4 Easy Ways to Start Making Your Own Sewing Patterns

Making your own sewing patterns is a lot of fun. Sure, it can also be complex and confusing but for those who are eager to learn, it’s also one of the best ways of creating a wardrobe of clothes that fit you like a glove. As in, no awful fit issues that make you want to hide away at home. Know what I mean?

So, if you’re ready to make your own patterns, you’re in the right spot!

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Why Will You Be Making Sewing Patterns?

Before we dive in though, it’s important to think about your reasons for making sewing patterns… because there are different methods to make patterns, and your reason ‘why’ will help us to choose the right method for you. And in case that’s confusing, I mean what do you intend to do with the sewing patterns after you make them?

1. ​For your own personal use, because you want to create a wardrobe of better fitting clothes.
2. You’re a dressmaker or fashion designer, and want to use them as a base for custom clothing and collections.
3. You love designing clothes and sewing, and want to start making your designs available as paid sewing patterns.

Once you have the answer to this question, it’s easier to guide you to the right method for making sewing patterns!

1. Making Sewing Patterns For Your Own Personal Use

This is often the main reason given to me. Tired of clothes from stores that don’t fit, or having to work through too many alterations on commercial patterns, making sewing patterns for your own personal use is a good idea and will ensure that your own clothes made from them are likely to be both fabulous and better fitting.

To get started you’ll want just the basic pattern making tools, and you can develop your personal sewing patterns on paper, with no need for any tech or pattern making programs.

If this is you, then the two methods you should try are:

• Making patterns from existing clothes
• Hacking commercial sewing patterns

Making Patterns from Existing Clothes

Also known as ‘cloning’ making a pattern from an existing garment is one of the easiest methods for making your own sewing patterns. There are tutorials, videos and even books written on the topic of cloning clothes. I even have this tutorial teaching how to clone woven denim jeans and this tutorial teaching how to clone a knit garment.

For those not willing to pop over to those, here are the simple steps you need to follow to make a pattern from an existing garment:

1. Select an existing piece of clothing that you feel comfortable in.
2. Turn it right sides together and so that you’re working on tracing just half of the garment.
3. You’ll also need some form of tracing paper (wax paper works well if you have it).
4. Lay the garment flat and place pins close to seam lines to hold the garment in place.
5. Using a tracing wheel – or a pencil – trace around the perimeter of the section you started with. In this pattern cloning tutorial I used a pair of jeans and and had a hard time getting through the felled seams with my spikes tracing wheel, so I had to manoeuvre the denim and draw the stitch lines on the paper in places.
6. Repeat for all the sections of the garment, until you have ‘cloned’ all the pattern pieces.
7. Don’t forget to tidy up the lines with a French curve and then add on seam allowance.
8. A top tip is to look at the construction of the garment you are cloning to make sure you’re au fait with the sewing process.

There are other methods that you can use to clone clothing, but this is the most accurate and the one I use.

If you do want to learn about the other methods for cloning your favorite clothes, do check out my friend Claire Louise Hardie’s latest book ‘Clone Your Clothes’. It’s available for preorder at the moment, and I’ve seen it (I helped with her with some illustrations) and it is brilliant!

Hacking Commercial Sewing Patterns

f you’ve tried the cloning method, and didn’t enjoy it, then the second method is to hack an existing pattern in your stash. This is an easy method, but you need to choose a paper pattern that is the perfect fit for you. Again, I have a full tutorial on using a commercial sewing pattern to create your own sloper, but an overview of this method is:

1. Choose a simple pattern from your stash. It should fit well and require minimal pattern modifications.
2. Review the different sizes from the size chart
3. Trace off the back pattern pieces and the front pattern pieces to create your basic blocks.
4. Store the original pattern away.
5. You can now develop the ‘hacked’ commercial pattern with various design elements to create your own original garments.
6. Remember that the patterns created in this way are not yours to sell, as their original starting point was a commercial pattern!

2. Making Sewing Patterns as a Dressmaker or Fashion Designer

If you are a dressmaker or upcoming fashion designer that wants to know how to make sewing patterns to use for clients, then you will not be able to use a commercial sewing pattern as these are generally for personal use only.

Instead, the best options for you would be:

• Making patterns from existing clothes
• Making sewing patterns from measurements
• Draping on a dress form

I’ve covered the cloning from existing clothing method above, so let’s look at the other two options.

Making Sewing Patterns From Measurements

Consider making personal slopers / blocks that are based on your clients’ measurements. You can start with a base sloper / block, and simply modify this for each client, but as a rule of thumb, it’s also best practice to have a variety of house blocks that are drafted based on the measurements of different people, so that you don’t just have a ‘standard’ size, which often ends up being unusable once you grade up or down a few body sizes.

It is standard in the fashion industry to develop house slopers / blocks using a set of measurements from your target customer/s as this provides consistency in sizing throughout any collections that you design.

I have a great selection of tutorials which will teach you the process of pattern drafting basic slopers on paper with pattern drafting tools, but you can also use a cad system like Adobe Illustrator, Valentina or Padsystem. You may find it easier to create the patterns on paper first and then scan them in and digitise them, until your skills have developed enough that you can work directly in a program.

Making Sewing Patterns on a Dress Form

A second option would be to use a dress form that can be padded out and then the design draped upon it. This would require you having a selection of dress forms to cover the anticipated variety in both the size and body shape of your future clients.

I have two dress forms that are full size for this very reason; a K&L professional size 12 dress form and a plus size adjustable dress form. These have worked well for me, covering the shape and size range needed for custom and personal work.

You can learn more about draping on a dress form here.

3. Making Sewing Patterns to Sell to Others

If your ultimate plan in learning how to make sewing patterns is to develop your own designs and sell them, then you should ignore the cloning, hacking and draping methods and dive right into creating pattern blocks digitally. I currently use Adobe Illustrator, which has worked well for me over the years, but my friend Josefine over at Ploen Patterns does use Padsystem and has great things to say about it. And her digital sewing patterns are brilliant, so that’s recommendation there!

Using software or a program designed for digital pattern making makes the process of creating and testing a lot faster. I know that I have previously spent many hours drafting on paper, cutting and scanning in that pattern, modifying it in the program and then printing and prototyping the design. Rinse and repeat for the multiple prototypes and you’ve lost hours of your life! But, once you have the perfect base block to work from, it can be used for future patterns for brand and size consistency.

That said, if this is the route you want to take you do need to be aware that there’s a lot of work involved. I’m going to create a guide on how to design a sewing pattern for next week, but in the meantime, here’s just a glimpse of some of the things needed if you plan to sell sewing patterns.

PDF Patterns: Pattern Files

The pattern files contain the pattern itself, in a variety of formats, including at least one of the following:

• A4
• A0 / copy shop
• US letter
• Projector

These pattern files will contain a variety or standard sizes / extended sizes with a unique pattern line or different color denoting each size option.

Paper Patterns

The same pattern included in the PDF format but as a paper pattern. Like the old days before digital sewing patterns existed!

Pattern Instructions

It’s a good idea to provided detailed instructions where possible when creating and selling sewing patterns so that those purchasing and using the patterns will have a great experience. Creating the instructions often requires at least one perfectly constructed test garment that you photograph the process of.

I’ll be back next week with a guide on how to design a sewing pattern but int he meantime, if you found this helpful, then do leave a comment down below. And you can always ask any questions that pop up there too!

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