Hi, I am new here, and slowly learning to use the tools you offer to their best potential, although some of the options still bewilder me. I have tried looking for answers in your manual and on the forum, but unfortunately couldn’t find what i was looking for, or it slipped through right under my nose
my first question is:
-how exactly does the “pattern piece/new pattern piece” work. I would see it useful if i could reuse my base pattern , but i end up with a new starting point and no way to link or reuse the exact points from an already existing pattern piece.
I would love to have an example of where the new pattern piece is the most useful
What works for me is, if I am creating a blouse pattern, I do it all on the same drawing board since all the points will be available to me to add to.
If I then wish to create a skirt or trouser pattern to go with the blouse, I will do them on the 2nd and 3rd drawing board to keep them separate but still have certain lengths of line or curve from the first drawing board available to me. So I use the ‘Pattern Piece/New Pattern Piece’ more as a new article of clothing in a matching outfit.
I do, however, make a lot of use of the ‘Group’ tool to group the different pattern pieces (like the front, back, sleeve, facings) together so that I can make them invisible by closing the ‘eye’ to keep my drawing board uncluttered while drafting. I can always open the ‘eye’ when I find that I need to access something from that group and close it again when I’m done with it.
I hope this clarifies it a bit for you. If you need any further assistance using the Group tool or any other tool, please don’t hesitate to ask. We’re a friendly bunch here and will do what we can to help.
Several styles of patternmaking use the method described by Grace, where all the drafting for related pieces are unified.
For example, the front & back of a blouse are sometimes drafted on top of each other or connected at the side. And frequently the front & back of trousers are drafted together.
With this unified draft method, after drafting is completed, you would create multiple detail workpieces from the unified draft.
@Grace and @slspencer thank you so much for your explanations :). I’m still not too sure how to go about it, although i am going to try it. is there any toturial you know of which i could watch to better understand how to use this tool?
I will have to write a complete step-by-step for the wiki. I’ll try to do it this weekend. In the meantime, here’s a quick reference guide for all the tools. It’s really brief, so I hope it will help you: Working with Tools - Quick Reference.pdf (383.1 KB)
