Wild Ginger, more toiles, Pattern Review skills levels and change to plans plus a secret Me Made May

In my last entry, I said I had 3 bodice blocks - or at least 2 from classes,  neither satisfactory. and a third on the way. I'm carrying on developing the third, which is based on the Sure Fit Designs system, with a few tweaks. In fact, I now have a good close, but not too close fitting bodice pattern, stopping at waist length. I'll also do one which goes down past hip. I've done all modifications, removed seam allowances from my pattern and now need to draw the block onto card , notch etc. I feel excited that I've finally got a block I'm happy with. I'm not going to post pictures - apart from having problems with that, there is nothing to see, really . I'd rather post pictures of the garments I make using my block as a starting point.

However, just to complicate things further, I bought Wild Ginger Boutique software in their 20th of every month sale (to celebrate their anniversary).  I had been thinking of software for a while and Catina Ferraine's (patternhackfairy.com) offer of online tutorials, the good reviews, the excellent customer support and the price reduction - not to mention my frustration that I'm still altering every pattern from scratch, meant that now was the time to do it.

I'm absolutely fascinated by the whole process of pattern making/cutting and hope to continue with this through the use of this software alongside my classes, should they go ahead as planned. Catina made it clear that a good knowledge of the maths behind the processes is important and I'm very happy with that. I already have a few pattern drafting books, though not the one she likes (by Jack Handford - I haven't heard of him,  I'm afraid)  and says Wild Ginger is based on. A search of Amazon.co.uk showed up 3 books with very high price tags.  I have also bought the book linked to Wild Ginger - Digital Flat Pattern. Postage was ridiculously expensive but my savings on the program and book paid for that. It's international priority mail so I hope to get that fairly soon.

I have done the basic measurements for the program and entered. Initially, they recommend making a toile based on these basic measurements. Later the program details get tweaked depending on the results of the muslin fitting. So even though I know that the bust point is too high based on these measurements, I'll go ahead and make up the muslin. I bought Boutique, which is for ladies' garments (there are several other modules including for knits); the basic garments for this are a dress with jewel neckline and pants. I created and printed the PDFs and taped them together. That took quite a while. One of my sheets didn't line up properly with the rest, though I could make it work - then I realised that the reason I had so many pages was that the pants pattern had printed out twice! 30 pages each time. The 'other' page 1 fitted perfectly. There were 28 pages for the dress and they fitted together well. I should say, I am printing on A4 paper, which is the standard size here.

Catina's tutorials/ informal live video hangouts on Google will not start until May so that gives me a little while. Hers are actually going to be based around WG Cameo, which is a more advanced pattern making software but I believe there is a common core.

I mentioned a possible change of plans. Well, Pattern Review is doing a beginners' competition this year. I recently upgraded my status from 'beginner' to 'advanced beginner'. However, there were clearly some issues last year with people's stated skill levels during the fitted blouse competition which was subdivided into skill categories and this time they listed a number of skills saying that if you were competent in 5 of them, you should be considered intermediate rather than a beginner. I wasn't sure. I have attempted most if not all of the things on the list but don't consider that I'm competent in 5. Many of the things have been undertaken in a class situation where I had help and support, though I'm getting to the stage where I am prepared to attempt on my own (then get help when they go wrong!!) which is why I upgraded my status to advanced beginner.

As I wasn't sure and wouldn't want to enter and have people say 'but she's not a beginner by any stretch of the imagination' etc, I asked the question about my status on the competition forum. The responses I have received indicate that I am indeed legitimately an 'advanced beginner' and should enter the competition. So I may well do. The competition starts on 1st May which will fit in nicely with the blouse I am planning to do for myself - so this may become what I enter. I haven't completely decided yet - either about actually entering or if I do, which garment I would make. It's important to incorporate one new technique. I'm considering adding piping. Obviously, anything I submit has been in the past and will be in the future my own work! Background support is permitted. By next year I will most definitely be intermediate so this is probably my last chance.

This is now Me Made May. I'm not going to make impossible to achieve pledges - or post pictures. I will say that I endeavour to wear all of the garments I've made during May at least once, to fix the items I've made that need little tweaks and wear those, to make one new garment for myself - and certainly not least of all - fix my blog!! Oh, and I promise not to post pictures of me wearing the Me Made May garments! I'm getting there with my blog problems, I think.