According to the tutorial at Weekend Designer, I need five self–measurements and one thin–air measurement.

The self–measurements are as follows:
Bust
Chest
Waist
Back width (across back where armpits start)
Back waist length (from base of neck to waist)

The other measurement is:
Bust dart length

The bust dart length is determined mostly by what bra cup you wear. Don provides a length of 2 ¾”, the length for an average C cup. Unfortunately, I am not a C cup. More’s the pity because my google–fu has failed and I cannot locate a site listing approximate bust dart lengths.

Ohh, my google–fu is back in working order! The blog Pattern School (currently offline), which specialises in teaching techniques for stretch fabrics, has a tutorial for calculating dart width. Although it deals with stretch fabric, I think it might work.

Here is a google cache version of the page. In the tutorial Stuart mentions reducing for ease, which I will omit. When working with wovens it is customary to add for ease because they don’t stretch.

Phew. That saves a headache I wasn’t looking forward to.

continue reading "The Mathematics of Pattern Drafting; Take the First."

Yesterday I posted a brief outline of the Oscar de la Renta gown project I’ve decided to tackle.

It contains a couple of firsts for me as a sewer; pattern drafting, ruching (ruched, not gathered, apparently), sewing many long strips of fabric onto a base and making a Venetian camica.

I have coffee, required measurements, calculator, pencil, eraser, music playing and ferrets to keep me company. I am all set for an afternoon of The Mathematics of Pattern Drafting; Take One.

Gratuitous pictures of Helper Ferrets! Click pictures for bigger.

[All images are clickable.]

When I created this blog it was meant to be a showcase of my writing because I was giving very serious thought to pursuing a career in online freelance. The idea fizzled out and a little over a year ago my passion for sewing kicked in with fervour.

Perhaps in the future I’ll write a post about my love of sewing, how it came to be and how its grown over time.

Today’s post is about a newly planned project; my very own Oscar de la Renta dress. Or rather a remake of one courtesy of Don over at Weekend Designer.

At first glance the dress only involves doing one thing I haven’t done before – drafting a pattern from scratch. Except I never really do things the easy way and upon closer inspection I discovered putting the dress together is going to be more work then initially expected.

The dress in question looks like this:

Images from Net-A-Porter

And the instructions from Weekend Designer are here.

continue reading "My very own Oscar."