Take your fashion design education to the next level in this follow-up to Patternmaking Basics: The Skirt Sloper. With Apparel Arts founder Suzy Furrer, you’ll create a moulage, or a precise fabric blueprint of the upper body. Learn to draft both your front and back moulage based on accurate measurements, cut your muslin and assemble it. Then you’ll go step-by-step through refining the fit. With your moulage patterns perfectly customized, you’ll put them to use as you find out how to make a bodice sloper, complete with wearing ease. Suzy will even discuss design options that can be created from your bodice sloper, and how to transform your woven sloper into a knit sloper.
Class Sessions
Meet Suzy Furrer
4:31
Suzy Furrer shares her patternmaking background and explains the moulage and sloper you'll be making.
Measuring for Moulage
24:15
Whether you're designing for yourself, a friend or a client, Suzy shows how to get key measurements without making your model uncomfortable. Measuring a dress form poses its own challenges that you'll learn how to address.
Calculating & Setting Up the Moulage
24:47
Using your own measurements or the example Suzy provides, you'll fill out the provided worksheet to plan your moulage. Then draft along with Suzy to create the "bones" of your moulage on pattern paper.
Drawing the Front Moulage
44:34
Drafting the moulage may seem complicated, but Suzy shows you how to go from A to B to C and beyond to get precise measurements, darts and shaping laid down on paper.
Drawing the Back Moulage
40:44
You'll continue drafting the back of the moulage and truing it up so it will line up with the front. Suzy demonstrates the importance of making a shoulder adjustment for the best fit.
Tracing, Cutting & Sewing
29:16
With your moulage laid out, you can now trace it on pattern paper and prepare your muslin. Suzy gives some tracing and cutting tips, adds seam allowance and provides the order of construction for stay-stitching, sewing seams and sewing darts.
Fitting & Troubleshooting
28:44
Now that your muslin is sewn up, you can check it on your model or dress form. Suzy points out all the key areas to check and how to adjust them. You'll then transfer those adjustment to your moulage, redrawing and cutting to achieve the exact duplicate of the body you're designing for.
Drafting the Bodice Sloper
25:47
It's time to draft your sloper! To the precise measurements you've established in your moulage, you'll add some ease throughout the garment. The sloper you create can be the foundation of countless designs, from blouses to dresses to coats.
Truing the Sloper
26:33
Polish your sloper by truing up your lines and darts both front and back, then place the pieces together to ensure a smooth transition between them.
Transferring the Sloper to Tag
19:27
Trace your sloper on heavier stock such as oak tag for durability, and transfer all your darts and critical measurements.
Bodice Sloper Design Options
13:10
Now you're ready to start designing! Suzy points out the many points in the sloper front and back that can be modified according to your designing desires. But what if you want to work with knits? No problem! With a few simple changes, your sloper can be modified to use with stretchy fabrics, too.
Your Instructor
Suzy Furrer
Suzy Furrer has over 35 years’ experience in the fashion industry. She began her career as a freelance patternmaker and directed the development of capsule collections for small fashion companies. Suzy is the Founder and Director of Apparel Arts (established 1996) and Apparel Arts Productions (www.ApparelArtsProductions.com), an online fashion design school established in 2020. Suzy developed a comprehensive curriculum to give students in-depth training to be strong candidates to enter the workforce in apparel or costume design or to simply build strong sewing and drafting skills for one's own personal use. Apparel Arts has graduated hundreds of students who currently work in the apparel or costuming industries. In addition, she has been an instructor for GAP Inc.’s Product Development Immersion Program. Suzy teaches and speaks at sewing and craft conferences, sewing guilds, and art schools and has taught classes for the employees of entertainment giants Pixar and Lucas Films. She is the author of Building Patterns, The Architecture of Women’s Clothing.
SF
Bonus Material
Patternmaking Basics: The Bodice Sloper - Resources
Bonus Materials available for download after purchase.
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