The key takeout from the week was ‘walking the pattern’.

Tuesday was all about drafting a skirt block pattern.

Mimiquins custom dressform

I have Miss Quinn, my custom dressform from Mimiquins UK to check the shape and proportions of my Winter clothes. Now I am creating pattern blocks for those quick to sew everyday clothes.

Miss Quinn has really given me the tools to fit my clothes better. She’s also helped me adjust previously sewn patterns to really work with my curves, without the need to ‘phone a friend’ to help me fit my clothes better.

You can’t phone a friend at 10pm at night before a sewing deadline. That’s just rude :))

Over 4 Tuesdays I’ll be at Pattern Making class to draft up my block patterns.

The notes above are my working documents. Those drawing templates were an Aliexpress purchase that is coming in handy for design.

Custom avatars

Oh. If you’re using CLO3 to design clothes, let me know if you want a custom avatar. I do the body scans for Mimiquins UK and we’re including avatar body scans as part of our service now.

Pattern blocks

‘Walking the pattern’ is where you have drafted a pattern piece and then you take that pattern piece and check that it matches the pattern piece you’ll sew it to. You literally walk the pattern pieces along each other.

In the case of the skirt block, you take the waistband and walk the waistband pattern piece along the skirt piece you’ll sew it to.

When I recorded my video podcast at the end of day 1, my mind was buzzing with design ideas from the basic pencil skirt design and I was concerned that the pattern might not fit me.

Hence my sewing a couple of skirts to see if they did fit.

The skirts are now ready to wear (pun intended). Both skirts are fully lined and have side seam pockets. I drafted a side seam pocket that you sew or secure at the waistband so the pockets don’t bag out.

As I mentioned in Friday Sews, I used the size 14 block and made the fit adjustments to my shape.

Keep an eye out for my skirt reveal post.

If I’m lucky, I’ll also do an end of the day review of this week’s bodice block pattern class.

Have a great week.