It’s been months in the making. I’ve spent hours measuring and drawing, cutting and pinning, sewing and seam-ripping. But I’ve finally finished the sloper – and it fits me!
When last I recorded my progress, I had redrafted the sloper incorporating changes to solve problems that seemed to have emerged sometime between moulage and sloper. I then whipped it up on muslin and ta-da! It fit me! I was anxious to move forward in drafting the final sloper on poster board for posterity (and future pattern drafting), but held myself back until I received feedback from my online instructor, Suzy Furrer. When I got the go ahead from her, I ambled down to Staples and picked up some poster board – and a set of erasable coloured pencils, an item I’d been wishing for throughout the drafting process. Then I set to work creating that clean, poster-board copy to hang in a closet!
The process of creating the final sloper is really easy once the thing actually fits. All I had to do was trace the outline onto poster board, then use a tracing wheel and tracing paper to get the various lines (waist, bust, high and low hip etc.) and the darts onto the poster. The instructor refers to “tag” as the kind of heavy paper that the fashion industry uses for these pattern blocks, but tag seems a difficult item to find.
I had been concerned that poster board might actually be too light for this final product, but it seems that when you search for definitions of tag, that this tag is thinner than poster board. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the accurate word is tagboard and they define it as “…strong cardboard used especially for making shipping tags.”[1] When I think about shipping tags, I think of quite flimsy cardboard, and when I went into a craft supply store, they didn’t have any such material. Anyway, poster board seems to be a reasonably good medium for the sloper so that’s what I chose.
Once I had the sloper traced out, I firmed up all my lines, and as instructed, I cut it out in preparation for “notching” and “awl punching.” The notching is done along the edges at every point where I will need to add a line to a future pattern. For example, I need notches at both ends of the waist line so that I’ll be able to join them up on a pattern traced from this block. As for the darts, well, I’ll need those awl punches at the dart points (or any important point on the interior of the pattern) so that I can join up the ends of the darts with the points.
I ordered my notcher from Ebay months ago. It had to come from China (the only way to get one at such a cheap price!), and the awl from Amazon. When I look at my awl and compare it with those used by sewers and designers, although it was advertised as for this purpose, I really think it’s more for punching leather and using n a wood-working shop, but it does the trick!
Storing these slopers seems to require some kind of special equipment as well. The instructor – as well as everyone else who teaches this or writes about slopers & blocks – punches a large hole in them and hangs them on a “pattern hook.” When I looked at trying to order a pattern hook or two or three, they seemed inordinately expensive. (In this photo I found online, it is actually upside down.) Several sewing bloggers have posted pieces on how to make them, and then there’s my husband who likes to browse Canadian Tire. (If you aren’t a Canadian and have no idea what Canadian Tire is, you might enjoy an online browse. Don’t be fooled by their name: they are not just a tire store although they used to be in years gone by. They’re our everything store!). Anyway, he found a pack of boot hooks by a company called Neatfreak (readily available online as well) for $12.99 CDN. They were ideal!
I did not have to get a large hole punch for a pattern hook; rather I was able to clip the front and back of the sloper together and hang them in the empty closet in the den. They will be joined next week by a knit sloper (my next project) and future slopers for pants!
Yay! I’m on to the course on dart manipulation in my first step toward designing something!
The G. G. Files 
I love Canadian Tire! LOL you really can find anything.
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I love it too! We have two within easy walking distance and they are so different because of the neighbourhoods they serve, but both are great! Thanks for stopping by.
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Congratulations on converting your SLOPER to tag–or poster board. I used tons of tag as a teacher, but it is very difficult to find in the general public. And our secretary used to quiz you as to how you would be using it! I don’t blame her, it was very expensive for a school budget. I bought my poster board at the dollar store and it works great. So now I have bodice, knit, pant, and skirt slopers. My next job is to draft the sleeve one. Dart manipulation is lots of fun!
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Thanks, Donna! You’re way ahead of me. I also planned to buy my poster board at the Dollar store, but was surprised to find the price better at Staples here in TO. In the midst of all this learning-to-design-patterns fever, I’m off to Queen St. West today to search for the perfect boucle and silk for another Little French Jacket. A great winter project I think! Cheers!
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I know this is an older post but wanted to add that I’ve discovered using freezer paper, fabric ironed onto 3 layers, works in a pinch if you can’t get posterboard.
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What an interesting approach! sounds messy, though. Is it?
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Not messy at all. The shiny side of freezer paper adheres quite well to fabric. Since I draft my own patterns, I use this method very often to make my fabric pattern pieces stiffer and last that much longer (and it helps keep cotton from fraying). Iron your fabric to the freezer paper, however many layers of paper you want to use, draw your pattern onto the fabric and cut it out. It’s as simple as that.
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