I suppose, I have never introduced myself. My name is Olga and I live in the UK, but originally from Siberian part of Russia. I work as a university chemistry lecturer. Sewing is my hobby, and I always wanted to learn pattern making but the only thought of doing it manually killed all enthusiasm at the very beginning. 
In chemistry we use a range of vector and coordinate programs to image molecules and crystal structures. So I thought there must be some bespoke program on sewing pattern making, and I found Valentina. I have being using it for over a month now and love it.
2 Likes
Well, I can’t top that, so I won’t try. I’m Keith Olson from British Columbia, Canada. I’m almost fifty, and learned to sew on my mother’s treadle Singer as a youngster. I loved it from the first and enjoyed making all of my wife’s clothes when I was first married. (I even helped with the testing of the pattern-making program Dress Shop 2.0 back in the 90’s.) Unfortunately, things went downhill for me, so I haven’t sewed for over fifteen years. I have a new wife now, and I’m looking to get back into it in a big way. I still need to get a sewing machine and lessons to refresh my skills, as well as learning how to make clothing patterns, but I’m enjoying being able to enjoy the thought of sewing again.
I was also a coder waaaaay back in the day, and I’m going to try to learn C++ so I can help with Val’s codebase. In addition, I’ve been keeping my hand in technical graphics work (CAD/etc.) since the late 80’s, so I’ll help how I can there.
4 Likes
Keith, I was also a coder way back in the day and have actually used C, C+, and C++ and started to work with computers with machine language (before I had an assembler) and also with punch cards and paper tape (before disk and mag tape were available for the system I worked on. Recognizing that my particular programming skills are a bit rusty even though I like to tinker, I plan to stick to answering a few new user tech support questions and attempting to write useful documentation as fast as I am able. You seem like a clever fellow and I am delighted to “meet” you
3 Likes
So I have to ask… how many times did you have a stack of cards dump on the floor? Been there, done that. LOL. Wow… We used tape back in high school… I think it was when we learned Basic before learning Fortran… which we started with the large punch cards and switched to the mini ones. Got to learn APL with a whopping 22k workspace on the IBM 360 mainframe over the blazing fast IBM teletype and 300 baud acoustic coupler modem. Back then those 2 bytes for “19” was huge. Kids these days have no idea what it was like.
2 Likes
STOP is a valid command in the Fortran programming language. STOP is a valid command in the old IBM JCL. If you have a deck of cards that should be sorted and contains your Job Control and your program cards, never fail to sort them properly when you pick them up. Fortunately, I only had to deal with that issue in school classes. By the time I was being paid to appear to know what I was doing, I was dealing with binary, hex, octal and the occasional Assembly language. Once it was possible to store these programs in something other than volatile RAM life became easier. And I was more into scientific programming which used mainframes from that “other” company, DEC. Startrek played on the teletype console from a DEC 10 was an experience in visualization with only one’s imagination
Hello. I’m just another frustrated newbie. Think I got my pattern made for just a simple tshirt. Very very frustrating to learn with my measurements. Very difficult having never sewn anything but stitches! I know its not the same as sewing clothes though. So I have become the annoyed newbie. I think got some patterns for a shirt done…probably nothing good.
Well off to search the forum to find the answer to my issues.
3 Likes
Hi @Annoyednewbie,
welcome here (I just notice, i didn’t find this thread so I didn’t introduce myself before 
)
what annoys you so much? It is hard to learn pattern construction without having sewn before, but it’s worth it. Keep on trying!
2 Likes
So, now that I found this thread…
I had to learn how to sew at school. I also had to learn how to stitch and knit and - ooouuh - crochet and other stuff a good girl is supposed to do 
I was opted out to do the fun stuff the boys were allowed to do, like woodworking or pottery, though. Anyway, from that what we girls had to learn sewing was the one I really liked. My mom also sewed, the traditional bavarian dresses and they really fitted like a second skin on the body.
Then I stopped sewing, no time.
A while ago I started it again. I started because at some point I didn’t get what I had ordered, it was the second time that this happened to me. Suits and business dresses made of mainly natural fibers are not easy to find, or very expensive, but if they are made of polyfibers, they smell really fast and it doesn’t help at all to put them on the balcony or so in fresh air. Besides, they have to be brought to the dry-cleanerss.
So, I remembered that I had a half through tailored costume. Well, it is too small , but there was this piece of silken fabric with a pattern and I started to sew.
Now there was a lot of talk about fit in the forums, but I was shy to alter a pattern. I had no idea what to do. But - there was that book, or those books, and I started to construct my own patterns. My husband always told me “you could do it on the PC, it is much like CAD” and then Helga told us in a forum that Valentina forked and changed the name and I became curious. So I downloaded the program
And now I am here and looking forward to all the fun stuff I can do with my own patterns. Oh, and I found a copy shop that prints my patterns on one piece of paper, so no hassle with gluing x papers together anymore, yeah!
2 Likes
I had a similar experience some 30 years ago with my costume shop where at the time we mainly dealt with retail costumes we would order from other vendors… we had ordered 2 British Redcoat jackets and the company could only ship 1. We were in a pinch so I basically had to figure out a pattern and make 2 coats! THAT experience was the beginning of what we specialize in - men’s tailored period clothing - particularly military wear, and for quite a few years we manufactured wholesale costumes for rental shops. That lead to having custom costumes at places like stages on Broadway, Disney World, The History Channel, Netflix’s “House of Cards”, just to name a few. If those 2 coats were shipped, we probably would not be where we are now. 
Give me a good wool any day of the week… it’s so much easier to work with in every respect. Plus it looks better on stage. Given how many rental costumes we send out every week though we have to find a balance between look and whether it can be washed or needs to be dry cleaned. We send out so much dry cleaning we have it done by the pound without any pressing. You don’t want to see our yearly dry cleaning bill. LOL
3 Likes
Just don’t ever pass a dog or other animal with fur 
Well @moniaqua pretty much everything has driven me mad. My current conundrum is my rise measurement. The Urise as given me by Mtailor because their fancy pants don’t hold up well crawling under mac trucks and other odd jobs I get from the family and the family business. Picture a dirt floor with oil stained dirt patches and then look at mtailors expensive shirts and pants. So my urise measurement is 90.075 cm roughly 35.5 inches…That has me scratching my head how they got it. I also am not sure if the Urise is the key to my mystery as Ive heard of a rise, but never a urise. Ah the difficulty of technology and 3d modeling and measuring with its alien terms. Yeah, im green…very green. The only time I have touched a sewing machine has been to carry one from a job to throw onto a truck on a clean out job, and carried it to put into a yard sale then back onto the truck for donation. Couple weeks ago I was given a very nice one though. A signer9985 quantum? Like 960 stitches complete with every attatchment it came with when purchased. Planning on learning that next after I get my patterns complete lol.
Last night it was making everything. Though I think I struggled through to make a good pair of t shirt patterns.Probably very jacked up but here they are.short sleeve tucked.val (18.0 KB) short sleeve untucked.val (18.0 KB) short sleeve untucked.pdf (70.9 KB) short sleeve shirt tucked.vit (951 Bytes) short sleeve shirt untucked.vit (951 Bytes)short sleeve tucked.pdf (71.3 KB)
Before that I was agonizing over figuring out the measurements given and how to apply them. Day before that I was having severe issues navigating and teaching myself what tool does what and how to use it…
1 Like
Ok, so basically you don’t even have an idea of sewing at all, have never seen a pattern before (or better, have worked with one; maybe you saw one but weren’t aware) and try to make a pattern of your own? Brave.
Actually I don’t see a difference between the two shirts and I don’t understand at all why you made two .vit-files (the charme of Valentina is, to make one single measurements-file per person and use that over and over again, so you never have to type measurements in again if you don’t grow or shrink 
) and both .val look weird to me But hey, you have lines and obviously managed to make pattern pieces out of the drawing, that’s great 
Maybe you better try to sew one shirt with a ready made pattern before you try to make patterns of your own. There are patterns for t-shirts for free in the web, I just don’t have a link. Sewing before making pattern would help you to get some understanding of the parts of a shirt
Btw, why do you need a self-made pattern? The measurements in the vit.-file weird to me, so I cannot suggest you a size. What size do you wear if you buy a shirt?
1 Like
@moniaqua well the difference between the two is an untucked shirt is a bit shorter where the tucked is longer so you can tuck them in. There is only an inch and a half difference in the length from neck to the base of the tail on the back.
Yeah the measurements are a bit wonky I originally put inches as centimeters…so had to scale centimeters to their inch counter part.
Idea for the multiple measurement files is I can print out and put together each one and not have to make any adjustments. The multi vits are so if one pattern gets destroyed I just gotta read which pattern it is load and print lol.
The reason for self made pattern is im a 5xl and most shirts I could wear to work are just too over priced for their lifespan. 20-30+ and they never last they tend to pick up tons of holes and stains and might survive a month or 2. I have one that’s long since been turned into fishing rags that survived 3 months. So looking around I managed to find some lovely ripstop nylon $3.79 a yard. Polyurathane coated lightweight much better tear and abrasion resistance then the cotton poly blends. I figure roughly 2 yards should be enough for single shirt which seems like a huge savings per shirt to me. Well worth the torture of learning for something that should last hopefully 6 months.
Camo gear for when I go hunting? Just a shirt is 53 bucks yet the fabric is about 10 bucks a yard. Scent block liner I have seen a 2-3 dollars a yard. So 16 per shirt, and I haven’t figured out the elastic cost figure 4 bucks for a roll of elastic, so for the price of 1 shirt I can make 2. Plus pants is another 60…making my own from a custom pattern tailored to my body just seems like a great deal.
As for parts of a shirt I figured sleeve, sleeve, front, back, was the best and simplest way to part it out. Every shirt seems to follow that basic pattern…I’m not messing with dress shirts till I figure out cuffs and collars.
2 Likes
Well - rip-stop-nylon in my opinion is not the right fabrics for a shirt, but well, if you like it… Here you can see how the pattern of a simple shirt is supposed to look like: Klassisches T-Shirt für Herren - gratis Schnittmuster - Nähtalente Sides could be straight, that’s easier to make.
You’re right with two sleeves for a shirt, also front and back. You could take a fitting shirt that has holes and is dirty; it still can work as a pattern if you cut it apart at the seams.
Hmm, I just came up with the idea that I could draw a simple shirt with just straight seams for a tutorial, might be even easier than the skirt. Thank you for giving me that idea, I’ll hurry on writing it
1 Like
@moniaqua Glad I could give ideas. I have a few shirts that are straight but they a too loose in places which is a big reason they get torn least I think that’s the reason. Figured and I’m probably wrong that a slight curve might defeat that baggyness without throwing things off where they are needed dimension wise…unless its not enough of a curve…
Think tomorrow ill try to tackle simple pants. I must say now that I understand the simple parts I rather enjoy it.
1 Like
Hi @Annoyednewbie! Welcome! Please create a new thread for your questions about your shirt pattern! Moving these issues off of the Introductions thread makes it easier for everyone to help you. Looking forward to seeing your patterns, and helping you with questions!
Asking Questions without introducing myself… not very nice^^
So, hello 
I’m Nyctophilia from Germany.
I started sewing in 2014 as kind of therapy after suffering from mental health problems. But i wasnt’ interested in sewing easy peasy pillowcases and stuff, my first project was a historical dress xD
Soon, I decided to go back to school and started fashionschool back in 2015. There, I had the great opportunity to learn traditional tailoring techniques as well as patternmaking on paper and electronically. I really loved making patterns with the computer and thats how I came here… looking for software not as expensive as existing ones AND - even better - working on Linux 
Currently, I work as a freelance designer/seamstress, making mainly historical costumes or cosplays 
4 Likes
Man wächst ja an seinen Aufgaben…And I thought my first project beeing a jeans trousers was quite the challenge. Probably nothing compared to the historical dress!!
Yeeaah!
1 Like