What a fab weekend! Saturday saw the first day (of two) of a course I am doing at Morley College, near Waterloo in South London. The course is Creative Pattern Cutting and is based on the Pattern Magic book - the first one.

I love this book - and have it in both Japanese and English (not for completest reasons - I just bought the Japanese one before the English was available). That said, I have not made anything out of the books as they just seemed a bit too complicated - yes, even in English. They are not like the other Japanese pattern books I use - there is not Burda-style pattern pull-out. You are meant to draft your own patterns.

The course so far is great - I have drafted out two of the patterns from the book - but more importantly, I have started to understand the terms needed within the book and so I should be able to cope a little better at home with them.

My only small criticism would be the class size (12) and the class ability range. We started the lesson going around the table and talking about our experience and I got nervous when a number of the people there were semi-professional. However, the reality was very different and I found some of the people on the course unbelievably slow - a pain when everyone needs to move ahead together. That said, the course is an amazing £48 for the two days including all our materials (although not the book of course!).

These are the two projects I've gone through the process for - 

Bamboo shoot front top

Stage 1 - the unaltered front bodice

Stage 2 - Adding the new cutting lines

I've managed to miss a photo of the pattern cut out and spread to recreate the new pattern.

My finished pattern

The Deppari Shirt

I'm afraid I was getting into this so much I forgot to take any photos as I was going along!

My next step is to make these up in muslin - so I will post more photos then. I have another day on the course on Saturday coming - but I will try to use that to draft out more of the patterns to get more practice on that rather than sewing up the designs in fabrci - I can do that at home.

They are running a follow-up to the course in February - I'm already signed up!