Make Your Own Clothes: 20 Custom Fit Patterns to Sew [Paperback]

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (February 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312376642
• ISBN-13: 978-0312376642
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  

Price : $18.76
You Save : $6.19 (25%)

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Customer Reviews

I've got to admit, I only bought this one for the patterns. I don't use sewing instructions, so I haven't even read the book, but I've given the patterns quite a workout. You type in your measurements and the program caculates a pattern which you then print onto lots of sheets of paper (handy hint, shift the pieces around before printing to reduce the page count) and stick together. It's fiddly, but a lot less so than trying to alter a standard sized pattern. I bought this to try out the drafting software with a view to purchasing the full package from Patternmaker, who produced it. I am a patternmaker by trade, but I like the design part, not the drafting from scratch part, so a custom fit basic will save me so much time. I am now teaching hobby sewers, so I've tested the fit on a variety of people, and can see that, with a little care, these patterns will work fairly nicely. The closer to average posture the better, it would seem - the draft relies heavily on the front/back balance being a certain proportion, so women with a pronounced stoop or very upright posture may find it spits out a weird looking pattern that doesn't sit right, and you really need some pattern experience to see how to fix it. I have a slightly forward neck, so it interpreted my back length as all height and made a slightly longwaisted pattern that still needed extra length up to the back neck. One of my students has very rounded shoulders, and a short front, so that didn't work at all, another has a very large bust, and the chest width ended up far too wide. Fixable, but fiddly, and if you didn't know what you were looking at I can see that it would be too frustrating to continue.
I like the range of patterns included. The styles are all quite basic, but as a patternmaker, I don't look at detail, I look at silhouettes, and I felt the styles included could be the starting point for a complete wardrobe. With only a little pattern design knowledge, you could get a huge range of well fitting patterns.
There is quite a lot of information regarding the system available at www.leenas.com, and I understand there is a user group also. The pattern system used to develop the program is fully described, with hand drafting instructions. Worth a visit.
My only gripe would be the silly errors. I can't say if there were any typos in the book, because I haven't read it, but the style sketches don't always match the pattern diagram properly, and I find that kind of thing annoying. One of the patterns also seemed to draft up oddly, but I haven't had time to recheck it. I may have typed in a wrong number. You can't save measurements, although you can print out a set you've entered, so each time you have to re-enter the measurements.
All in all, I'm very happy. It's a versatile addition to my pattern reportoire, and it's fun to use. I don't even mind taping the pages together :-) I think that if you have average posture, this pattern will accommodate girth and length variations reasonably well, but if you find you have to always make lots of alterations to store bought patterns, this may not be the easy fix you'd expect.

I just finished making a Mother of the Groom dress using the tulip skirt modified and Leena's basic fitting shell you download as an extra when you load the software. Other than moving the side dart in the bodice to a waist dart and contouring it a bit for a more fitted dart - I didn't have to any altering. The dress I was copying the skirt had two inverted pleats, but the same shape as the tulip skirt. So instead of three small pleats I combined them into an inverted pleat, again great fit. I just finished the dress on the front cover in a mauve fine Italian wool - WOW looks like a $300 dress.

 

Make Your Own Clothes: 20 Custom Fit Patterns to Sew [Paperback]