How to Make Clothes Without a Pattern

August 8, 2017 · 12 Comments

How to Make Clothes Without a Pattern

Can I Make Clothes Without a Pattern?

A couple of years ago I started asking myself whether it was possible to make clothes without a pattern.

Was it possible for somebody with no formal training to make something completely from scratch?

Would it be enough to arm myself with my measurements and some bits of greaseproof paper?

Or would it prove to be impossible, with only sewing disasters to show for my hard work?

The short answer is yes, you can make clothes without a pattern!

Why Make Clothes Without a Pattern?

There are sometimes issues with using patterns. One of the problems is getting things to fit. The sizing on the back is totally different to high street dress sizes and although patterns can be adapted, it can be tricky and there’s no guarantee that you’ll end up with something that is a good fit.

Often the instructions are confusing. There have been a number of times where I’ve got into a total muddle with the instructions, or not been able to figure out at all what I am supposed to do! I’ve ended up putting the instructions to one side (cough, throwing them across the room, cough) and finishing the thing off myself in the way I think best.

Also, patterns rarely show the easiest way of doing things, even if there would be no obvious difference between doing something the easy way and doing it the proper way!

On top of all of this, it all takes so long! Wading through the instructions, identifying the pattern pieces you need, ironing the pieces, laying them out, cutting out, reading the instructions again, getting into a muddle, it takes ages. And ages is not what most of us have.

Making bags and cushions and things without a pattern is possible. So I decided to try making clothes without a pattern to see whether that was possible.

And I am pleased to say that it is totally possible!

You can end up with something that fits right, in a style you like, in less time and with less faffing about.

Where Do I Start?

The key thing here is to keep things simple.

I should probably say at this point that if I was going to make something difficult or complicated, or something I hadn’t tried before, then I would probably use a pattern. It would give me a sense of how to go about making a similar thing without a pattern in the future.

A good, simple project is a circle skirt. There’s a tutorial for one here.

Loose fitting pyjama style trousers are also a good place to start, or you might like to try some of these.

Do I Need Particular Skills or Knowledge?

Making something without pattern requires using the skills and knowledge you have, plus your creativity.

It will help you a lot if you have made clothes for yourself before. This will give you an idea of:
How clothes are put together
The shape of pattern pieces
Potentially tricky areas
Sleeves
Zips
Darts
Getting something to fit.

Keeping it simple here means being aware of and keeping within your own limitations when it comes to making clothes without a pattern.

This doesn’t mean you have to stick to making things that are so easy they are completely shapeless! It just means being aware of what you can do and how you can use that knowledge to make something for yourself. Simple is best. It doesn’t have to mean shapeless.

Do I Need Any Particular Equipment?

You’ll need your usual sewing supplies, including pins, tape measure and decent scissors.

Large bits of old fabric are very useful. Try old curtains or old duvet covers. You’ll also need pattern paper, although greaseproof paper or newspaper will do.

Swedish pattern paper is supposed to be very good as you can use it in the same way as ordinary pattern paper, but you can also sew it. I haven’t tried it myself though!

A dress form is nice to have as it does make things easier, but it’s not essential.
(These are affiliate links.)

If you don’t have a dress form, a friend or a cooperative husband is useful.

Where Else Can I Find Inspiration?

The best place to look is your own wardrobe. Identify clothes that you like to wear and why.

Do you like the colour?
Is it comfy?
Is it a good fit?
Do you like the style of it?

Then have a good look at it and try to figure out how it is put together. Look for the size and shape of the pieces, how the necklines been finished, and generally how the thing is constructed. If you can bear to, take it apart! Then try to make something similar.

Other Tips and Advice

Keep it simple. I keep saying it because it’s important! Stick to simple shapes and simple construction and it will probably turn out fine.

Don’t be afraid of darts. Darts give things shape where they need it. If the thing you have made is a bit shapeless, darts are probably the answer.

Don’t be afraid of zips. Doing them the proper way is a fiddly nightmare, but there is a much easier way!

Things go wrong sometimes. Our mistakes are an opportunity to learn. Most mistakes are fixable with a little bit of creativity.

If you would like to know more about making clothes without using a pattern, I have a free ebook for you! Just fill in the form here with your email address and it will be sent to you.

(Please be aware though you will be added to the newsletter list. I send this out every Saturday. There’s links, updates, tips, free stuff and no spam. You can unsubscribe if you don’t want to get it.)

You might also like my ebook, Sewing Clothes Without a Pattern: 6 Easy Projects to Kickstart Your Handmade Wardrobe.It contains 6 projects that you can make yourself without using a pattern, using a circle skirt as a starting point. There’s also a free printable for recording your measurements.

If you want to make clothes without a pattern, you might also find these posts helpful.

Linking up here

How to Refashion a Top Into a Dress

June 10, 2017 · 5 Comments

How to Refashion a Top Into a Dress

I’ve had this top in my wardrobe for several years. I bought it because I love the print and the colours.

Unfortunately my husband caught me with the camera while I was wearing it and I was horrified to see that I looked fat.

Of course, there are some good reasons for this. 4 of those reasons are trashing the upstairs of my house with Lego as we speak. The other reason is my inability to not eat stuff that’s full of carbs and sugar.

Despite the fact that I don’t wear this top and, having had a number of opportunities to donate it to charity, I can’t quite bring myself to part with it. I still like the colours and I still like the print. I just don’t like feeling fat.

So instead of it taking up room in my wardrobe as something I never wear, I’ve turned it into something I will love wearing! Here’s how to refashion a top into a dress.

Refashioning a Top

Deciding What to Turn it Into

My most favourite thing in my wardrobe is this cherry blossom dress. I made it 2 years ago as an experiment to see whether I could make a dress without using a pattern. It was a success and I wore it to a wedding. 2 years on and I still wear it all the time when the weather is warm enough!

So I decided to make my top into something similar that I will hopefully love just as much!

To make the skirt, I chose some cotton fabric in emerald green and in pink to co-ordinate with the flowers on the top. I finished the sleeves with some green bias binding to pull it together.

Making the Skirt

I love circle skirts! As well as the cherry blossom dress, I have made circle skirts, half circle skirts and this foofy skirt has several net circles underneath it to give it its foofiness.

With this circle skirt, I added some contrast pleats. Here’s how to do it in case you want to add a circle skirt to a top you don’t wear any more!

1. Measure your waist, remembering to hold the tape measure loosely. Add 16 cm for seam allowances. Decide how long you want it to be. 60 cm is a good length for most people.

2. In order to calculate how big a square of fabric you need for cutting out, you will need to add the radius of your waist circle to the length. The radius is the distance from the edge of the circle to the centre.

In order to do this, you will need to use pi. Pi is the ratio of the circumference (outside edge) of a circle to its diameter (distance across the circle passing through the centre). The circumference is roughly three times the diameter. You’ve probably got a calculator on your phone and that will have a pi button (mine does!).

Take your waist measurement plus the extra cm and divide it by pi. Then divide the answer by 2 to get the radius. Add this to your skirt length. This gives you the size of square you need for cutting out.

My total was 78 cm. I added a couple of cm for the seam allowance, giving me 80 cm. So the size of square I needed for cutting out was 80 cm x 80 cm.

3. Cut your 4 squares of fabric. Check that they are all the same way up. Identify the top corner and from there, measure down the distance of your waist circle radius (this is the number you reached when you divided your waist measurement by pi then divided it by 2). Mark this on both sides of the fabric, and then using your tape measure, mark of the rest of the waist.

4. Take your total length measurement and measure down from the top corner again. This is to mark off the bottom of the skirt. Mark this on both sides of the fabric, and then across the fabric using your tape measure in the same way as you did with the waist.

5. Cut out the waist and the bottom of the skirt. I used a rotary cutter (affiliate link) and cut through all 4 pieces of fabric at once. You will have 4 quarter circles. Cut each quarter circle in half so that you have 8 eighths.

6. From the contrast fabric, cut 6 strips 15 cm wide and the same length as your skirt, then cut 2 more strips the same length as the others and 17 cm wide.

7. Time to start sewing! Take one of the eighth circle pieces and one of the contrast strips. Sew the contrast strip to the side of the circle eighth that has the grain running up and down. Sew another eighth to the other side. This will be the centre of the skirt.

8. Sew another strip to the side of one of the eighths, then attach another eighth to the other side of the strip. Repeat for the other side.

9. Now take your 17 cm strips and cut them in half. Sew one half strip to each side.

You should now have half a skirt with a stripe down the middle, 2 on either side, then half a strip attached to each outside edge.

Repeat with the remaining skirt pieces so that you have 2 half skirts the same.

10. Trim the seams and press them. Then fold each seam so that the wrong sides are together and press.

11. Fold the seams into the centre of the pleat and pin. I quickly sewed along the top within the seam allowance to hold the pleats in place.

Attaching the Skirt to the Top

In order to refashion a top into a dress, it might be necessary to make some adjustments to the top so that in can become a bodice for a dress. My top was a bit baggy around the armpits, so it needed some alterations.

I tried the top on inside out and pinned it at the sides. I also marked where the waist needed to be.

After taking it off, I cut the bottom off just underneath where I had marked my waist. I removed the pins and cut off the side seams. Because it was too big, I was able to do this as there was enough extra fabric. If I hadn’t needed to take it in, I would have needed to unpick the seams which would have been a pain as they had been finished with an overlocker and it would have taken ages!

Lining up the centre pleat with the centre of the back, I pinned the skirt back to the back of the top, then sewed it in place. Then I did the same with the front. For some reason the back of the top was slightly less wide than the front. I resolved this by taking in a bit more at the pleats at the sides.

Then I sewed the skirt pieces to the top.

At this point I was very happy! It was already a huge improvement 🙂

I unpinned the side seams after I took the top off, as at this point I just needed to check whether I had enough spare fabric to cut the side seams off or whether I would have to unpick them. So now I had to try it on again to pin the side seams.

I didn’t much fancy getting jabbed in the armpits with the pins again, but thankfully I remembered something that Julie from Sum of Their Stories had said about using safety pins instead. This way turned out to be a lot less painful and I didn’t have the issue of pins falling out while I was taking it off!

Having repinned the sides, I sewed up the sides of the bodice, then changed thread colour and sewed up the sides of the skirt. This involved joining the centre of the pleats at the sides and trying not to catch the green bits in the sewing machine.

As the top has some buttons in it, I didn’t need to add a zip. If it did need one, I would have added one to one of the side seams using this method.

Usually I finish the hem of a circle skirt with a bound hem as hemming a curve normally is difficult to do neatly. This time I decided to still use bias binding, but with a slightly different technique. This one involves turning the bias binding underneath. I’ve wanted to try it ever since I saw it on the Great British Sewing Bee! There’ll be a full tutorial showing how to do this soon!

Pulling it Together

I was very happy with the finished results, but it still felt like an old top with a skirt attached.

So to pull it together, I had a rummage and found some bias binding a similar shade of green as the skirt. I used this to bind the sleeves. That splash of emerald green on the top visually links the top to the skirt and it looks much better.

I’m happy that I’ve managed to refashion a top I liked but looked bad on into something I can’t wait to wear!

Linking up here.

How To Sew a Half Circle Skirt Without a Pattern

October 18, 2016 · 3 Comments

How To Sew a Half Circle Skirt Without a Pattern

I love circle skirts.

They are very easy and quick to make and you don’t need a pattern. They suit pretty much every body shape and they are lovely and swirly to wear.

The only downside is that you need a lot of fabric.

While having a rummage for something the other week, I found a couple of metres of cotton jersey that I’d bought for something and never used.

2 metres is not enough to make a circle skirt for somebody of my dimensions, but it’s plenty for making a half circle skirt!

So that is what I did :).

Being made from jersey, it didn’t need a zip. There was less of it to cut out and less of it to sew, so it was quicker to make.

I used stretch bias binding to finish the hem (affiliate link).

Bias binding is my favourite way to finish the hem of a circle or a half circle skirt as they can be fiddly to hem normally. I opted for a contrast colour instead of aiming for the same colour and it not being quite the same. It’s actually the pinkness at the bottom of the skirt that is my favourite thing about it!

How to Make a Half Circle Skirt

You Will Need

2 metres of jersey fabric, 3 metres of stretch bias binding, usual sewing supplies, but check your measurements first!

Calculating Your Measurements

This involves doing some maths but please don’t panic if maths is not your thing! It’s not difficult maths.

Decide how long you want the skirt to be. 60 cm is a good length for most people.

Measure around your waist and add 4 cm. This is to allow for a 1 cm seam.

Take that number and divide by 3.14, or pi. There’ll be a pi button on your calculator, and probably a calculator on your phone if you don’t have one. Or you could just divide by 3.14.

Add the answer to the length of the skirt. This is the size of square you will need.

So my waist measurement plus 4 extra cm was 97 cm. Divided by pi, this was roughly 31 cm. I added 31 cm to 60 cm, giving me 91 cm.

So I needed to cut 2 squares of fabric 91 cm x 91 cm.

That’s the hardest part, the rest is easy!

Cutting Out

1. Take your 2 squares of fabric and lay them out wrong sides together. If you are using a directional print, make sure that both squares are the same way up.

2. Remember the number you ended up with after you divided your waist measurement? Take that number and measure down from the top of the squares by that amount. Pin, then using a tape measure, measure all the way round the top quarter. Mark with pins.My advice is always to iron your fabric first. As you can see, I need to take my own advice!

3. Now take that number added to the skirt length and measure down from the top corner. Mark at the side with a pin, then measure all the way across the bottom of the corner circle.

4. Cut where you have pinned. You should end up with 2 pieces that look like a quarter of a doughnut.

5. From the fabric that is left, cut a strip of fabric 10 cm wide and as long as your waist measurement plus the extra cm. It might be necessary to cut 2 strips. You’ll need the waistband to stretch, so check that the grain is running up and down the waistband, not side to side.

Sewing Up

1. Take your 2 quarter circles and, with the right sides together, pin the side seams. Try it on to check that it fits. Adjust the pins if necessary.

2. Sew up the side seams.

3. Take the waistband strips and pin them together. Check them against the skirt to ensure that the seams will match, then sew the waistband pieces together.

4. With the waistband wrong side up, pin it to the wrong side of the skirt. Start by matching the side seams. Sew the waistband to the wrong side of the skirt.

5. Fold the waistband over the top of the skirt. Tuck the raw edge of the waistband underneath and pin it to the top of the skirt.

6. Top stitch around the waistband, keeping close to the bottom edge.

7. Starting at one of the side seams, fold one end of the bias binding over and pin it to the bottom of the skirt on the wrong side. Sew the bias binding all around the bottom of the skirt.

When you get back to where you started, overlap the bias binding by a cm or 2. Sew it in place and cut off the rest.

8. Fold the bias binding over bottom edge of the skirt, tucking the raw edge of the bias binding inwards. Top stitch all the way round.

When you get back to the start, carefully fold the ends of the bias binding over and sew in place.

9. Put on you half circle skirt and wait for the compliments!If you liked this tutorial, you might also like these:

Cherry Blossom Dress Without a Pattern

Circle Skirt Without a Pattern

Skirt With Godets Tutorial

Foofy Skirt Tutorial (this has a link to a tutorial I wrote for the Minerva Crafts Bloggers’ Network)

Tips For Making Clothes Without a Pattern

You might also like to take a look at my ebook Making Clothes Without a Pattern: 6 Easy Projects to Kickstart Your Handmade Wardrobe.

You can also sign up to receive updates and free stuff and you’ll be sent a printable copy of the circle skirt tutorial, complete with a page to record your measurements! There’s a form below.

Linking up here.

How to Alter a Dress Form

January 15, 2016 · 17 Comments

Having a dress form or tailors’ dummy can make making your own clothes so much easier. It’s very difficult pinning things to your back and then drawing on yourself with a pen! It’s equally difficult trying to pin a hem and check that it’s straight.

They’re not so useful if they are not the same size as you! This is when you might need to alter a dress form.

The best kind of tailors’ dummy is the adjustable sort. These are more expensive than the kind that are a fixed size. The fixed sized ones, although cheaper, can be where you can run into problems.

As have I.

My dress form, known as Betty, has never been a great match size wise and this has resulted in some slightly peculiar results.

Living in quite a small house as we do, there is no room for large items of clutter, which Betty has unfortunately become.

So there’s a choice:
Get rid of Betty (I feel bad doing this as she was a Christmas present a few years ago).
Get a new one (I already have one and there’s not space for 2, which takes me back to #1)
Fix Betty up so that clothes that fit her also fit me.

I decided to go for option #3. If it worked, I’d have a dress form that was the right size. If it not, I’d still have options 1 and 2.

Thankfully it did work, although she does still need a little bit of adjusting.

How to Alter a Dress Form

The first thing to do is take some measurements.

The measurements I took were:

Round my neck
The distance between my shoulders
Shoulders to armpit
Round my top area under the armpits
Boob area
Under boob area
Waist
Hips
Distance from waist to hips
Distance from armpit to waist

I then took Betty’s measurements.

Her top half needed to be slimmed down a bit. The rest of it was fine, although the fact that she is not squashy is still a slight problem.

How to Make a Dress Form Smaller

The cheaper dress forms are usually made of polystyrene and covered with a nylon cover. So remove the cover and find a sharp, serrated knife.

As polystyrene makes an almighty mess, I’d recommend putting a tablecloth or a sheet down first. When I did this, it got everywhere. It even stuck to the cat.

Identify the areas on the mannequin where your measurements are different. Using the knife, carefully shave bits of the dress form until the measurements correspond with your own.

Keep measuring!

When you have got those areas to the correct size, then you can grade it between those points so that the dress form’s curves are similar to your own.

Having a smaller frame than the dress form, I cut quite a bit of the underarm area and also off the back.

Obviously cutting bits of it off only works if the dress form is too big. So what do you do if it’s too small (or if you accidently cut too much off)?

How to Make a Dress Form Bigger

In order to make your dress form bigger, you will need some firm batting or wadding, an old bra and an old top, either a snug fitting t shirt or a vest top. The kind they sell in Primark is just the thing.

Identify the areas that need padding out. Start to layer up the wadding and pin it in place. Pop the t shirt onto the dress form and check the measurements. Keep going like this until you have a dress form that fits!

There’s a nice tutorial showing how to do this in more detail at Sew Country Chick.

PS If you want to sew clothes without using a pattern, you might like my ebook!

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