Professor Pincushion: Hello and welcome to Professor Pincushion. In this tutorial, we're
going to be doing a basic overview of the pattern directions, and how to read them and
what information you need to look for. So you're going to need your pattern with your
directions, let's go ahead and get started. Your pattern directions are going to be located
inside the pattern envelope, so we have our pattern pieces on the tissue paper and then
this is going to be the pattern directions. Now this seems like a lot of pages, just realize
that on the last page they usually have directions that are going to be in another language,
which is Spanish or French.
I always like to look right above where the pattern directions start, because sometimes
there's going to be at the sewing information box, and this is going to give you the basic
information that you're going to need to know, not only in making your project but
then also in reading the directions. So let's just look over this one, so the very first
thing is telling me what the seam allowances are for this; and they are saying it's five
eighths of an inch seam allowance are included, which means that they're included in the
pattern piece, and you don't need to add any seam allowance, because they have already
taken that into account, unless otherwise indicated.
This is also telling you what your seams are going to be once you start sewing your pieces
together. So if they tell you sew a seam, you always assume it's going to be five
eighths of an inch, unless the step that you're working on tells you something differently.
Next we're going to have the illustration shading key. So what this is, is telling you
how to read the pattern directions for the picture part; so it's telling you how to
read this. It's just like when you're doing a pattern layout. So briefly I'm just
going to say, it's telling you what it looks like for the right side, wrong side, interfacing
and lining. But we're going to go into this a little bit later when we actually get to
that part.
The next thing I like to do is, they give you some tips and tricks in working with fabrics,
they can tell you if you have any sort of curved areas in your seams. It doesn't matter
if it's curving inward or curving outward; it's always a good idea to clip in these
little notches into your seam allowance. You're not actually cutting into the stitches, they're
just kind of coming into that, and that will help when you flip the item right side out,
these areas will lie a little bit more flatly. Also if you have any pointy seams, you always
clip off the corners, and then if you're going to have an enclosed seam, you always
kind of grade it, so you're just cutting it into layers. It just kind of helps everything
look a little bit nicer.
The next thing I like to do is take a look at the glossary. The glossary is going to
tell you some techniques you're going to be doing in the completion of this project.
Sometimes when you're reading the directions, it will just say something like top stitch
neck line, but it won't tell you exactly how to top stitch the neck line. So if you're
unfamiliar with this term, you can always refer to the glossary, and you can see here
it's telling you exactly what it is and how to complete it. Here's another example
of a sewing information box.
This time it's for a kwik sew pattern, and they call it sewing procedures, but it's
basically the same purpose, and I really like the kwik sew patterns, because they give
you a little bit of extra tips and tricks, such as they tell you what type of sewing
machine needle to use, and what type of stitches would be helpful in creating this garment,
they also have some glossary terms. Now you'll notice that, they don't right away say what
the seam allowance is. Sometimes with the quick sew patterns, they do put it in this
information, but they also put it at the very beginning of the directions. So in this particular
case, they're saying for view A, you're going to do a quarter inch seam allowance.
As you can see, pattern directions are broken up by steps. So we have the written directions
telling you what to do, and then they have a corresponding picture to go with these directions
right below it. So in order to read these pictures, I'm going to refer it back to
the illustration shading key. So we're going to the see the shaded is going to be at the
right side, the right side of the fabric, the right side of the garment is both the
same thing. So if I'm looking at this picture, this portion of this skirt, we're looking
at the right side of it. White is going to mean that you're looking at the wrong side
of it.
If I just scoot this down; here they're showing a picture of the top of the skirt,
and you can see we have shaded and then you have white, so the skirt is right side out
you're looking at the right side of the fabric here, with the wrong side of the fabric
on the inside. This the white with the dots, that is going to be for interfacing, you can
see interfacing here, so it looks like they have a waistband that they're stitching
to the top of the skirt, and the interfacing is already attached to that waistband. We
have the lining; it's going to have white with these slashes in them.
There you go, so there is a picture of looking at the lining; and then the same thing for
the underlining, which I don't have any examples of. So usually they show you all
of these, regardless if they're actually utilizing all these things at once, so maybe
your item doesn't actually have a lining, but they'll still show all of them, just
so you're clear. I know that sometimes reading the directions and understanding the directions
can be overwhelming. What helps me out is I just take it one step at a time, which means
I don't try to read through all the directions, and try to understand everything at once.
I just start with step one, and then I get to step two after I finish that; because sometimes
if I look ahead and I try to understand it, I won't understand it until I'm actually
trying to do it and I have the pieces that I'm working with in my hand. So if you feel
like you're getting overwhelmed, just stop, take a breath and start with the step that
you're working on, and just concentrate on that. You also need to make sure that you're
doing the correct view. Sometimes in an envelope there's more than one view, and the directions
are going to take care of all the views in that envelope, so you need to pay attention
and make sure that you're doing the right one, and it's always going to be at the
top.
So this starts with dress A step one; if I'm doing the view B, then I'm not going to
start here, I'm going to have to look through all the directions, and it's actually let
me flip this over, on the back of this page, there we go. Jumps to B, and then it starts
with step one again. And sometimes they break it down where they'll be like okay, first
we're going to do the bodice, then we're going to do the pants or the skirt or another
portion of it. So it's nice that they break it down like that, so you know exactly what
you're working on at that point.
Sometimes the different views are similar, there's just slight variations to them.
So in this particular case, you can see they have views A and B, they're both similar
looking pants; so they're doing the steps together. So if you're doing A or B, you
would follow these steps, but they may break apart when it comes to doing something different.
So here is for both of them, I would just follow along with the steps, and then right
here, pocket A. So this is for if you're doing view A, you're going to start with
step 5 and you can see over here right pocket B.
If you were doing B you would actually skip these steps and go right to step number 11,
while for A, I will start with five and I would continue on until 10, and then I can
go ahead and skip 11 to whenever it changes back, and I just move here you'll see left
pocket A and B. So again now they converge, and now they're following along the same
set of steps again. I just want to show you one more variation, and this is for my kwik
sew pattern directions, which has a similar set up to the ones we've just been looking
at. Now for this one, they also have multiple views and one set of directions. You can see
I'm looking at view B right here, and there's also view A.
Now in this one, you can see step one says to follow view A, steps one through three.
So view A and view B are similar, in that they share some of the steps. So in this particular
case, I'm going to have to go find view A and do steps one through three, even if
I'm doing view B. Once I complete it, then I can go back to step two for view B, after
I finish step three of view A. So with that, now you have a general idea on how to read
pattern directions. So just remember, you can do it, take your time and good luck. Make
sure to check out our other videos and visit professorpincushion.com to view our complete
library with well over 150 sewing videos tutorials. New tutorials are released right regularly, so
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