Drafting a Baby Onesie in Garment Designer

Having questions to answer makes writing blog post must easier. Do you have a question you want answered? Email it to us at info@cochenille.com

Basics of Drafting a Baby Onesie in Garment Designer


First you will want to make sure you have the correct measurements if you will be working with a knit fabric. The best thing to do other than try and reinvent the wheel is to find a Onesie and measure it off. First measure the Onesie and then measure the child and you will figure out the amount of Negative ease that you will need to build into your Onesie. For a woven fabric, well I don't think I've ever seen a Onesie in a Woven fabric you just might be the first. Please send Pictures if you sew one up!!!

For Sewing:

Select from your drop down menu's the following:

Category: Top Plus Bottom
Size Group: (the size you need) Standard Infants' (example)
Size: (the size you need) Newborn (example)
Top Group: Basic
Top Style: Average
...
...
...
Sleeve Shape: Semi-Flared
Sleeve Length: Short
SubCategory: Pants
Pants Group: Generic Template
Pants Style: Underwear 1
...
...



When you start doing Advanced work in Garment Designer it will sometimes generate Error messages. This doesn't mean that you are doing something wrong - as long as you know what it is you are after, you can simply read the error messages and sometimes you need to do as they say, and it will let you move on. Once you are done you can Check the Information and Recommendations page to see if there might be something that would make your design unusable.

I received the following:

Error 51: The Top Plus Bottom Category is intended as a limited use preview category only. You should normally work in the Top or Bottom Category. See Appendix E. - First the Appendix E depending on Which version of Garment Designer you have - will either be as a PDF in a folder called Tutorials Plus in the Garment Designer folder on your Hard Drive - or at the end of the Garment Designer PDF manual. That will give you more information on how best to use the Top Plus Bottom feature.



Also as your moving points around you might receive others - Your not hurting the program just click Ok and keep working.
Don't let it detour you.

You then simply move your points around to draft the pattern you want.

I moved up the bodice hem to line up with the underwear waist, I didn't worry about it being perfect. I'll be cutting out the pattern as one piece so the inside doesn't matter. Then I moved the Bodice Side Hem point in to meet the Underwear side waist.



I then Displayed my Deminsions and my Grid - to change my armhole to match the one I had measured off.



I then worked on the sleeve. The Onesie has a small set in cap sleeve. I Chose the Semi-Flared Sleeve Shape because that style sleeve give me a curved sleeve hem with two Bezier curves I can control. A simple cap Sleeve follows the curves of the cap. Like so:



The last thing I needed to do was extend the back underwear crotch to build in an overlap for the snaps. I simply disabled my Front/Back Symettry and draged my crotch line down 1 1/2 inches (which I had measured off my existing Onesie).

I added 1/4 inch Seam Allowance to use my serger. The pattern pieces are ready to use:




For Knitting: (you will need to be a bit more creative and do a bit more point movement)

Select the same styles as for Sewing.

Select from your drop down menu's the following:

Category: Top Plus Bottom
Size Group: (the size you need) Standard Infants' (example)
Size: (the size you need) Newborn (example)
Top Group: Basic
Top Style: Average
...
...
...
Sleeve Shape: Semi-Flared
Sleeve Length: Short
SubCategory: Pants
Pants Group: Generic Template
Pants Style: Underwear 1
...
...

With one big difference: Select for your Top Style: Tip Center Curve.



You are going to trace the outer underwear shape with the bodice points, so that you can generate shaping instruction for the whole piece.



Simply select the hem points and start adjusting your curves until you get a good replica. You will need to do the front first.



Then turn off your Front/Back Symmetry DON'T turn off your Left/Right Symmetry because you'll want to display both left and right right before you generate shaping instructions.

Do your Crotch Overlap extension and then move your points and copy the shape. The back doesn't come as exact as the front but comes really close. If I wanted a good curve there I would generate a pixel-per-stitch graphic and paste in into Stitch Painter and there touch up the back crotch curves. But that small amount I don't think is going to make a big difference.



The sleeve and armhole pattern drafting you do the same as the Sewing instructions above.



Then Change your Category to Top. Display both the Left and Right side of your Front and Back. Then Generate your Shaping Instructions.



If you have any questions feel free to email us at info@cochenille.com

~Sonia Barton

Note: Some of the Styles used require Style sets 1 and Style set 2.

My Inspiration Files

My Inspiration Files . .

Let’s Get Organized Electronically!
Susan has developed an electronic database that can be used to store images for inspiration. I started this project by pulling out all my folders in the file cabinet that had all my clippings.

Installing the software was really easy to do. The installer makes a My Inspiration Files folder in your program files folder (Win). So the first thing I did in order to start off organized was to make a folder inside the My Inspiration Files folder called Graphics. All my images that I scanned or acquired from the web went into the folder. It made it so easy when I went fo create a back-up CD. If I have learned anything in the last 6 months it’s create a back up, even if you just did one yesterday.


Scanning
I scanned everything I had. I even scanned little pieces of paper I had sketched ideas on. Needless to say I was side tracked more than once, when I found stuff I hadn’t seen in a while. The process totally rejuvinated the artistik flow. It took lots of hours to get everything scanned. Oh the reward when I was done. I could open the program and place each image on an individual card, and scroll up and down, and search and look at years of collecting in a matter of minutes.

I entered as much information as possible in the description box. I tried to make sure that I used key words that came to my mind when I thought of that image, so that when I returned to the program to do a search I could find it easyly. Always make sure to fill in the field that asks for the file name of the image, so that if you didn’t place the image in your graphics folder you have the name in order to do a search and find the image.

Image Mode:


List Mode:




This is a perfect aid to organize images. You can also find images on the web and sort and organize those in the same manner. See newsletter #1 Pg #5 for further instruction on acquiring images from the web.

The program also has a list where you can organize your favorite inspiration web-sites. It comes with a starter list of over 150 sites. It was fun to visit the sites that were listed. I kept a lot, but I knew some I just wouldn’t use in the future so I replaced those with some from my own list of web-sites, there finally of those little pieces of paper. By giving them a rating and typing in key words you can easly find inspiration in the future. This really helps when you loose a computer and you realize you didn't back up your web-browser to keep all you bookmarks.



As with any software make sure you do a back-up of your file and images often. I have chosen to keep my paper files on top of having them on the computer. My compurters seem to be accident prown.

Cheers to Organization.

~Sonia Barton