Pattern Making for Kids' Clothes: All You Need to Know About Designing, Adapting, and Customizing Sewing Patterns for Children's Clothing

I am an advanced seamstress and I design patterns. I spent hundreds of dollars buying commercial slopers. I cannot get over that this book includes blocks for children from sizes 3-12. Whether you intend to design clothing for your own child or you want to design patterns for sale, this is a good place to start. The blocks included in the book more than pay for the purchase price. Carla has said that this is not a comprehensive pattern drafting book. That is correct, however, if you have a working knowledge of pattern drafting, the book will be very useful for you. There are links to other books on pattern drafting for those who want more information. Links to the slopers are included, so you do not have to draft your own blocks from measurements. I think that's important to know if you are just starting out. If I was just starting to design children's clothes, this would be the first book I'd buy. It is well written and very clearly illustrated.

This book hasn't gotten the credit or high praise that it DEFINITELY deserves!!!! Yes, there are a few things I would've changed/added; HOWEVER, as one of the ONLY books on the market that actually addresses and focuses solely on pattern making for KIDS clothes....AND for an insanely reasonable and awesome price!!!! Yes, there are more 'technical' and 'professional' textbooks and reference books available for 'fashion designers' and for adult clothing/perfect fitting to your own body, but this book is an EXCELLENT resource for anyone --- even the most advanced --- that is well worth the price! The author should definitely be proud of this work and commended for providing the 'how-to's' of pattern making instead of just providing a book of 10-20 pre-made patterns for you to sew! I CANNOT SAY ENOUGH POSITIVE THINGS ABOUT THIS BOOK AND ANY "NEGATIVES" ARE EASILY AND QUICKLY FORGOTTEN WITHIN MINUTES OF FLIPPING THROUGH THE PAGES!!!!!! :) EXCELLENT RESOURCE! WELL DONE, WELL WRITTEN, AND I WOULD ABSOLUTELY PURCHASE A 'FOLLOW-UP' OR ADDITIONAL BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR!

A wonderful breakdown of patternmaking. Any questions of "why" something is done are answered concisely. I originally checked out this book from my local library and quickly realised I had to own my own copy. I don't buy many physical books these days, so that I was so drawn to this book says a lot. I consider myself an advanced-beginning sewer, so the book was somewhat challenging at first (in a good way!). It brought me a new set of skills I can use in all areas of sewing AND I can give all of my projects individuality as well as creating my own ideas.

This was a GREAT BOOK! It explains many aspects of sewing IN DETAIL, including how to make specific pattern alterations! There are QR Codes in different places in the book to download the patterns being talked about! Talk about TERRIFIC!!! I learned a ton from reading this!

We wanted to share pictures out of the book that I just bought. Maybe it will help you decide if it's worth. You buying too.

If the PDF blocks were user-friendly, I would rate this book 5 stars. it is a great idea generator, and does a pretty good job of explaining how to alter blocks to get what you want. The chapter on altering patterns is quite good. The section on digitizing patterns, while basic, is nice and it's simplicity makes it less intimidating. However, the PDF blocks come in a single 106 page file. All the sizes are there, but they aren't organized in any meaningful way. Pieces for one block might be on pages 4,66, 67 and 90, and you have to determine that for yourself. This means you will spend hours just to get a few blocks together. for the price of the book, a guide to printing the blocks seems essential. How hard would it have been to have a little guide to what pages to print to get the bodice/skirt/pant block in the size you are looking for. For such a well-thought out book, it's a seriously irritating oversight.

I have been reading through this book for a few weeks and I am so impressed with how complete it is. It is chalk full of great ideas, tips and detailed explanation on exactly what to do to create children's sewing patterns. The author, Carla Crim, is a master teacher in that respect. She is able to capture the beginner or experienced sewist and explain the details in such a way that everyone can follow along. The chapters are arranged beginning with the basics and then she takes you through how to make all types of tops, pants, skirts, dresses and rompers. Finally, the book describes how to take it to the pro level. I've been sewing for years and years yet learned something new in each chapter. There are excellent charts, pictures and diagrams throughout the whole book. I would obviously HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who sews. Even if you don't plan on making patterns, to gain the understanding of how patterns are designed really helps sewists to understand how garments are put together or how to make adjustments during construction. Happy Reading and Sewing Everyone!!! :)

You can use the qr code on page 28 to download the slopers. This is a 104 or so page document but it is not the blocks just the slopers. The blocks are broken down by each chapter, such as chapter 6 for pants and it is only the bodice slopers the pants slopers are seperate. Go to page 8 there's a web address there, the instructions will tell you to put in the page number correlating to the beginning of the chapter, so like for pants you'd type in the web address and add 80 at the end. Don't do this. Just type in the web address on page 8 and it'll direct you to a page that has all the blocks and slopers on it and you can download them all. I tried using Firefox and it wouldn't direct me to the page so try Chrome or Edge if you're not being directed to the download page. Before you hit print on the whole documents print the test page first. It's set to a very small scale and I chose to have my slopers printed at a print shop. If you have Adobe print at actual size and click the box that says "choose paper source by pdf size" print the test page with the 1" block and if it's good to go have fun. If not the print shop rescaled mine to 98%. I think Adobe dc for pdf files is free. I hope this helps someone out there, once this hurdle is jumped it's pretty fun and easy to create from there.

I bought it as an fashion designing student. Quite helpful

I didn't expect this book to be as good as it is. I learnt more from reading five pages of this book than hours looking at pattern making on blogs and internet pages. It's enjoyable to read and very informative. I went from a complete novice to quite the expert after this book. The free downloadable patterns were just the cherry on the top for me! A must buy for people wanting to make children's clothes.

Very good book.

I am very happy with the 13 basic pattern blocks provided in this book! I will not need to purchase any more patterns to make clothes for my kids. Although it's not a book teaches you how to draft patterns, but it shows you many possibilities to make clothes from basic blocks.

Great book with downloadable patterns. Great start to pattern cutting