Pattern Alterations Session 1: Overview & Supplies

This course is all about basic pattern alterations. This is not something that you have to have a background in pattern design, or even have done any kind of pattern altering before, you still will be able to perform all the alterations done in this class. They're mostly going to be designed to help fix fit issues whether your garments too big, too small, maybe only too big or small in certain areas, or just doesn't quite fit right. But I'll also explain how you can do several alterations to make a pattern look a little bit different. So, maybe if you buy a commercial pattern but you don't want it to look like anyone else who also made that same commercial pattern, you can change that just a little bit.

We're going to make alterations to several different areas of garment pieces. That'll be the neck line of the front of a garment. We'll also make some alterations to the back for narrow or broad shoulders, as well as a narrow or broad back. We're gonna make lots of alterations to sleeves. We will make them longer, shorter, wider, narrower and also wider and narrow just in certain areas.

We're also gonna make some changes to skirts and pants. It's really gonna help fit a pair of pants or a skirt to your body, if you can make alterations depending on whether you have a flat bottom or more rounded bottom or even a more rounded abdomen, everything is gonna fit a little bit better. For this class you don't need any fancy tools, pretty much everything you need you probably already have at your house. When it comes to pattern altering, there are a lot of different, we'll call them fancy rulers, out there that you can buy. But for this class, all you need is a straight ruler.

Something fairly long is helpful. If you don't have a super long one you still can use a shorter one, you're just gonna need to move it up and down your pattern piece. This is especially important if you're doing alterations on something like a pair of pants, because they're definitely a lot longer. I have two different kinds of rulers here. This is just a quilting ruler.

Get it at any craft store in the quilting section. They're both quilting rulers, both by Omnigrid. But this one here is what's called an Omnigrip ruler. So it has on the back side of it, a little bit of grip in the green area. So what that does is actually will grip to fabric when you're using it.

But it really comes in handy when it comes to putting a acrylic ruler on paper. This one slides really easily, apply a little pressure to this one and it doesn't move at all. So it's really handy with fabric and even handier when it comes to paper. Other basic supplies that you probably already have in your home office or maybe a kitchen drawer somewhere, is just a pair of scissors, marking utensils and tape. When it comes to marking utensils, it's really up to you what you wanna use.

I find that a pen or Sharpie is a little bit easier than a pencil. I don't want to have to go back and draw over lines again to see them, pencils don't show up very well, that much. So a pen or a Sharpie marker would be what I suggest. And then any kind of tape. This could be, you know, your standard Scotch tape.

If you have masking tape, if you have painters tape or duct tape, it doesn't matter. You just need some kind of tape to hold some of these pattern pieces together once you cut them apart. You're obviously going to need your pattern pieces. Now, whether you're drafting your own pattern or you've taken a commercial pattern and you've traced it because you know you want to make some alterations to it, you'll need whatever paper you're going to trace your pattern onto. Now for this class, I'm using a very heavy duty paper.

This is a craft paper. It feels similar to when you go to the grocery store and ask for paper bags, it's that heavy. It's a little bit heavier than what I would normally use but I wanted everything to stay together while I brought it here. Normally, tissue paper can have the tendency to fall apart. It also creases easier, rips easier.

So if you know you're going to be doing a lot of alterations, a heavier duty paper is helpful. If you don't have a large roll of paper, feel free to just tape some printer paper together to make a sheet of paper that's large enough. Now I said I normally don't use this heavy of paper when I'm doing pattern alterations. But if it's something that I know I'm gonna wanna make over and over again, say it's either a jacket or maybe a business skirt that you want to wear three days out of the week, and you know, you're gonna make a lot of patterns, a lot of whatever it is based off the pattern, I would go ahead and transfer it onto a thicker paper. That way, you know it's gonna last a long time, is not going to rip or tear or get damaged in any way.

So if it's a pattern you know you're gonna use repetitively, go ahead and get some thicker paper. But that's all you need for this class, paper, pencils, rulers, and tape. And we are gonna get right into this, learning all different kinds of pattern alterations. I mentioned we're going to do a pants, skirts, sleeves and neck line areas. We're gonna, kind of, go in the reverse order and start with the neck line.