I have decided to host a sew along in September sometime over on twitter. Probably starting around the 20th.
Nothing big, you can work on whatever strikes you fancy, you don't even have to sew. If you rather knit a round, or two, be welcome. As long as you are doing something crafty, you are welcome to join in. This is really more about getting creative and making something and keeping us on track. May be a great way to start handmade holiday presents?
Anyway. I digress.
As my project of choice, I picked making a crossover aprons. I love the way they look. I bought one a while ago, which I love to wear. So I figured I would make a pattern to sew another one just like it - only different. 😆
As I was getting ready, it occurred to me that maybe not everybody knows how to make a pattern from an existing garment and that I could take photos as I go. 🙃 Not really a tutorial, but more of a "here is how I go when I go like this".
I bet if you Google, you can find a whole lot of them. Alas, here is how I do it.
For starters, you will need the garment in question and a large piece of paper.
You can use poster board, or brown wrapping paper, or take apart a few paper bags and tape them together. I prefer paper bags/poster board, since the paper is a bit sturdier than wrapping paper.
Iron your garment. (Yes. I am aware I did not iron mine, but do as I say, not as I do lol)
You want the garment as flat as possible, so you are not accidentally making the pattern too small, because of a crease in the fabric. I would definitely start out with a garment that has a nice and easy shape and no darts, or ruching etc. Those are a bit harder, but not i.possible to draft yourself and should maybe be tackled a little later with more practice.
Tape as much paper together as you need to fit the garment folded in half along the vertical axis. Take measurements. Always good to have them written down beforehand. How long are the sleeves? How long from hem to underarm? From center to underarm? From hem to color front and back? How wide is the button band? Write those measurements on a piece of paper and set aside.
If you are making a pattern off a blouse, you will need to fold it in half and fold the sleeve out of the way as well, you only want to do the main body at the moment.
Take the folded piece and lay it flat on the paper. If it has attached button bands, make sure they are folded out of the way. Weigh it down with pattern weights. I use cans from my kitchen for this usually. They just didn't make it in the photo. Sorry. Anything heavy will work. You don't want the garment to move, while you are tracing it. Now trace around it using a ruler for the straight lines and freehanding the rounded edges. I personally always trace exactly around the existing garment and add seam allowance later. Once you have it traced, measure and compare with the measurements you had written down. Adjust the tracing as necessary.
Once this is done for the main body, cut out the shape and mark where the fold line of the garment was on your paper. Add marks and notes to any other important places where things will be attached. My existing apron was made from one giant piece of fabric. This means the only seam was on top of the front bib piece, where the straps were attached. I already know I don't have anything that big and have to piece something together, so I chose to attach the straps front and back. I simply chose a point after the main body was traced as a cut off point and marked it with a pin on my apron. Then I measured how much strap was left to go to the top front and drafted that part separately from the main body.
For my apron I just needed straps, so that was easy. I simply measured them and instead of tracing, I drafted them on a piece of leftover paper from scratch. Basically only a large trapeze shape anyway.
For my apron fit isn't the most important thing, so tracing is perfectly fine. Otherwise you would want to use pins. You would stick the pins into the edges of the agrnment and through to the paper to makrk the exact edge. In case of the apron, if I am a bit off, it will still work. But for a blouse, or a pair of pants, you really want to be as precise as possible,, hence the pin method plus measure as much as you can and make sure the measurements on paper coincide with the measurements you took before.
Cut out all shapes.
I write on all my patterns to ADD SEAM ALLOWANCE! In big letters to each edge that needs seam allowance. (The fold line edge does not need any seam allowance! So do not write it there!) Because I didn't add any when tracing. If you decide to add the seam allowance right to the paper pattern, make sure you note that and how much seam allowance you added. It is easy to forget otherwise.
The reason I don't add it to my patterns is, because I sometimes change seam allowance depending on what fabric I am using/what part I am sewing. This way, I have a standard pattern and can add 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch, however I feel. Also, I am just so used to doing it this way lol. In addition I seem to have an easier time enlarging/reducing a pattern without seam allowance added in previously for some reason.
But by all means, do what comes natural to you., just don't forget to make a note of it.
This is it. Now you have your pattern, go find some fabric and sew some amazing things!
In case I made no sense at all, here are a few more detailed tutorials for the same sort of thing.
Have fun!
Xo,❤
B.🐝