I’ve spent the past few weeks working on my slopers for Pattern Master Boutique and Pattern Master Boutique for knits. This software is made by Wild Ginger and I’ve owned it for several years. The software has been updated and enhanced several times over the years and the customer support is excellent.

The premise here is to plug your measurements into the software and the software sends information to the printer to print out pattern pieces that get taped together and sew up into the perfect fitting garment. It all starts with a set of measurements that are used to formulate the first garment which is called a sloper or a muslin. You are walked through the measuring process with movies, and descriptions and pictures as you click your mouse in each measurement spot. This is referred in the software as a fitting garment. There are fitting garments for dresses, tops, skirts and pants. Once you get the fitting garment to your satisfaction, you can use any of the choices with minimal tweaking. Every garment can be your original design. With this software you can design garments for any number of people and keep measurement charts for several clients with different settings. What you can’t do, is measure someone, and print out a pattern and give them a pattern. After you print out your pattern, you can also print out a line drawing and full directions to construct the garment. There is also a yardage calculator and you can lay out the pattern pieces and calculate how much fabric you need according to the width of your fabric. You can also calculate and print out the layout either on the fold or with the fabric unfolded. Also included in the program is a CAD program which allows you to further edit and design patterns and pattern pieces to your liking. To be honest, all styles I will ever want are included in the style editor. If after all of this, you cannot get your garment to fit to your satisfaction, Wild Ginger has a support style that gives you personal assistance. Taking advantage of technology, you can send digital photo’s of your garment, your measurements and you for further guidance in getting the desired outcome. While the directions for the sewing are adequate, I do recommend a fair amount of sewing experience as well as several sewing textbooks for construction techniques.

I used my Bernina 830 to construct the blouse and my Babylock Evolve to finish the seams. Fresh in my mind was Sandra Betzina’s Power Sewing method of putting in a sleeve and it worked like a charm. There are so many time consuming techniques that used to make me procrastinate when it came to sewing, that have now been streamlined with the Bernina 830. Buttonholes are an example of this. With the Bernina 830, you just put a button up to the screen, and turn the dial till the buttonhole is sized to fit the button. You can also turn the dial to equal the amount of mm indicated on the button card you buy. Once you do this, buttonhole after buttonhole turns out equal and perfectly.

Hand-sewing buttons are a thing of the past.

Other Camp Shirts I’ve Sewn

These are both from a Cindy Taylor Oates pattern. I made these with my Innovis NV 4000. This is such a great machine with excellent stitch quality. The embroidery is spectacular and the sewing side makes beautiful buttonholes and also sews on buttons. I also made the Otter shirt for Richard using McCalls M4399