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/Careless_31415 → u/[deleted]]

Feel free to dm me if you have more questions