How to make the Skirt Block and adding the Ease

Welcome to a new class of pattern making class, in today’s class, we are going to make your first pattern block – The Skirt.

What is a pattern block? Many professionals here will tell you that it is making a pattern that is very tight to the body with zero ease.

Ease is the extra space we give to a pattern, we can give ease for 2 main reasons: movement or design.

Movement ease is the extra space that we give to the pattern so that you can move freely, but this space will change depending on different factors.

Ok, now that we know that, for me (and other professionals) a pattern block is the pattern we use over and over again (because we know it works and saves us time), which is why many of my pattern blocks have minimum movement ease.

In the extra material section, I have left you the size chart for size 8 UK standard measurements to make it easier for you to follow the class.

Class

Extra material

Can you see how easy it is to make the skirt block? Once the pattern is made, we have to make the toile (prototype) with calico and see if we have to modify anything in the pattern.

Now, if you are a perfectionist like I am, I recommend doing what I did when I was studying, sew the same skirt with different ease* and try it on. Find out what you like best!

*Just cut the fabric with the widest ease and try it on, then make it smaller and try it on again.

What did you think of today’s class? The skirt block is one of the first patterns I learned and I think it is the best to start with.

Send your exercises

As you already know, the best way to learn is to practice.

For this class, I suggest you make your skirt block with the measurements I gave you.

I ask that you make it with my measurements so that you can use that same pattern to perform all the transformations that I am going to teach you.

Then you can do it with your own measurements.

You can do it full-size or half-scale, please remember to tell me in the “Do you want to tell me something?” section.

If you want me to review the exercise, I will need you to use my measurements and send me a minimum of 2 photos of the process and 2 photos of the final result.