Here is two-part video of how I drafted the two-piece sleeve pattern often used in a classic tailor jacket. The experience was a pretty long one as it is my first time drafting the sleeve patten at all. I don’t think I’ve ever done it even on paper. This is the beauty of digital pattern making that I like most. I was able to fix my mistakes multiple times without damaging the paper. Oftentimes, I’d rub off pencil markings in one area that weakens the paper causing a tear where an important detail could be drafted. Frustration usually would lead me to starting over onto a new paper, which adds to the waste. Here I can take note, delete or make the mistakes a different color so I can reference back to it.

Most of the problem took place at two important areas, that I didn’t think was that important. First, the mirroring of the front arm scye was in an incorrect space. My first attempt I only moved the curved line the same amount the straight line did the, but it wasn’t a true mirror. Instead, I copied and reflected both the curve and the straight line, so it retains the same distance.

Second, was the movement of point O from the reflected front pitch. My notes instructs me to move the point .3cm. I did, but basing only with the photo and without instruction on the direction, I thought it needed to move towards the left. After catching Robyn at the last minute of one of her classes when Mary Ellen was away one Wednesday (I still didn’t have this problem when I spoke to Mary Ellen), we figured I moved the .3cm the wrong way and it should have moved towards the right. That fixed the ease problem allowing me to put the correct amount of ease on all sides of the sleeve. The separate video will show me correcting this mistake.

This part of the process was more manual that I still needed a “pen and paper” (in my case, digital) to put all my notes down so I can keep track of my numbers. This is when pen and paper pattern making wins, because writing numbers, for me, is far more effective and faster when written down, especially when there’s a need to highlight and color code the lines. While all of that is possible digitally, the pen and paper version is just faster and more efficient than typing.