How to read a Sewing Pattern for Beginners - Creating your first sewing pattern!

welcome everybody I am tock custom and on today's video I'm going to show you how to read and create your own pattern from scratch if you're new to sewing and you feel comfortable running a sewing machine getting a pattern is the best way to create whatever you're trying to make but if you've never run a pattern before it can be kind of confusing so I'm gonna show you everything you need to know and keep it nice and simple alright so to get started you're gonna need some kind of a pattern of what you want to make a marker and something to cut with and I've got a ruler which really helps with making patterns the other thing I use for making patterns is this easy pattern tracing cloth I'll talk more about this as we get farther into the video but this stuff is perfect for making patterns so what we need to look at is the front of the pattern so this pattern comes with four different variations of a button-down shirt now I want to make pattern a which is the short-sleeve button-down collared shirt something you need to be aware of is the size that comes in this pattern so this is small medium and large I'm a large so I'm going to be doing that but sometimes they'll sell a different pattern that has XL to XL three XL so make sure you get the one that you need now I'm gonna be doing pattern a which is the short-sleeve button-down so I need to look at the back of this now now as you look at the back there's a ton of information here so I'm gonna cover what you need to know the first thing we need to look at is the suggested fabrics and this recommends a cotton or cotton blend or something woven something that will not stretch now these are all the different styles of shirts here so I'm gonna be doing shirt a and I'm large so I'm gonna be looking right here now buy shirt a it says if you have 45 inch wide fabric you need two yards of fabric and if you have 60 inch wide fabric you need one in five base yard I always buy a little bit of extra fabric just in case I want a pattern match or if I make mistakes so when you're buying a pattern at the fabric store this will tell you exactly how much fabric you need to complete your project now after you find out how much fabric you need it says that we need 7/8 of a yard of fusible interfacing for shirt a fusible interfacing is the stuff that goes into the collar and the cuffs we'll talk more about that in the next video now we're going to move down a little bit here now we're gonna look at where it says notions and notions are anything that's not fabric so for shirt a it says I need seven half-inch buttons other things that our notions might be like a zipper or velcro or other things like that now that is everything you need to know from the front and back of the pattern to make sure that you've got the pattern you want the amount of fabric that you need any other notions that you have in the style that you want to complete now we're gonna take our pattern and instructions out so this is the instructions and this is the actual pattern so we're gonna put the patterns aside for right now and just look at the instructions so I'm going to unfold this and just look at page one of our pattern here alright now this is the opening page of our instructions and I know it looks very intimidating but I'm gonna break this down and make it very simple alright so this first box shows you all the different variations of this pattern so I am going to circle a because that's what we're gonna make and now as I move down this shows you all the different peoples that come in your pattern so what I want to do is I'm gonna put a dot next to everything that's in pattern a so the pocket the front-panel the flap I don't need because that says D and E if the yoke I don't need the yoke back I don't need the back I do need which is panel six sleeve a I want that then sleeve eight and nine I don't need those because those aren't part of a I don't need a cuff I do need a front band or a placket I needed the collar and I need the collar band or collar stand so in this pattern I only need to cut out one two three four five six seven things to make this shirt now the next thing is at the top of the page so this is the pattern marking so you're gonna mark these on your actual pattern and the first thing is the grain line which is this is the direction in which you cut it out on the fabric and I'll show you that as we're making the pattern if you see this symbol which is kind of like a box with two arrows pointing at a line that means you're gonna cut it on the fold line again I'll talk more about that as we get there if you see something that looks like this that is where you gonna do a buttonhole if you see an X that's where a button will go and then there's all your notches and symbols and I will show you how these work as we start making our pattern all these notches and markings are very important so I'll make sure to point that out when we get there the most important thing in this pattern is this thing right here that says seam alone so the entire project is going to be done at a 5/8 of an inch seam allowance and that goes throughout the entire project unless otherwise indicated okay and I'll talk more about that as we're cutting out the pattern and as we're actually putting this shirt together in the next video now we were just looking at these four or five things right here everything else up here you don't need to know right now so don't worry about that at all okay now we're at the part where we need our actual pattern now this is very thin paper so it can tear easily so be very delicate while you're opening this up now the reason I figure out which panels I need is because you're gonna get all these different shapes and you need to know which ones you want to cut out for your specific project alright so let's take a closer look at panel six here so this is my back panel something this particular panel has is it has this full blind mark right here so that means I'm gonna fold the fabric in half and I'm gonna put this right on the edge of that fold and cut this out so that it opens up to one big back panel now up here you're gonna see all these different styles of lines now these are your sizes so if I was making a small I'd follow this line but I'm making a large so I'm gonna be following the outside line all the way around here if you see any marks that have your size that corresponds with it so there's an L right next to this triangle I'm gonna transfer that to my pad and same thing with these notches and goes for any double notches I'll show you how those work when we get to that on the pattern of 12 now because I'm making style a of this shirt I know that I need the sixth panel and this right here is the whole back panel and this is panel number six so this is where our tracing cloth comes in so what I want to do is I'm going to cut out a piece of this tracing cloth here so that it's tall enough to cover that entire panel also it is important to know that this tracing cloth comes folded in half so you actually get a ton of this material when you buy it something else that's great about this tracing cloth is you can iron it so it's not gonna warp or stretch and I'm gonna iron this before I even start tracing so that it's nice and smooth so now it's time to start tracing out our panel I know it's hard to see on camera but this material this tracing cloth is transparent so I can actually see the lines through here so all I'm gonna do is I'm just going to trace the lines all the way around the large size from what I can see and this right here tells me there's my little mark that tells me I need to cut this on the fold line so I'm going to transfer that to my pattern right here you okay now I'm going to go back and I'm gonna mark any notches or symbols like right here there's a knob on the shoulder seam and I think there was a double notch here and right here there's a double notch and the notches are what help you match up your panels of fabric with the other pieces so that everything fits together something else I always do is I always write the number of the pattern on here so that when we get to the instructions I know exactly what this is and I'm also gonna put what the pattern is so I'm gonna put back and then I'm gonna write cut one piece fold and that's gonna tell me I just need to cut this once on a fold line now I'm just gonna finish tracing out the rest of this quick and I'll show you what's next one more thing that's smart to do is to put the size of what your panel is so I always put large with a circle so that I know if this ever gets mixed up with my medium or small patterns that I know that this is the large back piece okay so now I'm going to cut this out you can either use scissors or I'd like to use a rotary cutter so for straight lines I am just going to use a straight edge to do that for this long back panel I'm going to just cut this whole thing out all the way around now the rest of these lines are not straight so I'm just going to use my rotary cutter to very carefully follow those lines and again you can use a pair of scissors just as easily but I find that rotary cutters are quite a bit faster excellent so we have our first panel done and I know this is panel number six this is my back panel I need to cut one on the fold line according to the symbol down here I know it's a size large and I've got all my marks and notches all the way around this thing so this is perfect this is exactly what you want to see now the funny thing is I've already made this pattern in fact I made it in January of 2015 which is quite a while ago but this is the same pattern that we were just making earlier so because I made it with that tracing cloth I just put it in an envelope and labeled it and now I've got all my panels folded up nicely into this envelope and when I open this up I've got everything I need from the front the back the collar you know the sleeve everything and it will get a little creased and wrinkled but I can iron all of this so it's flat so let me learn this real quick now when you're finished cutting out all of your panels from whatever pattern that you chose you should have something that looks like this so I've got everything that I need for style a of the shirt that I want to make there's a couple other things I wanted to point out so this is the front placket so this is where all the buttons are gonna go so this would try to line up with the front of my shirt here and this has all of the markings where buttons and buttonholes need to go all the way down here this line right here is where my breast pocket will go so that will kind of line up like that and all these other notches and markings help you figure out how to put everything together all right now there's something else very important I want to point out now on most of the panels you're gonna see when you trace this out there is this big long arrow right here that has a point pointing down and that's called the grain line arrow so let's say I was gonna make a shirt out of this amazing beauties and brains fabric I would want to make sure that I'm following this grain line so that when I cut this all out all of the graphics are right-side up otherwise you're gonna get things that are sideways or upside down and stuff like that so be very aware of how you're lining up your panels with your fabric so that when you cut it out everything comes the right way this is especially important for stretchy materials but this isn't a stretchy material and the same thing again this is another perfect example this is our sleeve so I'd want to make sure that my green line is following the length of this fabric so keep that in mind when you start cutting out your fabric all right so that is how you read and make a pattern which is not that hard actually it takes a little bit of time but it's not so bad so with all the instructions I always keep these in the actual envelope that the pattern came in which is fine and then with the pattern itself I can literally just fold these up and put these into a pre labelled envelope that I made telling me what it is so I can make this shirt dozens or even hundreds of times if I wanted to okay I think we've done a very good job of covering the basics of how to buy a pattern and make it once you get it at home if you have any questions please let me know in the comments I think in our next video I'm actually gonna make that shirt to teach you guys how to make your own button-down collared shirt again thank you guys so much for watching if you have any other ideas of things you'd like to see please let me know in the comments otherwise I will see you in the next video

Channel: Tock Custom

Views: 75,786

Rating: 4.9849219 out of 5

Keywords: how to sew, sewing for beginners, sewing tutorial, sewing, men's clothing, how to make clothes, tock custom, tockcustom, sewing man, sewing jesus, brother sewing machine, heavy duty sewing machine, how to use a sewing machine, McCall's Pattern, How to make a sewing pattern, sewing pattern, how to read a sewing pattern, making a sewing pattern, sewing patterns for beginners, intro to sewing, how to use a sewing pattern, sewing pattern for beginners

Id: 2I0iDN6p-Q4

Length: 13min 18sec (798 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 26 2020