My Drape Pattern Making Method

The origins of my passion for creative pattern making start way back in 1980 when I first went to fashion college. It was at this time that I was introduced to an amazing pattern making book that just lit up my brain. Natalie Bray's technical diagrams leapt off the page and made immediate sense to me. I could hardly contain my excitement at the potential of pattern making. To this end, I believe I was quite the pesky student in our pattern making classes. The student with 20 questions every session, that drove the pattern making teacher crazy. You'll find Natalie's books on all the usual bookselling sites and the prices vary dramatically, so do your research.

More detail for this blog post available on my Well-suited Blog.

www.studiofaro.com

Testing a New Fashion Illustration Task

For the past decade I've been going into secondary schools and teaching fashion illustration and every time I learn something new about teaching. Each year I develop new materials and techniques to make learning fashion illustration fun. This year I decided to create some up-to-date illustration templates to use as a ILLUSTRATION TASK in the classroom. After reviewing some recent designer shows I generated about a dozen new images like those below. Mostly featuring latest catwalk fashion and they were so well received in the classroom I'm thinking of making them into a colouring book that everyone can access online.

Click through to 'well-suited', the website blog, for all the illustration detail.

Print and Plaid Trend - Design Development

Waistcoats

This has to be one of the best things to do!  Endless ideas, not all of them good, but a good chance I'll like at least one of them enough to make it.  The Print & Plaid Trend is one of my long time favourites.  I suppose that means it's not really a fashion trend but a personal preference.

I'll be selecting one of these designs to make a pattern and sample.  Which one is your favourite?

For the video of design development go to my Youtube channel.

For all the detail go to my website blog. :)

Pattern Puzzle - Ruche Skirt with Fishtail

Starting with the sketch: This is a idea from my Sketchbook from at least 3-4 years ago.  I believe I found it in a forecast magazine of that time (Textile View).  The design is elegant but may have some inherent problems to be dealt with in the first toile/prototype.  

You'll find all the pattern making detail on the website blog.

www.studiofaro.com