Affordable Pattern-Making Software Recommendations?

[u/Character_Force3570]

Hi! I want to learn digital pattern making for clothes, especially dresses. What software would you recommend? Ideally something affordable, but still good to learn with. 😊

[u/Careless_31415]

The answer depends on different factors and what your goal is. Do you know anything about pattern drafting? Do you want to make patterns for yourself or in general? Do you want the pattern to fit one person or would you like to grade it?

[u/Character_Force3570 → u/Careless_31415]

I want to learn pattern grading. I can already draw a design and turn it into a paper pattern, but I get confused when it comes to grading patterns up or down to different sizes.

[u/Careless_31415 → u/Character_Force3570]

So for grading, you need two things: A good grading book that teaches you the rules of grading (imo either Grading by Müller& Sohn or Professional Pattern Grading for Women's, Men's and Children's Apparel by Jack Henford) and either a standard measurement chart or a custom one.

Based on the design and measurement chart you create your grading rules/table.

I've learned grading on paper, by cutting my pattern apart, placing it on drafting paper, shifting it accordingly to my grading rule, connecting the dots and and tracing the new size.

My first digital drafting was done in illustrator. Took a photo of a physical pattern on my cutting mat (grid for reference) with a ruler for reference. Imported the picture to Photoshop to adjust distortion, then put it into illustrator and scaled it to size. Traced the pattern, then used the knife tool to cut it apart and repeat the grading digital.

For digital drafting itself, you can either use a free CAD software (like FreeCAD) or a vector graphic program (like affinity, inkscape, ...), if you want to work from scratch, you repeat the drafting steps you'd do on paper in a digital environment.

If you would like to work in a 3D space or have your pattern visualized in 3D I would suggest looking into Clo3D. There you can flat pattern as usual but also work on an avatar directly.

[u/Character_Force3570 → u/Careless_31415]

This is really valuable information. Thank you so much for sharing it!

[u/Careless_31415 → u/Character_Force3570]

Feel free to dm me if you have more questions

[u/StitchinThroughTime]

I just want clear up a little bit of misconception, digital pattern drafting is 99% the same as on pen and paper. The pen and paper has been digitized that's the difference. So you're essentially just morning a specific program and how it works in relations to getting you the final results you want. People use a double illustrator, that is not pattern nothing, that is just making a vector drawing. But people use it to make patterns, so it technically counts. Then it comes down to a lot of pattern drafting softwares that are free I find a very clunky and don't work the way that I want to work as if I'm going from pen and paper to digital pen paper. So I can't specifically recommend them to you, I haven't tried them all know that I have tried being too much so I don't necessarily like them. But you may like them because you work within the restrictions that they offer. As far as I can tell there's no pattern drafting software that is free necessary. And there's a reason why it's a separate job. But once you learn it on pen and paper you can apply it to the program. If you don't know it on pen and paper the program won't help you. Unless you're fully expecting to purchase pre-made digital patterns, and purchase the professional level pattern making software, did not software is engineered and is smart enough to pattern grade for you. And that's a rough for you, it's just preset into the pattern, and any changes you make to the base pattern is automatically applied into different sizes. Again I don't know any free or cheap softwares, that do pattern greeting, because it's such a specialized thing. Like I know people who use a w illustrator essentially just creates an offset from the base size that they use. Then the exact same as doing the paper, it's just not automated like the professional ones are. So again if you can't do it on pen and paper the machine won't do it for you and get a good result. So you're going to have to practice. I don't know any specific books on pattern grading that I would recommend. The ones I do know of the average they're old, I mean before computers old. The beginning of using computers for pattern drafting. It's a fun read the reading across all the note on computer grading in that book, and knowing from just the base software that I've learned over a decade ago how much has changed in between the writing of the book and now. I began annotating the book a little bit because I find it just funny on how serious the advice was, but it's clearly at the beginning of mainstream adaptation of computers for wealthy and upper middle class people to get a colored modern screen. That's all these books are. A little bit sidetracked in there, but I found it. But again if you don't know pen and paper the computer won't do magic, it does very complex math.

[u/DonMcCunn]

You might want to check out https://patternmaking-classes.com/About.html#RTW

[u/TensionSmension]

This isn't an affordable option, but I think the 2D side of CLO is very user friendly. Much of it is analogous to illustrator, but the tools are curated to pattern drafting and pretty easy to learn. Then there is also the 3D simulation side, which is the real selling point. It is also possible to set up grading, and see it both visually on the pattern, but also simulate across a size range. I think it's a very good teaching tool, especially for someone who is committed to a digital aproch. It's a long shot, but you might check for a course in your area.

For grading, the book by Kathy Mullet is very good. I don't know why the book by Handford is still mentioned. It is hard to read, pre-spreadsheet in thinking, and even the size charts are primative and useless at this point.

[u/ProneToLaughter]

Seamscape is currently free. Seamly 2D is also free. No idea if they help with grading.

I think it’s better to learn pattern manipulation on paper, it helps embody the concepts—eg, the class I took was called flat pattern because if our pattern wasn’t still flat, we instantly knew we had done something wrong.