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.
