Patternmaking is all geometry

Sorry for bringing you back to high school math 🤓

The ‘v1 sweater’ I finished last week was the first I've ever made from a pattern I developed myself. My pattern (adapted from a hand-knitting pattern) consisted of rectangles, trapezoids, and barely intelligible measurements and instructions, scribbled onto scrap paper.

But now that I’m making sweaters for a couple of friends, it’s the first time I’ve had to consider:

• Scaling a pattern to fit sizes and body shapes that are different from my own

• Developing new patterns (with different necklines, sleeves, etc.) to build out my design library

At its core, pattern design is an exercise in geometry; taking 2d pieces of fabric and shaping them around our not-at-all flat bodies. There are some basic shapes that almost all standard clothing (shirts, trousers, dresses, etc.) are derived from. And, as you can imagine, there are almost infinite variations that can be made to these shapes to modify the fit of the final garment. I've been Iooking at any/all resources I have to help me iterate on my pattern.

Pattern design fundamentals from an FIT class I took a few years back

The knitting machine I bought on eBay came with a couple of random pattern books, including this one that’s almost like an analog calculator

I also realized while disassembling my friends’ sweaters earlier this week that I could learn from the sweaters I'm pulling apart. Breaking these sweaters down into their component pieces (a prerequisite for unraveling) gave me a window of opportunity to capture detailed measurements that can in turn inform my designs. So I took some extra time to document:

So how do I translate all of this geometry into a (digital) format that’ll allow me to easily scale the size and shape of my sweaters? There are several software tools dedicated to apparel pattern-making and, there’s even a growing category of 3d modeling software specific to fashion design. I’ve even come across hand- and machine-knitting-specific software.

I don’t want to reinvent the wheel when it comes to designing patterns, so I’m hoping to play around with free trials and/or open-source versions to get a feel for ‘digitizing’ my pattern (and developing/documenting new ones). Worst case, I’ll crack open trusty Excel! Overall, my goal is to improve my knitting capabilities/skills and expand my 'library' of designs. 

Best,
Anne