Illustrator ROCKS for flat pattern drafting!

It took me an hour and a half to get the first pattern piece into Illustrator, but now that it’s in, alterations and measurements are SO easy!  Here is a “before-and-after” of the coat front:

In this particular alteration, I needed to make the coat front narrower, while keeping the panel length under 44″.  Easy to do: I set a guideline at 20.5″ (my fabric being 21″ wide), and snipped the path open at the bust dart and at the point where I wanted the panel to close.  Then I rotated the section using the transform tool until the rotated section fit within the guideline.  Then I adjusted some points at the bottom to smooth it out.  It still needs a little bit of fiddling at the bottom, but it was quick, easy, and precise.  AND I could save my work!  I’m ecstatic at this jump to new technology.

Now all I have to do is hook up my new-to-me wide format printer, and see if it works in fabric!

In weaving news, I finished the second bright panel yesterday, and will start unraveling the first dark panel blank today.  I’m hoping to have these all done (plus the muslins) by the time I see Sharon, about a week and a half from now.