Introduction to Patternmaking – RAVE SHORT

    Yesterday evening, I decided to invest in my spare time to go to a late night evening for an 'Introduction to Patternmaking' course. The introduction itself lasted only 2 hours, which wasn't nearly enough time to create any practical things at all. Magdalena, our tutor was a very nice lady and studied at Ravensbourne many years ago, so it was nice to see that she still had connections with the university, she mainly focused on pattern making and industrial processes. Over the course of the evening, I became more aware of the 3-dimensions towards creating a garment pattern and how everything has to be very specific and exactly to scale to complete an even garment, even being 1cm over could distort the garment piece. On top of this, I have also learned how to use a pattern master, which I have never used before and it looked a lot more complicated than it actually was and for that I was very happy! Nonetheless, I have already done the process we did last night in secondary school but it was good to touch up on my skills and knowledge.  

    Overall, the course itself was interesting, but I think there was too much tutorial rather than practical. Also, it would have been nice to construct something as a group rather than individually so that we could observe everything that other people had done and to perhaps even construct the pieces onto the mannequin. There wasn't really much I could improve on with this evening because I did how I was told to do it and there was no real alternative, especially considering she gave us the wrong pattern piece to trace from. Nonetheless, I have learnt a lot of information on the easy processes and equipment which is used for traditional pattern cutting. Moreover, I now have more of an idea as to how I can now construct my pattern pieces according to my design, despite this, there is always room for improvement with new techniques since I only really know the basics to making garments, hence I need to purchase of loan a pattern book to elaborate my garments with different shapes and sizes.