Trace the basic sloper as basic for pattern drafting

[Evica]

Hi all,

Once I do a basic sloper I would like to go ahead and do some further pattern drafting to get the pattern for certain designs. However I find that once my sloper is done my screen is already quity busy with lines and points and curves and arches and just all kinds of guide lines and it gets very confusing and messy. I know there is the grouping tool by which I can make points and lines invisible but I think it is somewhat unhandy. Is there a way to kind of trace around my sloper like I would as detail but instead of going into detail mode have it as another drawing to keep working with? So instead of selecting each point and line I don’t want to see, select only those points and lines I need and make a clean copy? Thank you Regards Evi

[Grace]

Hi @Evica

I normally change the type (normally a dotted line) and colour (something like yellow or pink) of the guide lines so that they aren’t as visible, and the main pattern lines are solid black.

In this case, I used colour to define the different dart positions and dotted lines for guides:

[dllsfan]

Yes. It’s a bit time-consuming if you have a complicated pattern, but it is easy to do.

1. Make sure that you have all of your lines on your pattern connected. Because Seamly works on dependencies, you can’t find a line that was created after you started the one you want.(you’ll understand in a minute if you don’t now)
2. open a new pattern piece.
3. Going clockwise, from point to point, make the length and angle line of your pattern piece match the one you want to mimic in the original. For example, in the pants pattern attached, B-B1 is line A18-A19 on my draft. If a line gets flipped or mirrored, simply add 180 to your angle line.

for the curves: B7-B14 is the same as A6-A5+A5-A26 with the blank line selected.

To match the curves, you are using the same lengths from your original

That’s it. You may need to get creative to hide some guidelines if your pattern is tricky, but you’ll have a clean copy to work from.

[dllsfan]

By the way— if you want to mirror the trace (tracing upside down to match front to back, for example) you would just need to make the angle negative. I.e. AngleLineA_A1 becomes -AngleLineA_A1

Sometimes it will mirror horizontally when you want it to mirror vertically, then you would simply add 180 like you did before.

[Douglas]

Put objects into groups so you can turn their visibility on or off.

[Evica]

Thanks so much, I like the idea