[0:10]Hello guys. Welcome back to my channel, Abby Pattern Drafts. Um, today's video will be talking about introduction to pattern drafting. And we cannot talk about pattern drafting without talking about measurements. I mean, accurate measurements. You find some uh tailors or some designers that have been sewing for a while, um, they probably know how to um, make that cut, but they always get the fitting wrong. Why? Because they've got wrong measurements. So we'll be talking shortly or briefly about taking accurate measurements. Okay, one thing I want you to have at the back of your mind is when taking measurements, you um there are some tricks or there are some things you need to consider to make your measurements accurate. Uh we have three types of measurements, uh or rather four, and there are also other many types of measurements, but I'll classify um the three basic ones, which are horizontal measurements. This horizontal measurements have to do with measurements you take from side to side. Either you're taking the measurement from the right to the left or you're taking it from the left to the right. And the kind of measurements you would find under um horizontal measurements are your shoulder width. You're taking, putting your tape from the left side to the right side, or from the right side to the left side. From the name horizontal, you know it has to do with, you know, going sideways. And the next type of measurements you would um be coming across is the vertical measurements. These are measurements you take from top to bottom. Any measurement that has to do with you positioning your tape from the top to the bottom are all classified under the vertical measurements. And you can guess the kind of measurements in this category. Um, when you place your tape from the shoulder point downwards, you want to know the full length of the dress you're making. That is a vertical measurement. If you want to know the length of your waist, you want to know the distance from your shoulder to your waist. That is also a vertical measurement. This applies to any measurement you're taking that has to do with you taking from top to bottom. The third type of measurement that will you'll be coming across is the circumference measurements and from your name, you know it has to do with you going around. And the kind of measurements that you find under this category is the round bust because that would require you um to take your measurement all around like so. So I have a little demonstration like so. So you're taking it around. And please, there's something you need to note to have an accurate um circumference measurement. You have to make sure that at least you have two fingers in between the tape. Because you don't want the dress to look like a bandage. So you want some form of ease so that when the um person that's going to wear the dress or you, you're going to wear the dress, you would have some form of ease. You don't take the measurement like this. You'll have to give some from of allowance, some some of space. And you have to twist if the tape doesn't go move smoothly. Then you know the measurement is too tight. If it moves smoothly and you don't overdo it, you don't give it too much because this will like not fit on the person or on yourself.
[3:55]So for me, I have 34 here as my bust measurement. And that applies to both the waist, the hip, the round hip, the round waist, the round thigh, the round arm. Yes. So any measurements that you're going to be taking 360 degree has to do with the circumference measurements. But there's a slight difference from when you're taking measurements on the arm. Because the arm circumference of the arm is classified under semi-circumference. Because we have two arms. So, you're not um taking a total measurement of, you know, your two arms coming together. So, that is why any time we take our round um we always divide the measurement by two. But when we take our circumference measurement, which is um on the bust, on the waist and on the hip, we always divide it by four. I hope uh we are clear on that. So, um let's move forward. And now so after you've uh there's another thing you need to take note of when you're taking your shoulder, um width measurements. And that has to do with you place positioning your tape accurately. Um there's this bone for people on the slim side, there's this bone on the shoulder where um you can identify. When you place um your finger there, you'd place your tape like so, one inch beyond that bone. So, this is one inch. This is one inch. So, I'm placing my finger on that one inch and that one inch will be right on top of that bone. So, I can feel the bone here. So, I'm going one inch beyond the bone and on the other side of my shoulder, I'm also going one inch beyond the bone, which will give me what, 15. So, my shoulder width is 15. And the shoulder width is always divided by two. This is the basic. It's always divided by two. So, when we start pattern drafting, when we put our fabric on fold, um we'll be dividing the shoulder width by two. And all the circumference measurements, we'll be dividing them by four, except for the semi circumference, which will be divided by two. When we get to that you would um have a better understanding of how, of how this works in general. Okay, so um I'll be doing a brief illustration on the board on how to start your pattern. One thing you should have at the back of your mind when you want to start pattern drafting, there should be a beginning line, a guide line, I mean, a guideline, I mean at the top and at the side. Remember, we're working with vertical measurements and we're working with horizontal measurements. So, they line at the top. That's where you start taking all your vertical measurements from your tape will be placed at that line and when you want to start taking your horizontal measurements and your circumference measurement, you're going to place your tape by the side to the other side.
[7:18]So, let's start like so. So, this is our beginning line, beginning top line. Like this. And this line is on your shoulder. Just assuming that I this line, I bring it out and I place it here on my shoulder like this. So, every measurement I'll be taking because I took all my measurements on on my body from the shoulder. So, every measurement I'm taking is coming down from that line. I hope we understand that. So, I'm going to write on this line, I'm going to give it the name, which is going to be our shoulder line. So, shoulder, shoulder line.
[8:04]So, that we don't forget. Now, this um shoulder line, I'm going to after doing the shoulder line, from the beginning of this shoulder line, I'm going to rule a line coming downwards. By the side. This line is called what? Just imagine, I took this line out. This line will be in the middle, right at the center of our front or our back. Just know that this line represents the center line. It can be used for the front part of the bodice or the back part of the bodice. So, we want to work on the front part of the bodice first. So, I'm going to write front center line so that I can when I'm cutting, moving the pattern to my fabric, I can remember that this pattern is for the front part of the bodice.
[9:07]Now, we're going to move forward. So, we want to start working with our measurement on the pattern. So, assuming this is our pattern. The pattern was supposed to work on, this is it now. So, we want to start. The first thing we'll start with is taking the shoulder measurement. For example, my shoulder measurement, when I when we took uh when I took my shoulder measurement initially, you if you can recall, I had 15. And I said something about when you're working with your shoulder measurement, you divide that number into two, divided by two. So if we divide 15 by two, they would end up with 7.5. So, I'm going to be measuring 7.5. Where am I going to place my tape? I would place my tape right at the beginning of the shoulder line. Remember this is the shoulder line. I'm going to like this. So, it looks like this point here, you see this point here, is this point here. While this, like this, is like this. So, because we are dividing it into two, it is assumed that this place should be on fold. So, it's like I'm folding my body into two. Do we understand that? I hope we understand that. So, it's just imagine I'm placing my tape here. If I place my tape here, I measure right to that side where we measured initially, I would end up with 7.5 after the bone. That's if I'm placing it uh at the center bone. There's always a bone um at the middle of the neck. If I place it right there, that's where the body divides from. If I place it right there, I would end up with 7.5. So, it is just like I'm taking half of the measurement. So, now I'm going to measure 7.5 from this point here downwards to this point. So, this is where my shoulder ends. From there, the next thing I'm going to do is I want to get my armhole length. Now, some people would um take the step and measure around. Some people would take the step and measure around. It's okay, but sometimes you might find inaccuracies with such um method of taking your armhole measurement. So, the best way and the kind of the easiest way to go about that is by dividing the bust measurement. What you have on the bus, after taking your bust circumference, that number you have, you divide it by six and add 1.5 to the answer you arrived at after dividing by six. So, for example, my bust is 34. My the circumference of my bust is 34. If I divide it by six, I'll be having 5.6. Then that 5.6, I'm going to add 1.5, that's one and a half. I'm going to add one and a half inch or 1.5 inch to that 5.6. I would end up with 7.16. So, if I'm going to approximate 7.16, I will end up with 7.2. So, I'm going to be taking 7.2, but that will be after I've come down by one inch. From this, let's write 7.2 so that we don't forget. Armhole length, 7.2. We're going to come back to that. Now, let's um go to the shoulder. There's what we call the shoulder slant. Because the human body naturally, nobody is straight. The human body is um created in such a way that has curves. When you look at the human body, you'll notice that there's a high points on the shoulder. And this part of the shoulder is higher than this part of the shoulder. So, it's like there's a slant. So, it's not like this. It's not straight. If I place this ruler right at the tip of my the top of the highest point of my shoulder. If I place it straight, you'll notice that there's a little gap by the other, the end of my shoulder. So, we need to consider that when we're drafting our because if you make it straight, you'll end up having a dress that doesn't flow with the body shape of how the shoulder is. So, you need to take away that distance from here, from this point, here, to this point. So, that's why we'll need to go down from this height, this point, we need to go down by one inch. So, after going down by by one inch, then we can come back to our armhole length, which we got initially. Can you remember, can we remember how we got the armhole length, just um to recall. We divided our bust measurements, which was 34 by six and we added 1.5 to it. And we ended up having 7.2 after we um approximated it. So, 7.2. I'm going to measure 7.2 from this point here, not from this point here. Please don't make that mistake. From this new point, after coming down by one inch, we're going to place our tape at that point and come down 7.2. Like so. So, now I gave it for me to have, I need to rule a straight line. I need to connect this point to this point. But I don't have a a T-square here. Uh but if you have, you can use your T-square to have a straight line. T-squares are used to get um straight lines. You know, to make your lines straight and accurate. So, but because I don't have a T-square, there's something I can do. I know that from from this point to this point, I have 7.5. So, what I'll do is on this line, I would put my tape here and measure 7.5. Like so. 7.5. So, now I can join, use my ruler to join those points together so that I can have a straight armhole line. Like so. So, now I have my armhole line. So, this is where my armhole would end. And this point here is this point of the dress. This point is this point of the dress where my bust is and I will rule a line connecting it, a straight line connecting it. And that line I will name it bust line. So, I'm going to do that right away. From here, from here to here, I have 7.2. If I add that one inch to it, I'll have 8.2. So, I'll have to mark from here to here, 8.2. This is because I don't have a T-square. I'll have to mark from here to here, 8.2. Just to have a straight line. We're doing all of this right now because um I don't have a T-square. For me to have a straight line, because I want to make a straight horizontal line to get my bust line. So, now I'm going to connect it like so. And I'm going to name that line bust line.
[16:48]Now, we're going to move to the neck because we need to make the shoulder slant. Now the standard, the neck width, remember that this line is this line here. I want to know how wide, how wide my neck is. So, for some people that have a wider neck, from this point to this point, you know, the wideness is from this point to this point. But because we have imagined that this place is on fold. So, we had to do our measurements into two. Whatever we have from here to here, by the time we open up the fold, we'll be having it on both sides. So, um if I'm going to the standard is three inches for most people, the the wideness of their neck from this point to this point is three, majority. Some people's neck are wider. So, if you have um a little difference um from such a client, you can add like a half, half an inch.
[17:48]From the middle, the center line. So, I can increase it like I said. Now, I'm going to um connect all of my, I'm going to connect the marks, the points together. Like so. So, I'm connecting here. And now I want to, you know, because the hip is coming out, from here it's going in. That's why my French curve is like this. But now from the waist to the hip, it's coming out. So, the body is like this, like this. That's why I'm going to turn my French curve the other way to come out. Like so. So, I hope we can have a clear view on that. So, this is on fold. Please don't forget. Because I've had um students making this mistakes a lot. This mistake in particular. You know, placing their um fabric, not placing it on fold. And ending up with just half of, you know, the front part. So, please don't forget to put your fabric on fold. And when I say on fold, let me just give you an illustration. This is um this is a fabric. If I want to um fold my fabric to cut out this pattern, I would be folding it into two. This is what I mean by on fold. I would place, however I want the pattern. You know, this is an Ankara. If I want the pattern to flow um vertically, I'll place my fabric like this. And put on fold. And if I want this pattern to, you know, be like this, I would put my fabric on fold like this. This is what I mean on fold. So, this fold here is here. So, when I want to like this. This is what I mean. And so, this top. This is so when you're done with your pattern, you're going to place your pattern on your fabric like this. So, you're not going to place your fabric like this. If you place it like this, it means you're just cutting half of the the front part. Okay. So, till um next time, um this will be the end of this video. Till next time we'll be talking more on pattern drafting.
