DIY Pattern making - Part 1

Have you always liked the idea of making your own clothes but didn't know where to begin? Why go straight for an over complicated garment when deciding to give clothes making a go?? I have pattern cutting & fashion designer skills but I cannot bear ready-made sewing patterns. I find them quite complicated & confusing, eventhough I can knock up my own patterns, so I am not surprised to hear that many people are put off making their own stuff after trying to work out how those alien shapes, dotted lines & grading sizes on traditional sewing patterns work.

If you are going to start a new skill, which you may have previously struggled with before, then DIY pattern making is for you. With DIY you don't have to get it right first time, it is all about trial & error, you learn as you go. Nobody is judging you! 

Start simple, don't try to make a tailored garment with lots of plackets, pockets & darts, we don't need to see any of those things in DIY for beginners. We just need a metre or so of fabric, paper (for pattern making), some fabric shears, a ruler & a tape measure to get started.

Keep it sustainable

We can limit the amount of wasted fabric too, why not consider using an old duvet cover for your sample garment or cutting down pre-loved garments & upcycle them into something new? Buy second hand fabric & end of line cuts, make less waste whilst you experiment, you never know you might actually like the result of your duvet cover sample garm so much that you want to wear it & show the world this marvellous garm you've created.

A pattern created by measuring and adapting a ready made garment from the No Debutante wardrobe 

How to DIY?

If we are not using sewing patterns? What are we using?.........Your own clothes!

What's better than being able to recreate a garment you love & then adapting and reusing the pattern, recreating it again & again in different fabrics? 
Just imagine, you may catch the clothes making bug & start adapting your new favourite pattern to create other amazing garms. I promise, as soon as you understand the construction behind pattern cutting & making up garments you will be hooked!

Perhaps you will get so skilled you will be knocking up your own more complicated garms, who needs those sewing patterns eh?

Fashion illustrations and the finished garment by No Debutante for her fashion label Fruit Salad

Still not sure?

Give my youtube tutorial below a watch so you can get the basic ideas behind DIY pattern making. I will follow this post with step by step blog tutorials too. 
We'll have you designing, making and creating in no time! 

Youtube video below. 

Please Subscribe, follow & like my youtube channel Emma Gorton-Ellicott 

If you are having a fashion event or a have a new collection you would like No Debutante to promote please get in touch!

Check out my work with Bristol 24/7 magazine here under my name 

Emma Gorton-Ellicott

If you are interested in collaborating with No Debutante or getting featured on the No Debutante blog please contact me nodebutanteblog@gmail.com

Keep up with No Debutantes OOTD posts, collabs and current fashion obsessions posted daily on all of the following. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr,  Pinterest all under the #nodebutante name.

Thanks for checking in Fashionistas.   

ND xx