Monday, October 8, 2012

KCWC Day 2: Pattern drafting

I had thought to sew pants from Dana's pattern, but I just wasn't sure how to adapt the sizing (wasn't I just saying yesterday I needed to trust myself more? so much for that!).  Meg of elsie marley has made countless pairs of pants from Happy Handmade Vol 2, pattern O.  Those seem very simple, look great and are available in multiple sizes, so I decided to try those.  I still plan to follow Dana's instructions (it's a great pants tutorial!).

Not being able to read Japanese isn't a big problem.  Most of the directions are pictorial anyway.  The most important tip I've read on other blogs is be sure to add a seam allowance to your pattern (there's a good tutorial about this here).  The tip I didn't read but learned the hard way is notice the little numbers indicated on the fabric layout image.  Those little numbers are specific seam allowance in centimetres.  For these pants, I needed to add an extra 5cm hem and 3.5cm waistband.

  adding seam allowances to my Japanese patterns

The fabric I cut is a meter of navy corduroy with baby owls purchased last year at Spotlight for less than $7. This pattern in size 110 with pockets used all of that.  I will need maybe 1.5 meters to make pants for my older girl.

Alas, with all of the tracing and drafting and cutting and repeating (when I made the seam allowance error), I more than used up my sewing time today without actually starting to sew.  Tomorrow!

3 comments:

  1. You're scaring me now. This all looks terribly complicated. Add that to the fact I have now taken my new sewing-machine out of its box (yeay!) and have read the user guide (booooo!) ... I may now put it back in the box! x

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  2. Do not do that! You can sew, Gayle! If I can, you can. It just takes practice (and some swearing and an occasional leap of faith).

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  3. That's Ok then, the swearing I'm all too good at! :-)

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