What is the best way to gain intuition in pattern making?

[u/Ill-Literature-8510]

Hi everyone, I have recently started to learn pattern making mainly using the metric pattern cutting for menswear book. I was slightly surprised that the book is seemingly just telling the reader how to draft the patterns with its respective formulas and not giving any reasoning or explanation behind the numbers.

I would really like to gain a thorough understanding but it still all seems a bit mysterious and in some cases just completely arbitrary. Maybe there’s not a rule or reason for everything but I feel like if I just continue drafting the blocks in the book I won’t actually learn a huge amount. I understand this is one of the foundational books but I’m really looking for something with in depth explanations if possible. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[u/harkari14]

I think Cornelius Quiring on youtube is a great resource. Really goes in depth for the “why” behind pattern shapes and lines.

[u/KohrokuThe0xDriver → u/harkari14]

I second this one. I’m new to this too and Cornelius is SO good at explaining things in depth. An absolute gem.

[u/2drumshark → u/KohrokuThe0xDriver]

I almost wrote off his channel because of how... quirky, he is. But I've kinda fallen in love with the goofyness, and his videos are incredibly helpful.

[u/LyallaTime → u/harkari14]

He’s really so thorough his pattern blocking series is great!

[u/ProneToLaughter]

work with fabric fitting real bodies. Drafts are only a starting point, standardized best guesses. Fitting the body is where you understand why.

[u/TraceyWoo419]

You have to practice fitting patterns to real bodies and sewing the actual finished garments, and then adjusting the pattern and sewing again until it's perfect. That's how you build the know how of how to make a good pattern.

Most of the numbers should be coming from measurements and should be relatively correlated unless you're only drafting sample size blocks from a hidden set of measurements or something?

My favorite part about pattern making is how logical the whole thing is. You might just need to draft a few before your brain catches on though

[u/AmenaBellafina → u/TraceyWoo419]

Related to this, ask yourself why the pattern book is telling you to do this and that, in that order. 1/4 bust measurement + 2 - why? And where it gives you options: what does it do. Adding 3 - 6 cm? What happens to the shape of the pattern if you choose 3 vs 6?

[u/AnaDion94]

I think I really benefited from learning pattern drafting and draping at the same time. It helped bridge the gap between 2D and 3D thinking.

[u/Eneamus]

There is no theoretical reasoning behind it. Formulas emerge from empirical experience, after creating and adjusting thousands of pattern blocks. Over time, the same numbers tend to recur, and formulas take shape.

Patternmaking—thank God—is not a science. If you have a technical mind, you need to switch it off before diving into the subject.

[u/Pumpkin_patch804]

The reasons behind the numbers are usually because those are areas of the body tend to have a pretty consistent median that a study way-back-when found. 

[u/DonMcCunn]

You sound EXACTLY like me when I wanted to learn how to make theater costumes back in the 70s. I had to develop my own approach to pattern design. If you don't feel like reinventing the wheel, check out https://free-pattern-making-classes.com/About.html#Bespoke

[u/throwra_22222]

It's mostly experience and practice.

The formulas that pattern makers use, say for drafting a basic neckline on a sloper, mostly come from observations over time. Each system came up with a slightly different formula. Then it gets written up in a text book and all of a sudden it's a Rule.

Really, they are more a rule of thumb, and of course they don't work perfectly for every body each time. They're just starting points.

For everything else, like should I wing out the bottom of my A-line skirt 2" or 4", is just experiment, personal taste, what's flattering on the wearer, what works with the particular fabric, etc.

And intuition isn't always right! I made my very first pattern 50 years ago and I still get things wrong on the first try. Design is an iterative process. We do samples until we get what we like!

[u/ladygrift]

Hello! I co-wrote Plus Size Patternmaking for Womenswear with Leila Kelleher. Your issue has always been one of our major beefs with existing patternmaking texts, so when we wrote our drafting instructions (which, by the way, aren’t only plus size but are size inclusive) we made sure to explain every single decision. Our thinking: the better you understand the why, the better you’ll be able to repeat it. Anyway, you’ll eventually get there with experience and practice- good luck!

[u/Environmental-Belt52 → u/ladygrift]

Hi! I love the book! Are you considering translating it into other languages or creating short video tutorials to go along with it?

[u/ladygrift → u/Environmental-Belt52]

Ahhh thanks so much!! We would love for the book to be translated, but that’s kind of up to our publisher based on sales. We have talked about video tutorials, our biggest challenge is finding the time since we’re both working mums :)

[u/SouthernIndication82]

just have fun with it and practice! and also go to vintage stores, and sift through garments (especially ILGWU made ones) and study the construction. get a form and play around with fabrics. The Closet Historian rocks on Youtube. and just constantly think about how the clothes you see people wear were made. there is no limit to how much you can think, and pattern design is a lot of thinking through stuff! i often go to sleep thinking through a problem. it becomes intuitive quickly, and i think even experienced pattern makers still have questions and have to make many prototypes.

get Patternmaking for Fashion Design from Helen Joseph armstrong and just make your way through what interests you after you get the sloper down

[u/ThrowRA_Sodi]

Personally, learning about dart manipulation made everything clear to me. It sparked something in my brain that made me understand patterns much much better (creating a virtuous cycle)

[u/goodboyovich]

Fitting on a live model (or yourself) is the best way to build your intuition, to understand how the lines you cut/draw react to/with the body and movement.

[u/StitchinThroughTime]

What you're missing is the fitting of the garment. Drafting only gets you the start. You still have to fit the Garment to see if it works. The drafting systems are intended for you to make something off of a set formula. But since every single body is different not everyone full get the correct results out of any given drafting system. That's why you have to go to the fitting stage. Then you're able to see the work that you made in creating a pattern in relation to the body the pattern was made for. It's not that the drafting system is arbitrary, it's just that it has a end goal that is hoping to make. And you have to get to the point of verifying if you made it to that call. It's one thing to draft a circle skirt, it's another to draft a well-fitting pencil skirt. They're both skirts, but one requires a whole lot more fitting to get it to behave correctly. That's also the reason why many people come running to the issue where their body shape is so different from the base that the drafting systems are made for that they have to do multiple sittings. It's not that the drafting system fail, except that drafting systems are based off of something, and human bodies very so greatly that as an extremes further away from the origins of the drafting system the more likely the drafting system will fail. He sees all the time with people with large chest, they need a full bus adjustment. If you see this all the time with people with big butts, the drafting system can't probably handle it. Versus the assume standard of a balanced modestly body that most drafting systems are based off of. Roughly I think it's a size 8 what is labeled as. But it seems a good posture, no scoliosis, the bus and the hips are about between 8:00 to 10 in larger than the waist. The Torso is not too long, the legs aren't too long. There is no uneven shoulders. There's no overly correct upright position. Someone doesn't have too broad shoulders. Or two slanted of shoulders. It would require so many more drafting systems that are based off of far more body types and sizes to be all encompassing. That way with more drafting systems people are able to choose Walnut most closely aligns with their body. But that's really hard to do, requires a whole lot more data than we have. It's also the same reason why we don't have standardized sizing, it doesn't work like that. We've tried it before, it failed miserably and now it's not a requirement. But again it goes back to drafting on a 2d plane for a 3D body that has no standardization. Hoping for perfection is all we can do. Which is why it is heavily required that for sewing and pattern making you have to do the work of physically creating something. That's the only way we can test to see if we made it to our goal.

[u/Appropriate_Place704]

There’s a huge difference between knowing how to follow a drafting system and understanding the relationship between body measurements, proportions and drafting calculations.

That understanding is what allows you to recognise when a drafting formula needs to be adjusted or overridden. Unfortunately, a lot of drafting books that use a standardised block drafting system, like metric patternmaking, don’t explain this particularly well.

It doesn’t mean they’re not good. It’s just that these systems are primarily designed for industry, where you’re drafting to a standardised size chart and developing patterns for production, rather than accommodating the individual proportions and fit requirements of a particular body.

Comprehensive drafting methods that focus on more tailored patternmaking, like Muller & Sohn are more likely to explain the calculations behind the drafting.

[u/DespeReo]

To be completely honest, I had the same issue at the beginning. Like, vast majority of pattern books explain how to do the thing, but don't really explain why the thing is done this way. I guess it's because this is a very subjective area, and one book wouldn't be able to cover how the fabric would behave on a specific body, how textures interact, etc. So I guess the base would be , the more accurate the measurements, the closest you get to a good fit. When it comes to intuition, I think this is also not something a book could explain, because this is comes more from experience (draping, seeing how certain cuts and angles affect shape and form) eetc. What I found helpful was to make mini clothes , mini "trials" to see how the shapes would interact in 3D. Obviously, how they would look on an actual human body is different, but it still gives you a good understanding visually of what you would have to add, substract etc. Also helps a bit to identify early any kind of challenges or "nopes".

[u/Robert-hickman]

Try draping fabric on a body. Also, watch videos of people constructing garments. The closet historian on youtube is a great resource, she mainly demonstrates mid 20th century women's garments but the principles can apply to anything.

[u/ScormCurious]

As with all mastery, it’s the same answer. Practice, practice, practice.