Recreating missing pattern pieces

Posted by DeVille |


When I was in the Gold Coast I bought this cute 60s Style 4941 pattern. I don't know what happened, but when I looked in the packet at the store I swore I saw all the pieces and so snapped it up. When I got back to the apartment though, I realised that all the collar variations were there, and nothing else!

I have quite a few 60s shift dress patterns and while none of them flare as much as this, I'm sure it'll be easy to splice and dice, but it got me thinking as to whether it would be possible to recreate a missing pattern piece based on the layout and sewing instructions. In this case, the images are nicely detailed, so I think I'd like to give it a go.

The dress itself would be easy to draft without the images, but I do have some patterns that have just one or two pieces missing, and it would be important to get that missing piece just right, to make sure it fits the existing parts. I've googled and googled and not found anything much about this, so I'll be flying by the seat of my pants, but it should be an interesting project while I continue to ponder the fate of my sewing machine!

3 people have commented:

Cyndi Deal said...

There is a technique that I have read about that theatrical costumers use all the time called radial projection. This web link has an overview of the process.
http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/Recipes-Patterns-Instructions/pattern_enlargement.pdf

Cyndi Deal
www.sewinghappyplace.etsy.com

jennywren said...

I left this message on Sew Retro but thought I would add it here too. Not something Ive ever tried but I would imagine if you started with your shoulder to waist measuremnt (something that dosnt change regardless of the style) then you could use that to work out the scale. I imagine it will be tricky though as you will be working in fractions of an inch, particularly for small seams like shoulders. Do you have a basic block pattern to your measurements you could lay your finished pieces on to check they are right?
Good luck with it, its an interesting experiment and would be very useful if it worked.

Kerry said...

I don't know if this method works as I have not yet tried it, but check out this
tutorial
It explains how to draft a basic bodice pattern. As yours has princess seaming (or so it appears) it may require some modifications.

My goal is to draft my own patterns because I have weird ass dimensions and nothing fits me without all sorts of alterations. If I make progress on doing my own I will share my techniques once I develop them. I did buy myself a set of 3 French Curves..they are lots of fun, even if I all do with them now is play connect the dots when tracing over existing patterns.

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