It’s hard to believe, but my first year of pattern drawing classes is coming to an end. Only a couple more classes left. It went so fast!
Shortly after New Year’s, we finished up drawing skirt patterns. In theory, I should now be able to draw up any type of skirt for any size and any posture. In practice, I’m not that confident yet. My first try at a maternity skirt was not really a success. But I’ll save that story for a different post.
After the skirts, we moved on to trousers. There’s a lot more to keep in mind when you’re drawing trousers! Let’s just say we’re not in Kansas anymore…
I won’t go into all the technical details, but I did learn quite some fun facts already, so I thought I’d share them with you:
- Don’t waste time and effort on drawing up your own jeans. You’ll never be able to process the fabric like the big brands do, it’s easier to just buy a pair and make some adjustments, if necessary. Of course, if you are like me, this fact may keep lingering in your head until, one day, you’ll yell ‘Challenge… accepted!’
- Don’t waste time and effort on drawing up (and sewing) fancy suit pants for men. The way in which the pockets and the lining need to be finished will take a lot of time and cause a lot of frustrations. Just buying a suit is a lot easier. And for this one, I don’t think you’ll ever hear me yell ‘Challenge accepted’… Sweat suit pants are a completely different story, of course. You can do whatever you want with those.
- Drawing up a pair of (simple) trousers for men is a completely different technique than drawing them up for women, apparently. All because we are built differently. During this class, we’re focusing on women’s trousers only, but I did find out one big difference between the two. Apparently, you can recognize a good tailor by the questions he/she asks his/her clients. Because a good tailor should always ask a man how it’s hanging. Literally. A good pattern and a good fitted pair of trousers provides some extra room on one side. We didn’t go into any details, so I have no idea what the pattern would look like, but I did find it intriguing. Of course, in a way, it’s logical, isn’t it? When we learn how to draw up skirts and dresses next year, we’ll provide the extra room for our breasts as well, after all.
Anyway, during the last class, we had a test. Draw a pair of women’s classic trousers, and in doing so, use the measurements on the board. Fortunately, we could keep our course material with us. Still, it took me all 3,5 hours to come up with a pattern. And then we didn’t even have to take posture into account. I wonder how I did…
All in all, I must say this class is more intensive and more difficult than I would have thought. There really is quite some math involved, and I am pretty tired when I come home late at night. But it’s also very fullfilling. Well, it will be, if the test went well…
