Holidays with the Family

I’m keeping quiet for a few weeks during the holidays as we are chilling with the family. I’ll be back with more videos in a few weeks, but until then, enjoy this happy family photo. Happy Holidays Y’all. Stay tuned for announcements in January with big sales coming too.

Grading a Bra with PolyPattern

I had intended to hold on to these videos for later publication, but I encountered an issue when I went to do a tutorial on how to digitize with PolyPattern, so I decided to just go ahead and release the videos. They would be a little out of order for anyone who is unfamiliar with the software.

The series I just released I filmed a few months ago when I was grading my California Dreaming Bra. These videos show you how I graded it, then imported it into Illustrator to make them pretty for downloads.

I was planning on doing the digitizing tutorial, then a truing tutorial, a basic drafting a sloper, a bra drafting sloper all within PolyPattern prior to releasing this set. I changed my mind. I wanted to show how easy the software is to use for the grading and converting to download.

If you are interested in this software, you can download the demo version under the Books & Downloads tab. Play around with it and let me know what you think. Once you test it, I can give you access to the pricing info. Its actually not bad compared to other CAD software, I just can’t publish the prices to the world. You need to be a secret agent to get that info. It is in lines with the pricing of Wild Ginger’s Cameo Pattern Design and Grading modules.

I will be doing the videos of everything mentioned above, but I am heading off for the holidays in a few days for a couple weeks, so videos will pick back up in January. Although I did just create a legging pattern from kids aged 18 months through size large in kids. If I can get my butt together and do that video today, that will be the last one before the end of the year. If I don’t get to that today, then I wish you all a Happy Holiday! If I do, I’ll post about it before.

The complexity of altering a bra sloper

I created this draft of a stylized bra design from my completed draft. It a bit complex if you have never done pattern drafting before, but know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. When manipulating a pattern you need to remember this important rule – what you take away from one piece in volume you need to make it up on another pattern piece.

This isn’t going to result in a perfect fit after each pattern alteration, so it is important to test the fit prior to moving on to good fabric. I wish you all luck in this journey. The more designs you experiment with, they more knowledgeable you will become.

Here is my challenge. Draw a bra design and submit it to me for a drafting tutorial. I am open to as many as possibly. Let me know what your starting bra is and we can work from there. Not all designs must be created from your initial draft, so if you are daring, maybe submit the new design and scan and send in your starting pattern as well. The more challenges I receive, the more education I can pass on. You can email them to me at jennifer at porcelynne. For me to post, I will need to know which pattern you are starting from (if its another design out there) with the link to the product so I can share it will everyone.

Here are your videos for today.

Splitting the Lower cup from the Bra Draft

I have done a few new videos and this is the latest. This takes the drafted bra sloper we created and splits the lower cup for fit. This will help you get a better idea of the fit. Splitting the lower cup is really just for practice as you may not want a cup with a straight seam across the cup with the split lower cup. This is a good first step to understanding the manipulations involved with changing a bra draft.

Introduction to PolyPattern

I can’t believe it has taken me this long to create the intro video for PolyPattern. I have created about a half dozen videos on grading in the software, but I haven’t made those live yet. For those interested in PolyPattern Design, take a gander at the interface. I realize that my new computer screen is a little big, so the next video I will zoom in a bit.

This post is to remind me in the future

What better way to remind myself of how I did something than to write a blog post about it. Actually, other people might find it useful too.

I recently got a new desktop with Windows 10. I have been working on laptops for the past 15 years and forgot how nice it is to have a desktop. I have to remind myself not to slam the screen down on the desk at the end of the day like you do to a laptop. That could just be disasterous.

Anyway, I am using this old plotter and as I searched for a solution to do this, I learned my printer is “obsolete”. All recommendations were to get rid of the printer and get a new one. That is the biggest problem with society these days. Instead of fixing something, people just throw it away for something new.

Well this old HP DesignJet 700 Plotter prints and still works. The problem is that my new Windows machine doesn’t recognize the driver and won’t install it. No solutions out in the ether either. I found work arounds when I had Windows 7 on my laptops, then Windows 8 happened, then Windows 10. The computers it was previously installed on still printed on my “obsolete” printer.

Any by the way, if it works, it is not obsolete! It prints out my patterns perfectly. I bought the plotter for $100 on Craigslist. We replaced the belt and had to clean the print heads, but this thing has worked for me for the last 3 years and its still running. For a new printer, I’d be spending at least $1000, and I really don’t want to spend that.

Ok, my work around to get it installed on my new Windows 10 desktop. We originally set up the printer as a network printer with its own IP address. That I don’t know what we did. You’d have to have my husband about that. On one of my laptops, I booted it up and turned on printer sharing. On my desktop, I opened up the control panel and select to add a printer. I first connected to the network printer through the laptop. I had to enter in the password for the laptop to get it, but it installed all the drivers to print through it. I even tested a page and it printed.

First thing was done. I then thought that what if I install another HP printer with some listed driver, then named it my HP DesignJet 700. Once I created this printer, I opened up the Printer Settings and went to the Advanced tab, under the drivers, there was a dropdown list of the installed printer drivers and then I selected the one for my DesignJet. Voila, the printer is officially installed.

I removed the original shared printer and now I have a working “obsolete” printer working with my Windows 10 desktop.

Yay!

Sorry to all my regular readers that this was super boring, but its a good way to remember what I did.

Bringing my Bear Back to Life

I have this awesome big stuffed bear. I’ve had him my whole life. He has traveled to NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles and now resides with me out in the mountains. I’ve loved this bear. I used to dress him in my clothes as a kid.

I played with him so much that he starting falling apart when I was about 10. That’s when I started fixing him. I stitched up all his holes over the years with all sorts of colored thread. I even resorted to gluing the stitches together when the thread didn’t hold.

He has been through so much with me, and now its my daughter’s turn to be his friend. She has been wanting to play with him, but he sprung another hole recently and had to do a quick fix with duct tape.

My my daughter’s 4th birthday, I decided I wanted to fix him. I took him all apart, re-sewed him and restuffed him. They are kind of long videos except for the last one and I didn’t have a good angle on the camera, so you can’t see everything, but I published it anyway. My daughter is fascinated in watching my videos of making things for her.

Happy birthday my baby girl!

Altering your Bra Pattern for a Different Size Wire

I worked on this little video after I had a few questions regarding using a different wire size with my bra pattern. This one is specifically for changing the wire size, but not the wire type. I will work on a different video for changing the wire type.