Patterncutting: How to Draft a Skirt Block

1. Intro: [MUSIC] We find it so frustrating trying to alter commercial patterns, trying to make them fit you or otherwise you just want to redesign them so that you're wearing something different, or if you're like me, you love going hope shopping, charity shops to try and find some fabulous '50s or '60s dresses. The larger, the better to make new garments out of them. [LAUGHTER]. Hi, I'm Victoria Hannah, I'm an x fashion designer and senior pattern cut off from the couture part of fashion. I have no regrets about leaving that life behind. It was exciting, but it was also extremely stressful career. Nowadays I'm an artist and a surface pattern designer. But my takeaway from fashion is that I love tutoring. In this class, I'm going to teach you how to make a basic skirt block called a sloper in the United States, make it out of calico to fit you perfectly. Now it doesn't matter if you are a skinny or a curvy, it will fit you perfectly, might take a couple of goes. But I'll teach you how to take your measurements, apply those measurements to your skirt draw from a blank piece of paper, cut it out in calico and sew it. Know, you have to be able to sew. Then from that you'll be able to create any design imaginable that comes out of your head, anything. Now you don't need any prior knowledge to do this class. You could be at home somewhere, you could be a prospective fashion student. You could be just a complete beginner. I'll give you all the notes you need. You'll have a diagram, you'll have a list of equipment supplies of which you'll find in your local craft store. You'll have video lessons as well. But once you find out what pattern cutting can do for your wardrobe and the clothes that you can make, you will be so happy. Once you start wearing clothes that you feel comfortable and that fits you perfectly and you know you look good in them, you exude a confidence that no one can dent. I'll see you in class. 2. Your Project: Your project for this class is to draft the skirt block with your measurements and then you're going to be cutting it out in calico and sewing it up and then fitting it on yourself. I'll go through any perspective problems at the end of the class. But the reason we started with a skirt blocker because it's the easiest garment to draft and start with for beginners. Other resources to help you all find your measurement sheet, you'll find your notes, and also a diagram. Also, I've given a list of professional suppliers. You'll find most of his equipment in your local craft store anyhow. But the very first thing I want you to do is take your measurements and write them on the measurement sheet. There's a couple of fraction measurements you have to do as well, but believe me, they're not difficult. I was bottom of my class in maths right through my schooling, and yet I became a senior pattern cutter, so you'll be fine. The thing that I really want you to spend a little bit of money on is buying a good set square and a metal meter stick or yardstick, wood tends to warp. Also on your set square, it's a 90-degree angle, 45 degrees. The bigger the better, no less than 30 centimeters or 12 inches. Do not get a 60-degree angle, it's a 45-degree angle, 90 degrees. Get your paper ready on the table. Get all your equipment ready. One thing, steam your calico because calico shrinks, so you must have a good iron and steam that. Get everything ready and let's start our class. Bye. 3. Equipment List: [MUSIC] We're ready to start drafting. But first of all, I just want to give you a list of the equipment, so you know what to get and what not to get. I mean, as I said before, you'll have most of it at home or otherwise you'll find it in your local craft store. I have also given you a list of international fashion suppliers. Let's go through and have a look at the list, exciting. First of all, you're going to get a large cutting back just to protect your tabletop. This here is unbleached calico. I'd strongly advise you not to use old sheets because they've been filled with body moisture over the years and of course, even after the being washed, they just go rotten. This here is tracing paper. As you can see, I've had it for years. My mom bought it for me when I was young, so it's quite valuable to me [LAUGHTER] But it has proved very useful over the years. This here is a bar stick, they now come in plastic. This is an old fashion wooden one, but it's much more valuable than buying a French curve, which to me would be useless. These are great for your hip lines and for your waist curves and for a variety of lines. As I've mentioned before, please invest in a really good set square. It is 90 degree angle with 45 degrees, which is useful for doing bias lines on patterns and also for folding over fabric for bias strips. Pins, a metric and imperial tape measure. I use metric because I trained and I'm a Kiwi. But the notes, you'll find the notes I have actually mentioned. I've also made the equivalent in inches as well. All of these are on the notes, you've got nine sheets here. I have spread the notes out that you can write notes everywhere. Paper masking tape. If you get a dispenser as well, it'll prove really useful, especially when you're trying to fold out dots. You've got one hand here and you just want to pull the tape off and just stick it on easy. Paper shears, it's worth spending a bit of money getting some if you are going to do a lot of this work. Don't ever let anybody else hold your shears or use them because they'll send them out of alignment by the way they handle them and also half the time they throw them back on the table which definitely sends your shears out of alignment. Hand whites, pencil, sharpener eraser, tracing wheel and also your valuable meter or yard rule. This here is the patent paper. No, this is actually computer pattern paper, but you can also button the craft store as well as fashioned supplies have it as well. Don't use newsprint please, because I'll put just paper because it rips to easily. Now the optional extras, you can get some fabric shears. Don't ever use those for paper because paper is made from wood, so don't use them on paper. If you want to go and do more pattern cutting, then probably invest in a little hole punched to make your thing to feel dots. [LAUGHTER] actually it's threatening because it's got another little piece inside and that's for a smaller hole. That's all. This is an hole, or some people call this the letter. It's holding down your dot, pivoting it out, making holes into patterns. There's your list. Let's party and start drafting. We're ready, let's start. I'll see you in the next lesson. Bye. [LAUGHTER] 4. How to Measure Yourself Correctly: Before you start your draft, [MUSIC] you have to measure yourself. I just want to show you how to measure yourself correctly. Or maybe I'll use the [NOISE] imperial metric tape measure. [MUSIC] Always put two fingers in between you and the body, just gives you a little bit of extra ease, that's all. Your top hip is eight centimeters or three inches below the waist. [NOISE] Just make sure that that's straight around there. Make sure the measurement and you're not letting it fall down anywhere. Then the full hip measurement is actually 23 centimeters below the waist, not 20 centimeters as you'll read in most places. That's nine inches is the fullest part. Again, make sure it's straight. I'm actually going to show you on me how to measure your lower hip. Then, of course, the last measurement is your center front waist to your below-the-knee measurement. I say below the knee because it's a flattering length, it's better than being on the knee. If I measure my hip at the 20-centimeter mark, which is around about eight inches self measure, there, that's 103 centimeters, about 40.5 inches. But now if I measure my hip at the true fullest part, about 23 centimeters down, nine inches, and then I drop it a little bit over my thighs. You can see that my thighs, they're coming out here, and then you can see it's slightly up on my behind. It's 104.5 centimeters, which is about 41 inches. Most women do come out here and also we dip in here. Keep my top straight so it's easier. [inaudible] Most women come out here, we dip and then we come out here. Quite often, this measurement, the supposed fullest hip is not always the fullest. Drop the tape measure a little bit over the top of your thighs. I want to mention something here. If you ever notice that your side seams on your skirts start to kick forward or the back area, the behind area gets a bit baggy, especially on your pants if it gets baggy and you get baggy knees, it's because, men do this, when they sit down, they'll pull up their pants and sit down like this, women tend not to do it. Even if you're in a straight skirt before you sit down, pull up just gently like this. I don't know if you'll see if I show you here. If I don't do anything, I've got a big tension mark all the [MUSIC] way from my behind through to my baggy knees. Before you sit down, pull them up like this and it makes everything much more comfortable on your waist, on your behind, saves your side seams and your fabric and your beautiful garment. Lecture for the day. [LAUGHTER] 5. Half Scale Skirt Draft~The Front: [MUSIC] You've just seen me write half scale here. That's because I wanted to fit the draft directly underneath the camera so it's a little easier for you to see. I've used my measurements and I've just done half scale to my measurements. Don't forget to fill out the sheet. Print off all your sheets. Print them off in color if you can, because my notes are in red, green, and black. Now, I wanted to explain about the three-tenth management. I'm probably selling sea salt back to the ocean here, but I just wanted to explain it anyhow. Point 9 - 11 on the front waist and point 14 - 16 on the back waist is 3/10 of half waist plus 1 centimeter on the front end, minus 2 centimeters on the back. Now, this is a variable measurement because it's the position of the dot. If the three-tenths really confuses you, it doesn't matter if you're a few millimeters out. But from those points on, you have to follow the draft again. For example, my waist is 82 centimeters, half my waist is 41 centimeters, 1/10 of half my waist is 4.1 centimeters times 3 for my 3/10 of half waist is 12.3 centimeters. Let's start the draft. First of all, start by creating a rectangle half the width of your hip. I'm actually going to be using a black marker so you can see the lines clearly. Half the width of your hip plus the length of your skirt plus 1 centimeter. Now, hold your set square really firmly and then batch or type your ruler up against it. I'm actually not going to be using this through this draft because the draft is the half scale. I just wanted to show you that. This is 0.0. Zero to one is your front waist to hem length plus 1 centimeter seam allowance. You'll see these measurements look really odd, that's because I'm doing half scale, so please ignore the measurements. I'm just going to show you how and where to take the measurements. Now to double-check to make sure you always get your 90 degree right angle correct, just double-check sometimes. Thirty-five. You'll see that it's perfect. Even if you're a fraction out like this here, once you get to the other end, if it's a greater distance, you'll have problems with your rectangle. Zero to two, this is 1. Zero to two is your hip height. Waist to full hip height plus one centimeter seam allowance. Again, you can double-check your measurements. Two to three is half your hips plus 4 centimeters or one and five-eighths inches. This is for your ease allowance plus your side seams. Now this is where these set squares come in really handy when they've got the center line. If you've got one that's got a blank, and no lines at all, please mark it. Dead center. Because if you try and use it this way, let's do a line down there, oops, and a line there, you're always trying to line it up, whereas you can just use it just like this. It makes life a lot easier. This is point 3, point 4, and 5 is at the same to back hem. Two to six is halfway 2 - 3 less five millimeters or quarter of an inch towards the back seam. Square against the line 2 - 3 up to point 7 and at eight down at the hem. Zero to nine is one centimeter. Square out five centimeters or two inches, approximately. Nine to ten is quarter of the waist plus 5.75 centimeters or two and three-eighth inches. Now this is for the dirt allowance for ease as well as your side seam. Make a mark there and then you square up one centimeter against this line. That's point 10. Now this is where you use your curve ruler. Nine to eleven is 3/10 of half waist plus 1 centimeter. Eleven to twelve is three centimeters. Just make a little mark right in the center. You're going to square against this new curve line for the front way start. Now 13 is 11 centimeters or four and three-eighth inches on this line. [MUSIC] Join 13 to 11 and to 12 respectively. Now that's the front way start. We'll move on [NOISE] to the back now. 6. The Back: Fourteen from four is one centimeter, so to square out from there, approximately two inches, five centimeters, and 15 from 14 is quarter of the waist minus 1 centimeter plus 6.85 centimeters with two and three-quarter inches. This is for the ease allowance plus two dots plus the side seam. From 0.15 to square up one centimeter, and then you use your curve rule again drawing the back waistline. Fourteen to 16 is 3/10 of half waist minus two centimeters. Sixteen to 17 is three centimeters or one-on-one eighth inch. Measure halfway in-between, just make a little mark. Then rule against the curved waistline down to 0.18. Eighteen is 13 centimeters or five inches on that line. Join 18 to 16 and to 17 respectively. Seventeen to 19 is three centimeters or one-on-one eighth inch,19 to 20 is two centimeters or three-quarters of an inch and make another little mark in there. Again, square down against the curved waistline to 0.21. Twenty-one is 11 centimeters or four and a half inches on that line. Join 21 to 19 and to 20. Now, we'll join 15 to 6 and 10 to 6 with the curved rule. Now quite often, this is quite a shallow line compared to the front side seam and that's because of the two dots that pushes it out, but you need the dots there for the behind area. But it might change. It depends on your figure type. Now, points 22 and 23 on the draft, I've said coming 1.5 or 5/8 of an inch either side of the side seam and the center back seam. This is if you want to create a tighter silhouette. I've marked them in green because they're optional. Quite often, I mean I've pulled in skirts, probably at least 5, 6 centimeters sometimes if they wanted to be really tight, but that usually if it's a stretchy fabric. It's around about 35 centimeters down from the waist where your hip area starts to curve down towards the thighs, 22, 23. It's thigh is 1.5 either side of the side seam, 5/8 of an inch and the same with the center back, 1.5 or 5/8 of an inch and just square up a little bit. Then I'll just use a free hand because you'll find that the curve is actually too, it brings up too much of a point. I'll just gently, I'm not doing a very good job, but you'll get the idea. It really depends on where the fullness in your body lies. It might be a little bit low, might be higher, The same with the dark position. You might have to move them over and move this over as well. You won't know until you finish your first 12. I'm just going to add a centimeter, I mean, 2.5 centimeter hem allowance here on my scale one. I probably normally at about a five centimeter hem, I like deep hems because it actually adds weight to the skirt and makes them sit a lot nicer. We'll also add a two centimeter or three quarter of an inch center back seam. I'll just do it against the straight line, for your zip allowance. A couple of notches just for the bottom of the zip. If you're going to do the silhouette, a tighter silhouette, you will have to make this line curve in as well. [MUSIC] Let's reshape the dots. [MUSIC] 7. Reshape the Waist : [MUSIC] Before we actually manipulate the dots for the correct shaping, I just want to show you something here that if you want to keep this draft in one piece and not use it at all, we're going to cut this one up because you're going to either cut it up, or otherwise just keep it as a reference. You can trace it off. Now, I'm using some of my precious tracing paper that my mom gave me when I was a young girl. I've had it for no, I don't want to tell you how many years. [LAUGHTER] I'm just going to show you something, so you would use your tracing wheel. You would keep this draft as your reference, and then you'll trace off this here. I'm just going to show you just very briefly. You have to make sure you've traced off everything correctly. These are your side seam notches. Your center front fold, your dot. Mark your notches and your back wise as well. Make sure that you mark your trace off everything absolutely perfectly. Otherwise, you have to put it back underneath the draft and try and match it up which will be quite difficult. You can use your stiletto here. This is what you can cut out. This will be your actual pattern that you're going to be working with. We're not going to do that. We're going to actually cut into the draft. But that's if you wanted to keep this one as a reference. What we're going to do now, is we're going to cut down our side seams, and I've actually already cut off my front and my center back seam and my hem. Then we're going to fold out the dots, to create the correct angle because they're not at the moment. The dots always fold towards the side seam. Now, just hold it, I would normally use my nails but they're a bit shorter at the moment. Fold this side here the closest to the center front, and to the center back. Try not to bruise the paper too much. I'm making it a bit of a mess here at the moment, and the same to the start here. Then what I do, is put your stiletto, your hole at that point and fold it over. Put a little bit of tape there. Do the same to the other side. It makes it easy once you've made that fold. Put another tape there. You can see how the angle is not right is because we've folded out the dots. You can use your curve, but really it's easy, just the free hand. I don't even free hand anymore, I just use my scissors straightaway, but I know you'll get used to it. Let's do the same to the front. If you don't have one of these you can choose to use the point of your scissors, shouldn't really do that actually. [LAUGHTER] Maybe use a pencil and fold it out right there. This is your new waistline. Now, you have your correct shape. You'll mark your notches here, your side seam notches half an inch. You must mark these notches here as well. Now, we'll double-check that side seam. This is not bad, but sometimes when you find it's really quite shallow here and that's quite, if you've got a definite way suppression when it really comes in, you'll find that this might be quite curved and that still might be quite flat. In which case, when you check the side seam, it's going to be a discrepancy. You usually come halfway in-between, add a little bit on the front, take it off the back or whatever. Now we're going to chip measurements. [MUSIC] 8. Check Measurements and Create Waist Facings: [MUSIC] Now you have to check your measurements against the measurements that you took. Just to make sure that you've got the correct amount of ease allowance. Measure your full hip, excluding the center back seam if you've added it and the side seams to the central front. That measurement should be half your hip measurement plus at least three centimeters ease about inch and an eighth inches, inch and a quarter. I've also marked here, this is your top hip line which is about eight centimeters down, three inches I think that is from the waist. Again, just measure along this line as well, excluding the dots, excluding the side seam. The same here, along here, excluding the dot to the center front seam. That measurement should be the same, should be half your top hip measurement plus 2-3 centimeters inch, inch and a quarter ease. Exactly the same on the waist as well. Measure one centimeter down, which is your actual waist sewing line, excluding the dots, excluding the side seam. Then that measurement should be half of your waste measurement plus 2-3 centimeters of ease inch, inch and a quarter. Now, I want to show you how you could have drill holes in your dots because you need to know where to mark on your fabric when you're cutting it out. The drill hole always sits around about one centimeter, three-eighths of an inch to about half an inch or 12 millimeters up from the finished dot. This is why I say that you have to have a mat. You don't want to dig into your table. Never do your drill hole at the bottom because, if you have a mark there or a drill hole there and you sew down to there, it's going to be a perforation in your fabric, you're not going to be very happy. Now, we're going to fold out the dots to make the front waist and the back waist facings. I've already drawn a center, this will be my center front line. Just draw around it like this. Make a mark there, hold your pencil at the bottom of the dot, move it around, trace off the rest of the waist. Make sure you do your same notch. Then usually facings are around about, probably about six centimeters deep. This is half scale, so I'll probably just do this around about 3.5 at the moment. I should be using my marker actually. We'll do you the back ways now. Just back your sewing, make a mark, pivot it around to where it meets. Do the same to the side dot pivot around where it meets. This is your back facing. You'll do the same thing again. Now, you can see here that that's also the start if you'd take it down a bit further. I mean, that's the start of a hip yoke. These can be both hip yoke and then you can make another skirt coming off from here, flare it out or gather it. You can start to see where your designs can take you to your dreams. After you've finished your waist facings, the grain line will be parallel to the waist seam, because you don't want any stretch on these two lines here. You don't want the grain line going the same way as the skirt. This is the warp grain or the salvage grain. We'll just do a grain one there and you'll do the same to the back. Now, on the skirt, I want you to make sure that you've marked your straight grain. When it's a half pattern like this, do your front grain against the fold like this here, just showing that it is a folder center front fold and the back. It's parallel to center back. Now, your back skirt block is cut one pair, it is never cut two. Quite often you'll see senior pattern cutters do this as well now, cut two on a pattern. That is totally incorrect because you can cut two pieces the same way out. What have you left with? You're left with one side that doesn't work. Just cut one pair when it's two pieces and it's a pair. This is cut 1. I should write cut 1 on the fold. We've finished our little draft now to get sewing. When you're going to cut your new pattern out on color code just to check everything is on grain and straight. When you fold your fabric over, measure from the salvage, bring it into the camera. On the salvage back to your fold, and it's 31.5. Make sure it is exactly the same the other side at the bottom. Again 31.5. It's really, really important, especially if you've got a straight skirt, that's a long straight scared or particularly in pants. If it's not on grain or even if you've swung your pant leg and you've not measured correctly, your pant leg will swing. But even in a long skirt, it will swing, you'll notice it. Makes sure that it's exactly on grain. This is right on your center front here. Now, if you're working against the salvage that's tight like this also, don't forget to steam your calico before you cut it, it will shrink. Over about 80 centimeters, it will probably shrink a centimeter. Please steam your calico first. If you've ever got tight salvage is like this, just go down them, down the side like this and notch them. You want to release that. At the end of the skirt draft notes, points 22 and 23 are an optional extra. I've identified them with the grain lines, but what you can do is just bring in the hands on the side seam and the center back, 1.5 centimeters, a five, eight of an inch each seam. What it does is it gives a lovely flattering silhouette to the skirt. Here you can see I've pinned the side seams and the center back as well. You can see it so much more flattering line and it gives you a little bit of a shape at the back as well, which is always really flattering. [MUSIC] 9. Full Scale Skirt Draft~Notes Explanation: Before we start, I just wanted to go through a couple of things briefly. Print out all your notes in color if can because I've done the conversion for imperial and pink and there's a couple of measurements that I've put in brackets and I've just put those in pale blue so you don't get them mixed up with the actual measurement required. Write your name and the date on the sheet, as well as your measurements. It's interesting to look back in a couple of years to see if you've put on weight like me or lost weight. But it's just a nice reference to have. Something else I wanted to go through to explain, I'm probably stating the obvious here, but I want to explain it anyhow. Nine to 11 on the front waist, and 14-16 on the back waist. These are positions for the dots, so they're a bit of a variable measurement. For example, my waist is 82 centimeters, 32 and a quarter inches. Half waist says 41 centimeter, 16 one one eighth inch. One tenth of my half waist is 4.1 centimeters. This is why I love metric, so easy. Times 3 equals 3/10 of my 1/2 waist is 12.3 centimeters, or just under five inches. Now 9-11 is 3/10 of 1/2 waist plus 1 centimeter. Fourteen to 16 is 3/10 of 1/2 waist minus 2 centimeters or 3/4 of an inch. It gets pushed back a bit because you've got two dots here. Whereas I say they're variables and if you get confused with the 3/10 measurement, just place the front one halfway between nine and 10 and the back one halfway between 14 and 15, but a little bit back towards the center back scene. Now something else I wanted to say is I'm going to be using this sits where and my meter rule just to show you how to use those to make your rectangle but I'm actually going to be using this larger set square through the draft because it's clear, you can see all the way through it and I might use my little grading rule which I haven't mentioned them in the equipment list, but you might be able to get bonding. You can definitely get them in the fashion supplies place. I'm not sure about the craft stores, but they're handy little rulers to have and also you never have to do this draft again. You make it up once for yourself and once you've perfected the color code, you never have to use it again because this here becomes your base for doing any other designs that you want to do. Let's start drafting [MUSIC] 10. The Front: [MUSIC] We're going to start with a rectangle. The length of your skirt plus one centimeter or three-eighths of an inch waist seam allowance and half your hip width plus a little bit of extra for the ease allowance. Place your meter stick exactly like this here, but hold it firmly. You'll notice all my lines have already been drawn, but I'm going over in black marker for you so you can see clearly. Now, keep your ruler firmly in place like this here and then batch your set square up against it carefully. Hold on to it. Don't move it. Keep it firmly in place and then batch your meter stick up against it like that. Now I'll have to move the paper to show you the other side, but I just want to mark this here. This is 0-1 and do the same the other side. Make sure your set square is exactly on that line. Be really precise about this because you don't want your rectangle to go out of alignment. Hold it firmly in place then batch your meter stick or your yardstick up against that and do your other line. Now to double-check your alignment, your rectangle, measure your distance 0-1 and they should be absolutely spot on. Zero to two is your waist to full hip length plus one centimeter or three-eighths of an inch waist seam allowance. Now from here you can just measure it. You can use your set square if you want to. It's 24. Now I'm going to start using my large set square, 0-2. I had to move to get it underneath the camera. Two to three is your hip measurement plus four centimeters, just looking at my notes here, sorry, plus four centimeters or one five-eighth inches. Make it black, that's three. Now this is where these set squares, even if they're blank and I think I've mentioned before about ruling a line right down the center, but the bigger the better if you can get them because the beauty of them is you don't have to worry about using them like this and then trying to line up the other side. Just use like this here. There's a space here. This is four. This is five. Now six is halfway between two to three, less six millimeters or quarter of an inch towards three. Square against that line up to seven and down to eight. Now I'm actually using four sheets of A3 paper to do this on, a bit expensive, I know. But it's good because I can actually see my joins in the paper. Zero to nine is one centimeter or three-eighths of an inch. Square at approximately five centimeters, two inches. Nine to ten is quarter of your waist plus 5.5 centimeters or two and three-eighth inches. Make a mark. I'm going to use my little grading rule here. Square up one centimeter, three-eighths of an inch and that's actually Point 10 there. Now this is where you're curvy ruler comes in. This is an old one, but nowadays I think they're perspex. It's not very steady on this table. Nine to 11 is three-tenths of half waist plus one centimeter. Eleven to 12 is three centimeters or one and a quarter inches, I think it is, one and one-eighth inch. Now square down against that new curved line at the waist down to Point 13 and 13 is 11 centimeters on that line. Now I'm taking up a little bit above the waistline and you'll see why a bit later. It's to reshape the dots. [MUSIC] Now let's start on the back. 11. The Back: [MUSIC] As I've mentioned before, these measurements are my measurements. I actually lost my color code block when I moved from Australia back to England here. I'm going to be making this up to show you on myself at the end. I promise [LAUGHTER] I won't be fiddling around with it, it will be exactly as you see here on my body. Four to fourteen is one centimeter square at approximately five centimeters two inches. [NOISE] Get used to writing your numbers immediately on the draft, otherwise, it is easy to lose your way especially when you're just starting out. Fourteen to fifteen is quarter of your waist minus 1 centimeter, 3/8 of an inch, plus 6.85 centimeters or 2 and 3/4 inches. I've tried to do the conversion as precise as possible. But don't worry, I mean, you're working with fabric against flesh, they both move. That's not the end of the world of it's a little bit out. Make a mark. Square at one centimeter or 3/8 of an inch, this is 15. Now you're going to use your curved rule again [NOISE] to draw in your back waist. Excuse me if my head gets in the camera sometimes. [NOISE] Fourteen to sixteen is 3/10 of halfway minus 2 centimeters or 3/4 of an inch. Sixteen to seventeen is three centimeters or one-on-one eighth inch, and make a little mark in the center, and [NOISE] square down against the new curved waistline, to 0.18. [NOISE] Eighteen is 13 centimeters or five inches on that line. Again, take the line a little bit above the waist. Seventeen to nineteen, is three centimeters or one-on- one- eighth inches. Nineteen to twenty is two centimeters or 3/4 of an inch, make a little mark in the center again, [NOISE] squared and against that curved waistline, the 0.21. [NOISE] Twenty one is 11 centimeters or 4.5 inches on that line. [NOISE] Connect 21 to 19, just take the line a little bit above and 21 to 20. [NOISE] Now, we are going to join 15 to 6, and 10 to 6 with your curved rule. [NOISE] Now you'll notice that my front hip is a bit more curved than my back, I'm actually quite straight between my waist than my hips. But a lot of people have a definite way suppression. This might come in a lot further here and here as well. But usually this line will come out, it's shallow compared to the front because you've got the two dots. Sometimes you might not need two dots, but you won't know until you make your first twilight. [MUSIC] 12. Tighter Silhouette and Tracing Off: [MUSIC] Now points 22 and 23 [NOISE] are actually where the hip starts to curve down towards the thigh. Now, it depends on how tall or short you are. It's the same with the full hip measurement, it might be higher or lower. But if you want a tighter silhouette as I've indicated with the green lines on the draft here, you have to shape it in towards the hem. You can actually bring it in as much as you want if you want a really tight skirt. But invariably that would be on a stretch fabric. Once you tighten up the hem, you definitely have to have a slit at the center back to be able to walk. We're going to put this here. [NOISE] Indicate in green. Twenty-two and 23 respectively are 35 centimeters approximately down from the waist. [NOISE] Mark 1.5 centimeters or five-eighths of an inch either side of 0.8 at the side him and the same at the center back, then square up approximately five centimeters, two inches. [NOISE] You'll notice I've added my hem on since the last video. I added five centimeters, it's up to you. I don't like raw hem on my blocks. [NOISE] Now you can use the curve rule if you want to add your line but it becomes in too sharp, so what I do is I just usually [NOISE] freehand. I'm making a miss here, but you get the idea. We need to make your block, then you'll know the silhouette you actually want. But it gives a really, really nice line because otherwise, it's a bit boxy. Usually, when I'm cutting with my scissors, I can get my shape anyhow. [NOISE] Now, what we're going to do is we're going to cut out our blocks, front and back, and we're going to re-shape the dots. But I want to show you something beforehand actually. Now, if you want to keep your draft in one piece as a reference and you don't want to cut it out, then you'll have to trace it off. I've got some of my old tracing paper here that my mom gave me when I was a young girl. It's been so useful over the years. You have to get a [NOISE] tracing wheel and your awl, your stiletto, and trace it off. You've got to be absolutely precise and get everything. Otherwise, if you make a mistake and forget something, you have to try and match it with the lines that you've traced off, and it becomes a little frustrating. As you can see, I've already drawn on my seam lines. This is an important notch, the hip seam here. Mark all your seam notches. Mark your dots. The bottom if you don't. Center front line, I'm just going to do a portion of it, just to show you what you have to do. Dots. [NOISE] You must weight it at the same time, you don't want everything to move around. [NOISE] See how I forgot my side seam there. Luckily I haven't moved too much here, but if you've moved it away, that's an absolute pain to try and match it up with these lines again, so you do have to be really careful. That way, then you can start manipulating this pattern, moving out your dots, which is what we're going to do next on the actual draft. [MUSIC] This will be your pattern. Then you'll always have this in one piece as a reference. 13. Check Measurements and Reshape Darts: [MUSIC] Before we reshape the way suppression dots for the correct waist curve. It's a good idea to check your measurements to make sure you've got at least 2-3 centimeters or inch and a quarter ease overall because you don't want it to be your exact waist measurement. If it's too tight, it's too difficult to work out how much to add extra. Whereas if it's a little bit bigger and you need that ease to be able to breathe, then you can easily pin it if it's too big. You will measure excluding the side seams, excluding the center back seam, and you'll do the same here. Measure down approximately eight centimeters. I think that's three inches for your top hip. Do the same. Measure excluding the dots, excluding the side seam and check that and the same to your waist, excluding the dots. On every measurement you should have at least 2-3 centimeters, an inch, and a quarter overall ease. Now we're going to reshape the dots. The dots always fall towards the side seam. What we're going to do now is we're going to make a perforation along the lines that we're going to fold. Then gently fold the paper, try not to bruise it. Fold each line like this. You can use your nail, I haven't got long nails at the moment, but you can use a nail or otherwise the pen if you don't have a slater. Hold at that point and fold it over and put a little bit of tape there. It's a bit tricky here. Then reshape your waist. We don't really need to draw it, but you can actually feel your way with your shears in here. This is where I said when you extend that line, that's why. We'll do the same to the back. I know it's a bit fiddly actually sometimes. I haven't got a spot on. It does make it easy once you've done that perforation with the tracing wheel. You can see you can't leave it as it was because it's just too sharp, so you just need to make sure it's a nice curve. This is your new curve waistline. Now pattern markings. The strike grain of the fabric is the grain that is parallel to the salvage. It's called the warp grain. A good way that I used to tell my students to remember was Captain Kirk, talking about warp speed and Star trick. I don't know crazy. [LAUGHTER] But I remembered actually. The warp grain is the strong grain, it's the salvage grain. Always mark your grain on your patterns. Something else I was just going to mention to you then? oh, yes, when it's on the fold, draw it like this here. Also, grain lines are extremely important and pens [MUSIC] 14. Create Waist Facings: [MUSIC] Now we're going to make a waist facing for the front and the back. It's very easy. It's just a matter of pivoting out the draft. We've got my center front line here which I've marked center front fold, my front brought up against it. Make a mark where the dot starts, pivot it around. Mark in your side seam notch. Facings are around about six, seven centimeters, we'll make this about 7.5. Square off center front because you don't want to finish the point, and the same to the back, always marking your notches. Mark a point where the dot starts, pivot the dot around, mark second dot, pivot that around, mark in your side seam. Square grid against the center back. Now the grain line for your facings and even for waist bands does not go the same way as your skirt. You need it to be strong, you need it to hold your waist in place. The grain line goes parallel to the selvage and the warp grain. Again, we square against the center front line, and same with the back. This has two arrows because I cut one pair, this is on the fault, so it actually [MUSIC] should go right up to the fold line. 15. Important Pattern Markings and Cutting Out: [MUSIC] You just have to make some holes in the dot so that you can map through to the fabric below. This is my little hole hole punch. It's rattling because you can get them with two different sizes. You make the mark approximately one centimeter three-eighths of an inch up to half an inch above the finish dot point because you didn't want to add it right on the point. Because if you do and then you have a black pin or you put a hole there so your dot down to that point, you're going to have a hole in your [inaudible]. You're not going to be very happy. I'll put a little circle around it. Now we're ready to place onto your calico that you have steamed. Make sure getting your shrinkage out of it and ready to cut it out. If the calico has a tight hedge, you can always do this. Just snip it at the edge like this. As I said before, the grain on the waist facing goes down parallel with the selvage. I want you to be really precise placing against the straight grain. If this were a pair of pants and you hit the off-grain, your pant leg would swing around, and it's quite common. Even in a skirt, especially if it's a longer skirt and it's off-grain like this, it will definitely swing. Make sure that you measure your grainline. On this instance here I fold it right on the fold here, but I know that that's a straight grain. But if you got it folded slightly crooked, then you're going to have a problem. Make sure that you measure precisely from the straight grain mark to the selvage. Make sure they're absolutely even. Now we're ready to cut out and make up our calico skirt wall. [MUSIC] I just want to point out something here about pattern markings and cut 1 pair. Cut 1 on the fold is self-explanatory. But cut 1 pair, you'll find a lot of pattern cutters in industry still write cut 2, and that is technically incorrect. I've seen this happen in the cutting room when the cutter is actually cut to the one side up. The other side hasn't got a pair to it and got into trouble until he stood his ground. But it is cut 1 pair, never cut 2. Cut 2 means you're cutting this side of the skirt. You can just cut 2. Sure, you can cut 1 pair, but technically it means just cut 2 like that. Cut 1 pair means it's mirrored, so you have a left and a right side. [MUSIC] 16. A Finished Skirt Toile: [MUSIC] This is my new skirt block. I'll lift up my top so you can see the waist. I'll come a little bit closer. The side seam is sitting nice and straight. It's a little bit big on the hip. I might need that as I'm going to sit down. The waist is definitely a little bit big, so I'll take that in. I like to sit a little bit higher. I'll move back so that I can pull on the back hem so that you can have a look and see what a flattering line taking it in at the side hem and the center back would be but on your master block, you have to keep the side seams straight, parallel to the center front and center back because you always need that as a reference for new designs. I'll come closer so you can see everything. [NOISE] As I mentioned before, get used to pulling up your skirts and your pants in the front here just a little bit to release the tension that comes from your behind through to your knee. If you watch me here, last time I was in a pair of pants, but now I'm in the skirt block, I'll show you but can you see the tension? You can feel it on your thighs. If you go to sit down like that, it also especially if you are in a waistband, it cuts your waist and then it crucifies your waist. Before you sit down, just pull it up a little bit and straightaway it feels comfortable all the way through. You've lessened the tension here. Here I am on the studio floor again, my favorite position, creating a new design out of my brand new skirt block. You can do exactly the same thing. Pencil and eraser and your skirt block, you can create dreams. Now, something I wanted to mention before. When you're fitting your new design on you in front of a mirror or even if you're in a retail store and you're trying on a garment, you're not too sure if you like the silhouette or there's something about you're not too sure, take a photograph or get somebody to take a photograph of you in it and you'll see straight away when you look at the photograph, you become objective and you'll realize straight away if you like it or you don't like it but when you're looking in the mirror, you're too close to it emotionally. It's always better to get a friend to take a photograph, put your camera on a timer and just take a photograph but do it. Take the photograph because then you'll see straight away if you like it or you don't like it, or there might be something [MUSIC] about the silhouette that you don't like. 17. Troubleshooting: [MUSIC] A good way to tell if your side seam is straight or not is to hold the tape measure at your waist. You can hold, you can stick it with paper tape and then just let it fall down to the heam but put a weight at the bottom of the tape measure and it'll just fall stripe naturally. But if it's not, if it's kicking back, for example, like this, that's why I made my blocks here a little bit bigger so that I can fiddle around with them. If your back is maybe a bit fuller, it's going to pull your side seam back. The same applies to the front of your stomach has a bit bigger than it might pull your side seam forward a little bit. The way to rectify that is you might need bigger darts to go over the fuller part of the body here. In which case the dartboard shape it and it'll kick the skirt forward again and the same to the front. If it's bigger in the front, you might need bigger darts to go over the stomach area and therefore it kicks the skirt back again. It's exactly the same as if you look at some bust darts. Lucky if you've got a fuller bust, you need a bigger bust dart to go over the bust to sit nice and smooth. It's exactly the same with this part of your body. If you're fuller here, you need bigger darts. But as you notice some on me, I'm quite straight, so my darts are smaller. Just bear that in mind that you might have to manipulate your darts will go further into this in my next class about dart manipulation. If your waist is dragging like this, you got these drag lines in the front or the back. It might mean that your hip might be too tight so you might have to release the hip or you might have to skip down the front or the back waist a little bit or combination of both. If you have darts that are poking out like this here, you might need to lengthen them a little bit but also in your stomach here you might have to just shape them out a little bit as opposed to sewing them straight. [NOISE] The same applies to the back except I'll take this pin out now. [NOISE] You might have to because the back curves in, you might have to shape the darts the other way and also you might have to lengthen them as well. Also, even though we've done the block on the center back seam within a stripe. Quite often it's nice to shape it in there as well if you need to take a little bit of fullness out or you can easily release these darts a little bit and take that fullness out of the back because you really nice shaped down the center back. [NOISE] Don't forget to add a center back slit to your helm, especially if you're going to tighten it you will definitely need it. Always put your zip opening in the center back if you can. Try and stay away from the side seam even with an invisible zip like this, you still get a bulge at the bottom. It's nicer to put it in the center back seam. Try never to use the channel zip and they look horrendous on the side seam as well. All finished. [MUSIC] 18. Final Thoughts & Thankyou: [APPLAUSE] Huge congratulations to you for finishing your first skirt block. Do you know that a lot of senior pattern cutters who have been in the industry for years still don't know how to actually draft, because they've never had to learn. They've just gone into companies where they have their own blocks. Not saying that bad pattern cutters, because believe me, I've seen some amazing pattern cutters who don't even know how to draft from a blank piece of paper. Huge congratulations to you. Now please post your photos to the community so that we can all have a look. It doesn't matter if it doesn't fit perfectly. If you've got some problems with it, just post photos, post front side seam and the back. Especially the side seam I'm going to check up on you. The sides seams got to be straight. [LAUGHTER] You might have some problem that you don't want to ask a question, you might think it's a stupid question, but honestly, somebody else will want to know that same question. So please ask. Please post your photos, I'm dying to see what you've done. I'm so pleased I've been able to put this class together for you. I've been really enjoying doing it. I love teaching. In my next class, I'm going to be teaching more about dart manipulation, gathered skirts, fit and flare probably. If you have a particular design that you'd like me to show you what to do, please post it. I'll go with the majority. [LAUGHTER] Again, thank you. Thank you very much for taking this class. I really appreciate it. See you in the next class. Bye.