Pattern Making Dos & Don'ts

or...

What NOT to do while pattern-making

So starting Tuesday it's BOY month on some of my favorite Crafting Blogs (it's my weak spot...crafting blogs that is)

And Dana of Made   threw up her standard pants pattern. so I printed it off...made my own adjustments to it... and thought I'd crank out a few pairs of comfy pants for the kiddos last night. 

Ohhhh how wrong I was.

So, for your edification and my mortification, some do's & don'ts about creating your own patterns

DO:  Use a lightweight paper. This makes the pattern easy to store and cheap to reproduce. In otherwords? Cardboard sucks if you're going to reuse the pattern if you want to store it anywhere hidden.

DON'T Try and watch Harry Potter movies while tracing your pattern pieces on to your fabric. Inevitably you will forget to flip the patter over for the facing pieces and have to start all over

DO Choose a simple cotton or cotton-flannel-poly blend for some practice pieces. They're easy to cut/sew/manipulate. Knits suck.

DON'T Tackle knit gaucho-style pants for yourself until you have first mastered something in a cotton or twill or even a nice little seersucker. Knits and I do NOT get along. *sigh*

DO check out all the gorgeous seersucker out there. It makes me thing of boating and summer and comfortable lounging. It washes up well, doesn't usually require ironing and wears well on kids AND adults. Plus. Adorable little pinstripes make me smile.

DON'T tell your kids you'll "just whip these up real quick before bedtime" because when you fail and fail miserably to complete more than one pair you WILL have a revolt on your hands. oops.

DO give yourself plenty of time and space to trace your patterns. Rushing = lopsided pattern making. Double oops.

DON'T expect to get three pairs of pants worth of pattern pieces cut out without having to stop 52 times to get drinks, retrieve woobies, mend dolly's ripped arm, pause and restart the movie, assist in bathroom breaks, clean up spilled snacks, etc.

DO Treat every failure as a lesson learned. Hey...at least I know what NOT to do next time, right?

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