alter it to fit my design. I started by changing the neckline; using a dress form (or mannequin) and a toile made from the block – I measure how far down I wanted my neckline to be and then transferred this onto the pattern paper, I then curved the line from the centre front point over to the base of the ‘arm hole’; this would create my neckline to be like the one in my specification sheet. The same process is then repeated to alter the design of the back of the dress.

To change the basic block into a pattern for my design; I had to create seams and panels, to do this I simply took out the darts and extended the lines all the way through the dress, this would then create four separate panels once traced off and created into pattern pieces.

Once all the changes had been made to the basic block too make into my own design, just like the one on the specification sheet; I was ready to trace off my pattern pieces. Placing another sheet of pattern paper over the 1^st draft and weighing it down with something (sometimes it is better to pin the papers together for extra care), then I simply traced off each separate panel and added 1cm seam allowance around the panels (with the exception of the Centre Front) and a 4cm hem allowance to create my pattern pieces for my dress.

When tracing off each pattern piece for my dress it was essential that I remembered to mark all the important details such as the Centre Front, Waist line, grain lines, and notches – notches are the only way to make sure your pattern pieces will fit together once sewn in 3D, they are really important for matching the pieces together properly. It is also really important to correctly label each pattern piece; in my case I had 4 pieces – Centre Front Dress Panel, Side Front Dress Panels, Centre Back Panels, and Side Back Panels.  Each piece had to be labelled with their ‘piece name’, size and my name. You also need to label instructions for cutting in fabric, for example; if you need to cut on the fold or the number of pieces you need – e.g. Cut x2, would indicate you need 2 of each piece. Labelling the pattern pieces will make the making process much easier.

The next stage: Making a Toile.