Designing and Patternmaking for Stretch Fabrics

by Keith Richardson

Stretch fabrics are more popular than ever, from Juicy Couture's sweats to the trendy, ready-to-wear styles found at H&M. Stretch fabrics have long been a staple of designer fashion as well-from Missoni's colorful knits to Donna Karan's basics. Designing and Patternmaking for Stretch Fabrics provides the design student or working designer with the essential information for understanding the specifics of knit fabrics and the patternmaking process for different garments. Fibers, dyes, treatments, care, and fabric sources are discussed, along with the principles of sizing and measuring for women's, men's, petite, plus, and half sizes. Chapters focusing on particular garments begin with a draft of a sloper. Numerous illustrations and diagrams demonstrate the effects of draping, gathering, shirring, ruffling, and making adjustments as needed to flatter the wearer. These instructions will put students' skills and creativity to work with everything they need to turn an ordinary garment into one of original designer quality.

Genres: Fashion

496 pages, Spiral-bound

First published June 30, 2007

Reviews

[Kawaii · Rating 2 out of 5]

The directions for drafting the basic knit sloper is incorrect and hard to follow. If you do follow them exactly as written, it will leave you with an poorly sized garment and looks odd. There are charts for the different sizes, (Misses, Petite, Junior etc), and these are incorrect as well. I used other pattern drafting directions to create an accurate sloper.

The grading by stretch % are correct, but in the end I purchased Patternmaking with Stretch Knit Fabrics by Julie Cole. Save yourself the hard work of discovering what I took two weeks to figure out and just by that book. The sad part is, the publisher's are aware of the errors and issued no corrections, (I read reviews and saw I wasn't the only person who sent e-mails about the issues).