Curated by ITF - Issue 35
Make It Your Own Skills Kit
You’ve added foundational patternmaking skills to your sewing toolkit with our Copy Your Clothes Skills Kit.
So, where to now?
Well, learning how to draft patterns from ready-to-wear garments is only half the fun!
Part two of our Copy Your Clothes Series is all about making them your own.
The Make It Your Own Skills Kit, will help you turn your patterns and wardrobe ideas into truly unique-to-you garments.
Through a number of prompts we’ll help you consider the different areas of each garment to determine if fit adjustments are needed or style alterations desired. Then we’ll show you how to apply a range of professional patternmaking techniques and skills to achieve the exact look you’re after. Use the resource to personalise patterns you’ve drafted from a ready-to-wear garment, or a pattern from your stash!
Skills you will learn
- Altering garment fit through grading and darts
- Dart manipulation
- Panel lines - horizontal, princess, curved and variations
- Changing a garment's shape - length, fit, removing sleeves, adjusting armholes, waist height
- Adding volume
- Drafting facings
As always, these tutorials have been created so you can use them over and over and adapt them to any project you like.
The adjustments are supported by a range of tutorials that cover everything you need to know about tracing patterns, marking notches, adding seam allowances, and checking and truing patterns and darts.
Mighty Networks group
By purchasing this issue you will gain access to the extra resources we shared in our online community when we released the project. This means that you will be able to ask questions, share your makes and connect with other makers who are also on a mission to learn new skills and sew clothing in a slow and conscious way.
Difficulty
We've created a range of different fitting tutorials and hacks that you can apply to patterns you’ve drafted from ready-to-wear garments, or any pattern in your stash. They have been designed so that no matter what your patternmaking experience is, there will be something for you.
We recommend starting small and building on your skills one adjustment or hack at a time. This approach will stop you getting overwhelmed or confused. As you take time to fully understand and correctly apply the techniques and skills you’re learning, you can be confident that you will love the process and finished garments all the more!
Digital product details
The Make It Your Own Skills Kit: 128 pages of patternmaking tutorials and content. The booklet is suitable for printing on both A4 and US letter sized paper, or can be viewed onscreen using a PDF viewer.
The Make it your own Skills Kit is not currently available as a standalone product and is only available by signing up to Curated by ITF. It will be released as a standalone product in 2025.
Have a question?
If you have any questions please see our FAQ and Digital Product Policy.