​In today’s tutorial, I’ll go a step further by showing you how to actually extract an applique from a lace or ornamental fabric and hand stitch it to the surface of a silk crepe de chine. The need for this comes up quite often when you can’t find the right pre-cut appliques on the market. In that case, it is totally acceptable to cut your own from a suitable fabric. I’ll show you this simple process below.

When it comes to clothing design, there’s nothing more feminine and playful than a ruffle. Ruffles are very simple design elements yet can completely shift the mood and style of a garment. I touched a bit on ruffles months ago, yet I still haven’t shown you the patterning side. For those that are interested in learning more pattern drafting techniques, today’s tutorial will cover another application of my all-time favorite technique: the slash and spread method. In the steps to follow, I’ll show you a simple way to draft a circle ruffle from scratch at the desired width and length.

There are two main types of ruffles: gathered ruffles and circle ruffles. They look and drape very differently not to mention the sewing techniques used to apply them vary greatly. A gathered ruffle as you might have guessed, is first gathered to create the ruffle flounce, after which the gathered edge is sewn into the correspond seam. A circle ruffle on the other hand, has flounces that are localized, applied individually on the sewing pattern depending on the desired ruffle density. The patterning process for the latter ruffle style is what we’ll discuss today! As opposed to a gathered ruffle, a circle ruffle has a smoother, more flexible quality. 

I recently got a great question from someone who is getting more into pattern drafting but not surprisingly, experiencing some setbacks with dart placement. Darts are undeniably one of the most complicated elements to maneuver around when altering or drafting sewing patterns from scratch. It comes as no surprise given that darts alone provide the transition from flat to 3-dimensional. The organic shape of the human form is complicated and not a single one is made exactly the same as the other. That being said, understanding dart placement and dart manipulation comprises the most essential part of learning patternmaking. It is also a great starting point for those that want to learn how to alter and draft patterns from scratch!

In today's tutorial, I will show you two different but common scenarios you may encounter when drafting a pattern that has darts:
1. How to split a single waist dart into two separate darts: one vertical waist dart and another horizontal bust dart.
2. How to transfer an entire dart from one area of the garment to another. In this particular example, I will show you how to shift full excess from the waist dart to a shoulder dart.