Designing your own patterns needn’t be difficult. Here are the best online sewing pattern maker websites to help you create your own patterns. The first and most important thing you’ll need to do is measure your body and take note of the measurements for each part: bust, waist, hips, and any other parts that will need specific attention. The more measurements you have, the better off you’ll be when it comes time to draft a pattern. Some people also like to take their favorite commercial patterns and modify them to fit their proportions. These design modifications can be as simple as adjusting some seam allowances or as complex as narrowing or widening a sleeve cap. However there are some great online tools to create your made to measure sewing patterns by a few clicks without pattern making skills. In this way, you can fully control the style and the size of your garment. You can download them and start sewing. Now let’s see what are the best online pattern making software
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The pros and cons of creating sewing patterns online
However, these tools can speed up the pattern making process and give you the opportunity to create your own sewing patterns, they are made by software. If you expect to get perfect results every time you download a pattern, you should not use these tools. (But manual pattern drafting also requires adjustment and modification almost most of the time and is taking more time and you need skills.) Now let’s see what are the advantages and disadvantages of using these tools.
Cons:
- Even if you add your correct measurements, the shape of your body determines your unique aspects. Imagine that your hips are wide and your friend has a curved bottom, but you both have the same hip measurements. This means that you will need slightly different pants or skirts patterns. This sometimes means that you need to make small adjustments to get the perfect fit.
- Technology can make unexpected glitches sometimes and this can also happen with the pattern making tools as well, so it is always recommended to check your pattern and be patient when using websites if they are slow.
- You need a stable Internet connection and print your PDF patterns at home or in the copy shop. If you don’t have all these you are not able to make patterns as if you know manual pattern drafting from scratch.
Pros:
- When you have made a pattern that works, you can use it to make endless different versions and pattern hacks if you know how to do it.
- It is much more efficient and fast than the manual pattern drafting.
- The learning curve is much shorter than the classical pattern making.
The Best Online Sewing Pattern Maker Websites
The best pattern-making tools for creating your own patterns online are:
- Tailornova: this is an online pattern design software that will help you create any type of pattern for women and a few patterns for men which are shirts and T-shirts. Tailornova is my favorite because of the ability of the custom adjustment of the ease for woven fabrics and knits.
- Sewist: this site has an excellent mix and match pattern generator that will allow you to choose every part of your garment made to your own measurements. Sewist offers patterns for women and has started adding patterns of girls’s clothing as well.
- Patternlab London: this site has a lot of tutorials on how to make your own pattern especially in Adobe Illustrator with their custom basic blocks. You can purchase them made to measure. It also has great tutorials on pattern transformations.
- Lekala: this website is not for creating patterns yourself from your own designs, but purchasing their patterns made by their users. The point is that you can download any of their patterns made to your unique measurements.
Measuring Yourself
This is the first step to creating your own patterns. Before you can draft a pattern, you’ll need to know how to take your your measurements for sewing. It might be a good idea to have somebody help with this task. This will also ensure that your measurements are accurate. You can measure yourself using a measuring tape and then use the measurements collected in order to draft your pattern. A lot of these websites also have calculators that will automatically calculate some other measurements from your basic measurements. See the instructions on each website as they have somewhat different measurement systems. They have great guides to know exactly what to measure and where to measure. It may take a little time, but you have to make it once and it will be stored in your profile.
Designing Your Own Patterns
Clothing pattern design will be easy using these tools. Choose the best one for you to use regarding your needs. Sewist and Tailornova have plenty of options, and are great for sewists without pattern making skills or professionals who want to speed up the process. They also provide sewing instructions for each style; however you have to be creative and some practice in sewing, because they are not so detailed. Patternlab London has different basic blocks for pattern makers or advanced sewists to transform them into the desired style. Select the style closest to your idea and make sure you set it to your own measurements. Decide whether you want to download the pattern with or without seam allowance. Select which format you want to print the PDF sewing pattern and print it in. You’re ready to cut and sew. As you see, creating your pattern needn’t be difficult.
Conclusion
Tired of being limited to what pattern stores have to offer? Can you spot on Instagram which pattern other sewists have used? Do you want clothes that are unique?
Making your own PDF patterns is a great way to make a garment that is completely unique and tailored to your needs. The tools discussed in this post make it easy for anyone to create their own patterns. Don’t be afraid to get creative and make your own patterns!
If you’re new to making patterns, it’s normal to find all these tools a little complicated and it takes time to figure out which one is best for you.
If you need help starting with pattern making sign up below to get my monthly newsletter with my sewing and pattern making tips and tricks. Be the first to know when a new post comes out. If you want to know more check out my class where I share how to use Tailornova. If you want to learn step by step how to make your own patterns in good company, join the Buddy Positive Pattern Playground and create unique garments with my help
