Sketching, Grading, and Pattern Drafting

I started my 4th quarter at FIDM on Monday but i just wanted to give a run-down of what I took last quarter! Fashion sketching 2 is where I finally gained the skills to call myself a fashion illustrator! I would love to postsome of my work but FIDM will not allow me to turn in figures that are fat so most of my illustrations are done skinny! Which makes me apprehensive
to post them because they are not true to who I am as a designer! I am nowworking on my beautiful fat girl illustrations and I will most definitely post those!

Computer marking, grading, and cutting was more of a technical class but it was interesting to see how grading is done, especially because this is why a lot of plus size clothes just don’t fit right. Grading is making a pattern into different sizes. I don’t want to bore any of you with all of the math involved so let’s just say grading isn’t for the weary. Basically you have a pattern and there are certain points on this pattern where the size increases or decreases from the base size. For each size these points are the same! Which means we are assuming that the proportions of a size 2 and a size 18 are the same. This is far from the truth! I recently read an article about a women who has come up with a different variations of grading for different body types. Once I find that article I’ll post a link to it. I’ll also pics of a grading ruler and the process later

Pattern Drafting Essentials is the introductory class to pattern drafting. Pattern drafting is where you take measurements from a dress form or from a body and use those measurements to create patterns from garments. To create these drafted patterns you must work magic with your rulers and create perfection otherwise the fit of your garment will be completely thrown off. Every week we drafted up different slopers which is simply your first draft of a pattern that is on dot paper. We made a straight skirt, bodice, princess bodice, straight sleeve, collar, waistband ect. once you have your perfected dot paper sloper you transfer it to manila paper and now your perfected pattern on manila paper is called a block. At the end of the quarter we all had pattern hooks heavy with blocks!

The coolest part of this class is learning pattern manipulation which is where you create different designs from your basic blocks without affecting the size and fit of the garment! Our final project was to design a full dress with sleeves and a collar from our basic blocks. With sleeves and a collar this dress was sure to look like students work so I decided to have fun with prints and make my dress “costumey.”

I’m having trouble uploading pictures right now so I’ll post them ASAP

This Post is kind of long so I’ll make another one about my draping 2 class!