Once upon a time, in a craft store far away…wait, it’s not that kind of story? Oops.
But for real, it used to be the norm that you would get your patterns at a fabric store. They were in big drawers of file cabinets, organized by company and pattern number. And while this might not be the way you buy patterns any more, let’s talk about how to read a pattern envelope. This will most likely only apply to the Big 4 pattern makers, but some indie designers may also use the same system.
Options aka Views
Most commercial patterns are not just a single garment. They often have different “views.” They are typically labeled with letter, so you might have view A, view B, view C, and so on. Each view is going to be slightly different, and may use different pattern pieces. All of the pieces of all views are contained within the envelope.
Measurements
Again, most commercially available patterns are for a range of sizes. You might see something like sizes 6-12 in a single envelope. On the top flap of the envelope, you will see measurements given for each size, for bust, waist, and hip measurements. If you’re like me, your personal measurements don’t ever fit into a single size column, so that’s always fun. I generally advise to buy the pattern that fits your largest measurement, because it’s way easier to fit a pattern down than try to grade it upwards.
Fabric Requirements
On the back of the envelope, you will find the fabric required to make each view. There are two different places you will want to look at. The first place is in small type and easy to overlook. It tells you about the recommended fabrics for this pattern. The second is much larger, and tells you exactly what much fabric is needed to make each piece. I like to pad this measurement a little, just to be on the safe side. So if the pattern says I need 2 1/8 yards of fabric, I will probably round that up to 2 ½ years instead.
Notions
We haven’t talked much about notions yet, and we’ll work on that I promise! But there will also be a listing on the pattern envelope about what type of notions you will need and how much (if applicable). This is also pretty small, so can be easy to miss.
There is a lot of information on a pattern envelope and it can be pretty overwhelming when you are first looking at them. Have you ever gotten confused about it? What other questions do you have about what is on there?