Jess shares his method of drafting a basic man’s pant block which goes to show you that a method doesn’t need to be complicated in order to be informative and useful. His first post on the page relates to a useful tool to add seam allowances quickly and painlessly:
What I really hate doing is drawing seam allowances so I decided to try to find a way that would make it easier when I’m drawing seam allowances on curves. I found this weird looking compass thingy (it’s called a Circle Master Compass and you can get one here.)It holds two pencils and it’s perfect. Just gauge the points of the pencils with a ruler to the seam allowance you need and trace around your block pieces. Make sure you hold it square from the edge while your drawing or it will shorten the seam allowance and check your work with a ruler. It works great.
Thanks Jess.
I realize there’s a lot of legitimacy to men’s arguments that there are few pattern drafting books regarding men’s wear. In that vein I’d recommend Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear by Winifred Aldrich or Fundamentals of Men’s Fashion Design by Masaaka Kawashima. Another favorite is Tailoring Suits the Professional Way by Clarence Poulin (out of print).
This is a compilation and crude importation of all the comments posted at the original site for this document. Feel free to add your comments.
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4/15/2005 08:52:22 PM Jess said:
I didn’t know if the seam allowance thing was a new idea or not but I haven’t seen it in any of the books. I’ll check out those books you reccomended! I’ve searched all over Amazon like a gazillion times and never found those books, hee. I got a new book, well from the 80s but new to me called Classic Tailoring Techniques / Men’s Wear by Roberto Cabrera and Patricia Flaherty Meyers. It’s not much for pattern drafting but is really good with construction.