Patterns of children's clothing for beginners - simple patterns with their own hands

From the choice of children's clothing, which is present today in stores, any buyer has their eyes widen. Parents can only open their mouth in surprise and the wallet at the checkout. But it often happens that a recently purchased thing for a baby has already become small, because children grow very quickly. A good solution for such situations is self-tailoring. You do not have to go shopping for a long time in search of what you like, you can save the family budget, and your child’s wardrobe is replenished with exclusive things that you will not find anywhere else. At first it seems that creating a dress or skirt is a difficult task and only professionals can do it, but in reality, only desire is enough, and we will tell the rest right now. In this review you will find patterns for children’s clothes for both boys and girls and simple patterns with their own hands with detailed instructions for their development.

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Create a sketch. Master Class

Sewing clothes for children is a work that requires not only the ability to make patterns and sewing on a sewing machine, but also the presence of taste and imagination. To make it easier to understand how finished children's things will look like with their own hands, try drawing a sketch first:

• On the sketch it is worth indicating what style the dress will be - direct or semi-fitted.
• Also, in the preliminary drawing, outline elements such as ruffles, shuttlecocks, frills.
• Do not forget to include in the sketch of children's things with your own hands the size of the future neck and the length of the sleeves.
• The sketch can even be made in color to get a complete picture of the finished work.

Important! It is also worth adding that if at the drawing lessons at school your grades were far from ideal, and making sketches is not your thing, then today there are many programs on the Internet. Some of them help to create simple sketches to visually see how children's things will look with their own hands, other programs help to model clothes for girls with their own hands based on existing measurements.

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Necessary tools

Before you start drawing up patterns of children's clothing for beginners, you need to prepare the tools. You can get by with a simple set, but what professional instructors and experienced seamstresses use in their work will make your independent work on creating children's things easier and easier:

• The cutter's most important tool is a special, transparent and wide ruler. It is usually marked in inches and centimeters. The first is needed when building patterns from foreign magazines, the second is more familiar to us.

Important! If you are going to do only simple children's things with your own hands, without borrowing advice from specialists from other countries, then you can do just centimeter marks.

• In the process of building patterns, especially at the initial stage, you will have to finish, remodel, cut and paste back a lot. Therefore, in your arsenal must be paper tape. With its help, folds and tucks are also laid. To create patterns of children's things with your own hands, it will be enough to purchase an ordinary tape 3 cm wide.
• A copy roller with a gear wheel is a tool necessary for those who borrow patterns from magazines. Usually inside specialized publications there are sheets of thin paper with the contours of all models of the number. By detaching these inserts, you will find that you cannot do without a roller, because its wheel breaks through layers of paper with thin needles and accurately transfers the contours to the bottom sheet. Transferring a pattern of children's things with your own hands will not cause trouble and will take very little time.
• You can’t do without pencils when creating patterns of children's things with your own hands. And there is one caveat. To create patterns, it is better to take a soft stylus of the brand M, 2M, TM. It is easier to wash and does not damage thin paper such as tracing paper. Pencils labeled “hard” are suitable for working with thick materials such as Whatman paper or a cardboard. It’s better to buy pencils right away with comfortable and high-quality erasers.
• A centimeter is another indispensable tool for any seamstress and cutter. With it, you can both draw patterns and take measurements. A centimeter 150 cm long is best suited for these purposes.
• Every seamstress who wonders how to sew baby clothes with her own hands wants to get quality products. Therefore, for work uses not one, but a whole set of scissors. Large - for cutting fabric, medium - for small work, a small tool or tweezers - for clean thread trimming during sewing. For cutting paper, prepare another one - ordinary stationery scissors.

Important! Watch the condition of the tool so that the blades are always sharp and cut the material well.

• For a wide range, it is also worth buying a couple more measuring instruments. This is a rectangular ruler, which is useful for building the corners, rectangles that underlie almost every clothing for a girl with her own hands. It is also worth having a protractor and a round ruler on hand to draw smooth symmetrical lines of the neck and armhole.
• And finally, graph paper. With it, you can easily make a pattern with your own hands, and then transfer parts of it from the general drawing to separate sheets of thicker paper. It is sold in sheets and on a roll.

Important! To create children's things with your own hands, it is most convenient to use paper in a roll, but at first you can try to make a pattern on sheets of paper of A3 or A2 format glued together.

Many of these tools for creating patterns of children's things with their own hands can be found in specialized stores for sewing or in office supplies.

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Taking measurements

Building a pattern of clothes for a girl with her own hands, however, like any other, will require taking measurements. Here, too, have their own nuances and subtleties that are worth exploring in advance. It is not difficult to take children's measurements, and the only difficulty that most mothers face is to persuade the child to stand still.

Important! One trick is to tie a tie or a second centimeter to the child’s waist, then the measurements will be more accurate, since many of them are related to the tally measure

Main measures:

• Many people know that the main measure for determining the size of children's things with their own hands is growth. It must be measured from the top of the head to the floor first, it is better to do this by placing the child against the wall.
• Breast girth in deciding how to sew baby clothes is also important, since children grow in different ways, have a different composition. Sometimes growth can be standard, and things of the appropriate size are not suitable, because the physique is too dense or the child is very thin. Breast volume is measured at the most prominent points of the chest and passes through the axillary region.
• Waist and hips in the process of how to sew baby clothes with your own hands are also mandatory measures. They are also measured by protruding points, horizontally on the floor.
• Neck girth is needed to determine the neckline.This measurement is taken around the base of the neck, passing through the seventh vertebra.
• The length of the back to the waist is measured just from this vertebra to the waist line. The measure will be very useful for building dresses with a detachable skirt.
• In the same way, for children's things, the front length from the waist is measured with their own hands. In this case, the measurement starts from the point of articulation of the neck with the shoulder and passes through the most prominent point of the chest.
• To measure the depth of the armhole, you will need a strip of paper 3 cm wide. Using it, form the future line for the sleeve’s embedding, and then measure the resulting length with a centimeter.
• Shoulder length is one of the simplest measurements. It is measured from the base of the neck to the extreme point.
• In order to measure the length of the sleeve was more accurate, the arm will have to be slightly bent at the elbow, and then measure the distance from the shoulder to the wrist. If the sleeve is ¾, the measurement is taken the same way, with a bent elbow.
• The girth of the wrist of children's things with their own hands is a measurement of the circumference.
• The width of the shoulders is a horizontal line. The mark is measured at the most prominent points from one shoulder to the other.
• Another important measure is the width of the back. This is the distance between the armhole lines. If it is slightly larger, then the excess can be cut off already on the finished product, when trying on. But if you make it of insufficient length, then wearing a dress or any other children's thing with your own hands will simply be uncomfortable.
• Product length is measured on the back. The reference point is the seventh cervical vertebra. From this point you put off the length that is necessary. The distances for the blouse and for the dress will be different, respectively.
• The length of the tackle product will be needed when sewing such clothes for the girl with her own hands, like a skirt or dress with a cutting waist. This is the final length of the product, only in this case the measurement starts from the waist.

Measurements for pants and skirts

If you plan to sew children's things with your own hands, not only in the form of dresses and simple skirts, but also trousers or even jeans, you will need to take measurements of the lower body:

• First of all, the leg length from the outside will be needed. This measurement starts from the waist and ends at the ankle. If you need a large length, respectively - extend the line to the point you need.
• The length of the inner seam of children's things with their own hands. Its starting point is the groin area, the end is the length of the product you need.

Important! These two measures, or rather the difference between them, in the construction of patterns of children's things with their own hands, plays a big role. Therefore, measure each distance very carefully.

• The seat height is no longer measured while standing, but sitting on a chair or stool, on a hard surface. It is needed so that the back of the trousers is sufficient, and covers the lower back in a sitting position. The measure is taken from the base of the chair to the waist line, which for convenience you have already tied up with an inlay.

Important! Before taking measurements to build patterns for children's things with your own hands, it is worth considering that the centimeter tape should fit snugly to the body, without sagging and unnecessary tension.

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Terms and Notation

If you are going to create patterns for children's things yourself, then the terms used by professionals may not be useful to you. But if you plan to work with ready-made patterns from the Internet or from specialized magazines, then you should familiarize yourself with this item in more detail in advance:

• If there is an arrow marked “NAM” or “Fractional” on the finished piece of a children's item with their own hands, it means that the part must be positioned taking into account the direction of the threads. This is a very important point, since having cut the product without taking into account the recommendations, you can get a skewed cut.

Important! It looks very significant on trousers that are not cut correctly. In this case, the side seam begins to go forward or backward. This is precisely what leads to a cut with a violation of direction.

• If you see the inscription “fabric fold” on the pattern of children's things with your own hands, it means that the part must be cut out by attaching the pattern to the fabric folded in half in advance. Or first draw the outline of the left side, then, turning the pattern over, draw the right side. If in your future children's things with your own hands a seam on the back is assumed, and a fold is indicated on the pattern, then do not forget to add an allowance for the seam on one side and the other, otherwise the finished product will be small.
• It often happens that after laying the seam, one part of the fabric is 1-2 cm longer than the other. This is obtained as a result of the displacement of the parts already under the foot, for example, the pressure is quite large, and the rail does not push the bottom of the fabric so much. This leads to the fact that, for example, the side seam can be boring on one side. To avoid such a defect, add small marks on the pattern, and put notches on the fabric, according to these marks.

Important! This will be especially true when we sew children's things with our own hands, for example, trousers. From the top to the bottom point, add marks at a distance of 20-30 cm and combine them when laying the seam.

• If you already had to sew clothes for the girl with your own hands, then you know that some sections of clothing need to be “planted”, and others, on the contrary, should be stretched. For example, it is always advisable to cut out the sleeve’s ok a little more than an armhole, at a distance of 5-6 cm from the shoulder seam line in both directions. Extra centimeters go to fit the upper part of the sleeve. This must be taken into account when creating a pattern of children's clothing for beginners, and when working with simple patterns with your own hands. Typically, those areas that require landing are marked with wavy lines or dotted lines with an asterisk.
• Before sewing baby clothes, be sure to make allowances for the seams. Ready patterns always indicate whether the model is given with or without allowances. The contours of the finished pattern are indicated by a solid line, and the seam line is dashed.
• With independent sewing, it is better to immediately make these additions to the basic pattern. For seams, they are 1 cm; for hemming the hem, sleeves and trousers, it is better to lay at least 3 cm.

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General tips

Unfortunately, in one article it is impossible to give complete information on how to make patterns of children's clothing for beginners. But still, we want to give some tips that can come in handy in the process of creating children's things with your own hands:

1. To build a simple skirt pattern with an assembly along the waist with an elastic band or with pleats, sometimes just 3 measurements are enough - waist circumference, hip circumference and product length.
2. A little more measurements need to be taken to build a pattern of trousers or shorts, if you want them to fit well on your figure.
3. To sew such clothes for a girl with your own hands, like a dress, you will have to take a lot of additional measures. They will allow you to accurately convey the position of the shoulder, chest, calculate the volume of the armhole, because the width of the shoulders of all is different, as well as the width of the back. Sometimes the body is elongated and, if you do not take this nuance into account, the waist line may be under the chest.
4. Any pattern of children's things with their own hands is built so that the fabric does not tightly fit the figure, but has little freedom. Therefore, when building, various increases in freedom of fit are used. Their size depends mainly on the size of the clothes and the composition of the fabric. For dense fabrics, freedom of fitting is taken a little more, for very elastic materials it can be zero or even minus.
5. Do not blindly trust ready-made patterns of children's things with your own hands from various magazines and the Internet. After retaking the patterns, check them for compliance with your standards. To build a pattern perfectly, suitable for any figures, is impossible. Apparently therefore, designers give large allowances for freedom of fit. And to check them, you need to learn how to make patterns with your own hands. Here is such a vicious circle.
6. When laying out the patterns of children's things with their own hands on the fabric, the problem of shifting the details of the pattern often arises.You can use thin and sharp tailor pins and pin paper pieces to the fabric. But not necessarily. But you need to pin together the paired parts of the fabric. This will allow you to avoid their displacement when cutting.
7. When sewing even the simplest clothes for a girl with your own hands, do not neglect the fitting. This will allow you to fit the product according to the figure. And seam allowances for beginning dressmakers are better to take a little more than you need. You can always trim the excess after trying, but to make an insert, if the product turned out to be small, it will be much more difficult.

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Stock footage

For those who first decided to sew baby clothes with their own hands, it takes a lot of time to build patterns. And then the result is not always successful, due to lack of experience. Therefore, do not immediately try to sew clothes from expensive fabric, learn the basics first, gain personal experience. You will have to study many tricks and subtleties on your own, sometimes at the cost of your own mistakes.