If you like drafting your own patterns you will have asked yourself: How do I draft the top patterns? and How many blocks do I need? In this article I show you how I organise my basic bodice blocks in a way that makes sense, so no more buying books to draft specific designs from scratch.
First things first, it’s very important to state that this article refers only to woven fabric foundations, in other words, your fabric should not have elasticity. For instructions on elastic patterns you can go to article about elastic foundations.
Let’s start from the beginning: how many top foundations do you need? Well, the easy answer is: one. So, why does it look like there are so many?
Imagine it this way: You have your basic top foundation and you want to make a shirt. To do so you will have to add ease, move the darts, make it longer, add the opening, the collar and the cuffs.
If you only want to make one shirt a year, the basic top foundation would be enough, but what if you want to make them more often? Change the fit, the collar or add tucks? That’s where the extra foundations come into play.
In this article I’ve broken it down into 3 extra foundations: the torso/dress, the shirt and the jacket.
As I said, they can all be drafted from the basic top foundation (and sometimes the basic skirt foundation)
Let’s look at them individually!
This block is the mother of all the other foundations. All the drafting books out there will show you how to draft it and it has 2 darts at the front and 2 at the back and ends at waist level.
The torso foundation is the extended version of the top block. It is drafted by combining the top and the skirt and it ends at hip level. This block is perfect for dress designs without a waist at the seam.
This foundation is also an extended version of the top, but this time with more ease added around the shoulders and armholes. It is supposed to have a more loose fitting look and is perfect for shirts and blouses.
The jacket block is very similar to the torso foundation but in this case it has ease added all around the pattern so it can be worn over a couple of layers. It is perfect for blazers, jackets and coats.
These are the main foundations, but we can still do a little bit more work. These fours blocks are all the basic versions, but each of them can have three (or more) variations:
Now that this is clear, let’s look at how to modify them to get specific designs.
The first modification you can do is transforming the darts by moving them, changing the silhouette of the pattern or even use them to add volume. This can be done with all the foundations but makes the most amount of sense with the ones that already have darts in them.
Here are the three ways to modify your darts:
Front and back darts can be transferred to any location from a pivotal point without affecting the size or fit of the garment.
Darts can also be used to create specific silhouettes by dividing them into multiple openings and treating them as single design units.
The darts don’t always need to be used to contour around the body, they cal also be treated as added volume or details. Some designs include tucks, pleats, flares or gathers.
Each of these techniques has its own difficulties and ways of working. If you want to know more about how to perform them, check out this article here.
Another design change that can be done to the pattern is altering the neckline. There are countless types of necklines but they can be grouped into four: the low, the high, the cowl and the collar.
This is a working document and I will keep adding to it the more I learn, so keep it saved! If you want to know more on how to draft top patterns, techniques or similar, take a look at the posts below and have fun.
