Pattern desk — sewing blocks from your measurements, marker and tiled print

Threadsmith is not only for stitches. The Pattern desk drafts the basic sewing blocks (slopers) — straight skirt, fitted bodice, one-piece sleeve and trousers — from your body measurements, adds seam allowance, grades sizes, lays the pieces out on your fabric width and prints them on a home printer. It uses the same engine as the tools threadsmith-pattern-block and threadsmith-marker-layout, and its settings are saved inside the design.

1. Open the Pattern desk

Choose Tools → Pattern desk (sewing blocks)…. A full-window workspace opens: the form on the side, the views on the right (Pieces, Sizes, Marker, Print & export, Embroidery). Press Esc or the close button to return to your design; everything you set stays in the project and is saved with it.

2. Enter your measurements

Under Body measurements pick Centimetres or Inches, then tick the blocks: Straight skirt, Fitted bodice and One-piece sleeve. Enter Bust / chest girth 92, Waist girth 74 and Hip girth 100.

That is enough to start. Every other field shows a grey value with ≈ — derived from your three measurements — and the small text under each field says exactly how to measure it. Overwrite the ones you know (back waist length, shoulder length, arm length …) for a closer fit; only the measurements the chosen blocks need are listed.

Ease (folded section) holds the wearing ease that is added to the body: 10 cm at the bust of the bodice, 4 cm at the skirt hip, 1.5 cm sleeve cap ease and so on.

3. Check the pieces

The Pieces view lists 5 pieces — Skirt front (Cut 1 on fold), Skirt back (Cut 2 (mirrored pairs)), Bodice front, Bodice back and Sleeve — next to a drawing with cutting lines, dashed seam lines, darts, notches and grainlines. Click a piece in the list (or in the drawing) to see its measurements: the skirt front's Waist seam (darts closed) is 19.3 cm and its Width at the hip line 26.5 cm.

Below, Fit checks compares every drafted length with your measurement plus ease. All 12 rows say OK: the skirt waist seam is 75 cm (74 + 1), the skirt hip line 104 cm, the bodice underarm line 102 cm, both dart legs are equal and the sleeve cap is exactly the armhole plus the cap ease. If a check fails, the line shows how far off it is.

4. Seam allowance and grading

Under Seam allowance set Seam allowance (1.5 cm), Hem allowance (4 cm), Allowance corners (Mitred or Squared off) and Hem corners. Folded hem (mirrors the seam) shapes the hem allowance so it lies flat when you turn it up on a flared seam.

Under Grading choose Sizes below yours 1 and Sizes above yours 1. The Sizes view now shows the nest — the seam lines of sizes −1, Base size and +1 on top of each other — and a table with bust 88 / 92 / 96 cm. Each size is drafted again from its own measurements, so all its checks pass too. Size of the pieces and files picks the size that is printed.

5. Plan the fabric with the marker

Open Marker, set Usable fabric width 140 cm and Fabric Open, single layer, and press Lay out the marker. Every piece keeps its grain along the selvage; pairs get a mirrored copy and pieces on the fold are unfolded. The result: Marker length 162.9 cm, Efficiency 67.57 % for 7 pieces. Set the width to 150 cm and lay out again: 133.1 cm, 77.15 % — the narrower fabric costs about 30 cm more.

Tick Napped or one-way fabric for velvet or a directional print (no 180° turns), or Allow cross-grain (90°) placement when the fabric allows it. Download marker (SVG) and (DXF) save the layout.

6. Print and export

In Print & export choose Paper (A4 or US Letter) and Page overlap. With the three blocks the tiled PDF has 43 pages: a cover page and 6 rows × 7 columns. The cover page carries the 10 × 10 cm test square (4 × 4 in when you work in inches) and an assembly map; each page has its label (A1, A2 …), neighbour hints and crosses in the overlap.

Print at 100 %, measure the test square, trim the dashed left and top margins and tape the pages so the crosses meet. Download full-size SVG and Download DXF are for plotters, copy shops and projectors; Download print pages (SVG) saves every page as its own file.

7. Place an embroidery design on a piece

Open your embroidery design (for example the Monogram badge template) and open the Pattern desk again. In Embroidery pick the Piece and move the design with Design centre from the left of the seam line and from the top. The view draws the design (dashed) and the hoop frame on the piece and checks three things: inside the seam line (the badge on the skirt front has 7.7 cm clearance), the hoop holds the design, and whether the hoop frame fits inside the cut piece — if not, embroider a rectangle of fabric first and cut the piece out afterwards.

A block is a starting point: sew a test garment from cheap fabric and adjust before cutting the good fabric.