Customised pattern making course

[mindmyarse]

Any recommendations sought for a course that will give me a good grounding in making a block and then developing that pattern to create my own designs I live in the south east but am happy to look at a residential if need be

I can recommend Suzy Furrer's classes on Craftsy www.craftsy.com/profile/suzy-furrer. It's all online, rather than in person, so may not be exactly what you are after, but the classes are very thorough and good value for money, especially if you sign up during one of the regular sales.

Nothing to add, but watching with interest

Thank you BartiDdu I have never done an online course but I will have a look.

...also watching with interest. City and guilds used to do a design course years ago which was very good.

This author is very good, I managed to draw up a skirt block from her instructions. As yet I have not had the time to do the top half as IMO it is slightly more complicated...it could be worth a look?

What sort of clothes were you thinking of making?

I have been doing an adult ed course in garment making and did make a block but I would love to be able to develop on it further by learning how to adapt it to make various designs of dresses tops I have not much knowledge of dart manipulation The course was ok but class sizes were big and I just thought if I could find a course specifically geared up for pattern making that may be better .

I just googled and found a local tutor who had retired from teaching HE and ran her own courses. I ended up with 1to1 tuition.

Agree that Winifred Aldrich Metric Pattern Cutting is the book you need to begin with.

Dress Pattern designing by Natalie Bray is my other book. If you invested in both of them you could make a good start on your own.

Creating Fashion by Betty Foster is also another good book about creating from a block. Another book that explains about darts, fitting and dress making patterns in general is Fit for real people by Pati Palmer and Marta Alto. Both book appear slightly dated in places but are full of fantastic information.

I have also taken clothes apart in the past and made a pattern, usually if they are worn out or the pattern is dated. I think buying pattern paper, a meter rule and a french curve and just having a go can be fun. The french curve is numbered so that you know which part of the ruler to use for the hips etc...

All you Ladies thank you for all your advice and recommendations I shall now go and peruse that's if I don't get distracted adding to my ever growing fabric stash 🙄

Also look at Helen Jospeh Armstrong, Patternmaking for Fashion Design. Great book and used as the textbook for a lot of courses so I'm told