32. Zero-Pattern Sewing?!

Why I don’t always use sewing patterns, and sometimes make clothes like this instead… even works for beginners! (watch this on YouTube!) 

Mentioned in this episode:
Soft Work Course - $50 off until MAY 20th at midnight!! Use code 50FORYOU
Episode 11 - Considering the Cuts of Our Cloth
Episode 29 - Zero Waste Patternmaking

Transcript

Introduction

Um, this isn't some super advanced method though. Even if you don't make clothes already, in fact, especially if you don't make clothes already, you can learn this way because let's be real, learning how to sew is hard enough without having to learn the origami of pattern folding. 

You are listening to Stitch Wish Radio, a podcast for crafting your own magic and threads. I'm your host, textile artist, author, and teacher, Christy Johnson.  Do sewing patterns scare you? Maybe you listened to last week's episode talking to Pam, an expert pattern maker, and you were like, see, this is why I could never make clothes, because I could never be that precise, or do that seam a certain way, or even read a pattern.

Or maybe they just seem really bulky and cumbersome, and you feel like you would never be able to lay them out right. Same here.  

Why Zero Pattern Sewing?

That's why I prefer. Zero pattern sewing. Wait, what? Yeah, I just made that up. Um, while there are certain garments that just need a pattern, no matter how finicky a pattern can be, like if you're working on a blazer or a pair of jeans, we are not going to freestyle a blazer or a pair of jeans.

There are also plenty of garments that don't need patterns. So in this episode, I'm going to go over my personal experience and also give you some ideas how you can work this way too. You can also hear me talk about this a little bit in episode 11 called considering the cuts of our cloth, where I talk about the difference between modern garments cut all sorts of willy nilly into the cloth with no concern for waste.

Both curved lines and pieces that leave so much fabric on the cutting table versus ancestral methods of clothing creation, where there's a whole lot of concern for how much fabric is wasted because it took me 1, 700 billion hours to harvest, process, and make. Spin and weave that fabric. Thank you very much.

This episode emerged because I was working on my latest garment for my make it with me lessons in my soft work course, um, where I take you through making the entire garment from taking my taking measurements to actually creating a pattern or in this case not creating a pattern. And I realized it was the third garment in this series where I realized that I didn't have a pattern.

Three out of the five of these lessons were made without a pattern. So taking my measurements, planning with some simple math and drawing these rectangles directly onto the fabric and then heading right into cutting and sewing.  Uh, before I get started this week, 

The Soft Work Intuitive Garment Design Course

you should know that the soft work intuitive garment design course that I'm talking about is now on sale for 50 off through Monday.

So through the weekend, and then the sale ends Monday, May 20th at midnight. So be sure to get in there. If you want to learn to make your own clothes using your own measurements and following the natural shape of the fabric to create. Modern designs inspired by ancient methods. It's specifically designed for making free fitting basic garments that are simple to sew and easy to wear.

You can read all about it and the link in the show notes. Okay. So moving into first off why I oftentimes don't use patterns.  

Why (and when) I Don’t Use Patterns

I like to keep the clothing that I create relatively simple. This means that the sewing is easier. It means that there's less waste, and it means that the garment is overall less frustrating to make.

It's oftentimes about allowing a really beautiful piece of fabric or print to be shown off. At this point in my sewing practice, I honestly don't even mess with anything that is not a beautiful fabric or print. It's really not worth my time. Um, in episode 26, I talk about how being cheap with your materials is actually a terrible use of your time and your money, to be honest.

Um, so no matter what I'm making, even if I've already made it before, I always start the process with draping the fabric on my body. Draping the fabric on my body gives me an immediate understanding of how the fabric meets form for them to both look the rest. So I'll cut depending on how that specific fabric falls on the body.

This means that one fabric might need a totally different volume than another fabric, and I'm pretty open to that happening. Um, it just happens sometimes. Because of this, any cut I make into a fabric is usually as simple as possible. Usually a single straight line or a single curve. Seams with curves going in multiple directions kind of stress me out because I feel like you have to be a really good sewer to make these look good on a finished garment.

Um, and I'm honestly, I'm not that great of a sewer. I'm more of like a pedal to the metal. Let's see this baby done kind of sewer.  Moon and Aries for you. Um, and these multi directional curved seams, think like the princess seam on a blazer, the one that goes from the side to the bust, down the waist and to the hem.

These seams generally need to be kind of filled in with body parts. And so unless you're an expert tailor or have an expert tailor at your disposable,  this can easily make fitting these garments a real challenge.  Why else don't I use patterns? In the most basic sense, I came to the studio to work with fabric, not paper.

At this point in my life, most days I have like an hour, maybe two if I'm lucky, to get into my sewing practice. And I would like to jump right into sewing. I used to work with patterns for basically everything, but as I moved into designing clothes that work with the basic rectangular form of the fabric in an effort to reduce waste, I noticed my patterns were more rectangular.

That's the shape of the fabric. It's a rectangle. I still have all of those paper patterns from mine from years and years of sewing, but they are folded and hanging in the basement. The hanging ones get torn up, the folded ones get all crumpled, and any pattern that I've ever bought, like store bought pattern, never makes its way back into the envelope.

You basically have to be an origami artist. to refold the store bought ones. So despite my best efforts to record past clothing designs, I'm honestly better off just listing the dimensions on a piece of paper or in digital form. Um, I love using notion and Google sheets for this since I can access them from any computer on the cloud.

Um, and to be honest, the fact that I never go back and look at these patterns makes me question, do I even like the cut of clothing made with patterns?  Or maybe it's just because I have the attention span of a fly and remembering the patterns that I used 10 years ago just isn't for me.  Another reason I love working without patterns is because as I'm just draping the fabric directly onto my body, it makes me think, what would my ancestors be doing?

Like this feels so, so connected. Like, do you think that they were looking through magazines trying to figure out how to replicate that exact dress on some stupid celebrity? No. They just finished weaving their fabric and they're like, how can I make this look beautiful on my body in my world right now for me?

No shade to celebrities. I just hate the fashion world and their collateral collateral damage. Um, this isn't some super advanced method though. Even if you don't make clothes already, in fact, especially if you don't make clothes already, you can learn this way because let's be real. Learning how to sew is hard enough without having to learn the origami of pattern folding. 

You can also do this. How? 

Draping and Muslins

So when I'm working with a totally new cut, first of all, I always make a muslin first. A muslin is an initial drape of a garment. So you're cutting it out of just a totally different fabric. That's not the fancy expensive fabric. It's usually at a lighter color. So it's easier to see any mistakes that you need to fix. 

Um, making a muslin isn't a little bit, sometimes it can feel like this is a waste of time. I just want to jump into making the garment, but you know what's a real waste of time making a garment that doesn't fit out of that nice fancy fabric waste of time and money. So I try and make all my mistakes on scrap fabric first.

Old bedsheets are great for this. As they're perfectly worn in and they have very little other use.  Um, as I'm making the muslin, I am recording each and every measurement as I'm cutting it out. Usually I'll draw a little map of the garment, so each pattern piece, I'm drawing it as it would be cut out so it's flat.

And then I'm recording the measurements on this map. So recording each dimension instead of dealing with trying to cut out this giant paper pattern. Sometimes I'll even just write like the neckline was this wide and this many inches down from the shoulder. The armhole came in this much and is this many inches down from the shoulder and then create the curve of that later.

Does this mean I have to redraw the curve every single time? Sure. But honestly, the more practice I get freestyling directly onto the fabric, the better I get at it. Another option, and this is great for anybody who doesn't feel like freestyling like this, is to draw an inverse pattern. So let's say I've nailed the perfectly curved neckline.

Instead of trying to redraw this using the dimensions like I just mentioned, I'll trace that neckline shape onto a cardstock and make a pattern of the neckline shape that is a pattern of the area to be cut away instead of a pattern for the entire top. This also means I can use this pattern for a variety of different garments.

So it doesn't just have to be used for that top. I could be like, oh, if I make a dress out of another pattern. Totally different in another totally different style. I can use that inverse pattern, just throw it on there and have my perfect neckline cut out.  It's also fun to play with new ways of composing cloth out of rectangles.

There's so much opportunity when it comes to designing with rectangles. I talk all about that in my zero waste episode. Um, and the rectangles, it's really easy to record the measurements of and reproduce it. If you need to, again, I'll go and dig up some old sheets or some fabric that I know I'll never use otherwise, and start to drape that on the body.

You can just. Go ahead and put the fabric directly on the body, playing around with what garments could be created. My Soft Work course does this with a little more guidance from directly from your own measurements. In the very first session, we jump into getting fabric on the body. Instead of going through weeks of conceptualizing clothing and patterns, we jump right into the fabric.

Working With Rectangles

Back to working with rectangles. Another reason I love them is because you can easily create a rectangle in a woven fabric by using the snip and rip method. This method only works for woven fabrics. Um, and then you want them to be a pretty plain weave, like quilting cotton, shirting weights, raw silk, crepe de chine, some lighter weight linens.

But basically, if you snip about two or three inches into the edge of the fabric, following the lines of that weave, and then quickly pull these two pieces apart, Snipping and ripping, hence the name. You end up with an entirely on grain edge. You do this for the other edges and you have basically a perfect rectangle that follows the weave of the fabric.

This makes it easier to sew. This makes it drape nicer. Um, it's all sorts of benefits from this. You could also just cut the rectangle and depending on the fabric, I do this too. If it's like a lightweight cotton gauze or like a heavier linen, I'm not going to try and snip and rip because it's not as consistent and sometimes it can go or not rip at all.

But snipping ripping is quick. It's consistent. It's cathartic, and it's really accurate, most of the time.  Another must for these rectangular based clothes is working with quality fabric and natural fibers. Do I sound like a broken record yet? Natural fibers, and this includes fibers derived from natural materials, like all your rayons, your viscose, cupros, tensels, all those funny names.

Natural fibers are just so much nicer to make clothes out of. The cloth drapes better, it moves better with the body, it breathes, it breaks in so beautifully. It costs more, but again, what is your time worth? Is it worth it to make garments that have Crappy materials? I don't think so. Um, if you still want a little shaping in your garment, you can still work with these rectangular forms.

You can gather or cinch your garments at the waist with so many, you know, belt, drawstring, an elastic tunnel, side ties. There's so many ways to work around making a tight fitting garment. This is why I love looking at the construction of garments from hundreds of years ago. The cuts are so innovative.

You can see some of these in my episode on zero waste pattern making. If you watch the YouTube version, I share a few of these images. 

Alternative Methods to Patterns

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to zero pattern sewing.  And I go over all of this in extensive detail in my soft work course on intuitive garment design, which is on sale for only six days because this is my favorite way of working.

As I've mentioned in this episode, the course jumps into getting the fabric on the body in the first lesson before we do any pattern making, we are getting that fabric on that body, drawing onto the fabric, cutting into the fabric and getting it on the body with some simple math. Think like. Divide by two, add five.

A sewing machine, a pair of sharp scissors. You're going to be on your way to making your own clothes through a process that is designed for beginners to, to clothing and construction. It does also introduce new concepts to more experienced sewists. So don't think that if you're not a beginner, that it won't help you at all.

Um, I do recommend that you know how to use your sewing machine already, but other than that, not a whole lot of requirements for the class. You don't have to, you don't have to have ever made clothes before. You just have to know how to use your sewing machine or know how to hand sew.  We'll learn designs inspired by simple geometric shapes that move with the body instead of restricting the body.

If you're curious to see what kind of clothes, be sure to check out my archives, um, in the show notes to see the cuts of clothing that I create. You'll notice I'm able to make modern, comfortable clothing that isn't constricting or complicated. This is a style of clothing design that I teach in my Soft Work course.

Okay. 

Conclusion

I hope this inspired you to look at clothes making from a slightly more liberating viewpoint, um, having a little more fun with it and jumping into the process as a playful practice and not an avenue for stress and perfection, which is exactly why I love free fitting clothes in natural fibers, because that's how they feel in the body.

Okay. Fun, playful, and liberating. Okay, I will be back in a couple weeks with more for you and enjoy. Okay, bye.