The following is my final entry on grading infant-toddler pants. Having a copy of the Jack Handford grading manual will be helpful in understanding what these notes mean, especially for this last entry. Hopefully you have at least read the introduction and the instructions for grading a bodice. If you don't have a copy of the book, save these notes anyway - they may come in handy. Part 1 contains an explanation of direction arrows, Part 2 explains notation.
My infant-toddler pants are between knee and mid-calf length. I designed them to peek out just below the skirts of my dresses without distracting from the overall look of the dress. I wanted the trim of the pants barely visible below the skirt hem. So what should be the length grade of my pants?
At the top of the page for the pant grade (i.e., pg 218), Handford states that the grade for various lengths can be determined by studying the grading chart and diagram. The grading chart contains instructions for grading ankle length pants. I don't know why, but it wasn't obvious to me what grade steps to alter. I ended up doing the ankle length grade and decided it was grading to much. Did I mention that I ended up grading my toddler pants three times? Anyway, if you want to grade shorts, or any other length, these are the steps to alter:
Move #5 and #9 (up) is the knee length grade.
Move #6 and #8 is the ankle length grade.
If you want knee length shorts, skip moves #6 & #8. If you want mid-calf length, you could try splitting the difference between the knee length and ankle length grade. Any other lengths will be some variation on the above mentioned moves. If the length is closer to the ankle, follow the ankle grade and vice versa for shorter styles. In other words, these moves are flexible and depend on the style you are grading. It also depends on the personal preference of the individual grader. I graded my pants using the knee-length grade.
One reason I had a little bit of difficulty with determining the length grade has to do with my computerized grading experience. Moves 5 & 6, for example, can be combined in one grading point. The grading of children's patterns can be simplified because the shapes and growth is simpler in some ways. Since you can select an individual grading point and put in relative changes, the moves are interpreted a little bit differently. I am a self-taught grader and it takes me a bit more effort to determine my approach.
Any other question on grading pants? I hope these notes are helpful.
January 21, 2008
January 09, 2008
Grading Pants Notes pt. 2
The following are my notes on grading infant-toddler pants. Having a copy of the Jack Handford grading manual will be helpful in understanding what these notes mean. Hopefully you have at least read the introduction and the instructions for grading a bodice. If you don't have a copy of the book, save these notes anyway - they may come in handy. This is part 2 of the series. Part 1 contains an explanation of direction arrows.
This will be a short entry and only partially about grading pants. Mostly it is about Handford's notation and what caused me confusion.
In this drawing I superimposed the direction arrows onto a bodice pattern. There is a similar drawing in Handford's book, page 6 and in Kathleen Fasanella's book, pg 174. All movements start from your point of origin which I have indicated in my drawing. Depending on how you set-up your grading, it will be helpful to draw direction arrows on your patterns.
Now notice the little black triangle under the point of origin. Handford uses this triangle in many drawings. I interpreted those triangles to mean the "point of origin" and that is where I messed up.
Compare the drawings for pants of women (pg 77), men (188-189), and children (219). You'll notice that Handford adds or drops those black triangles almost randomly. Some drawings have them, some don't.
The black triangles don't indicate "point of origin". Instead, I think Handford is borrowing the notation from geometry where it means "right angle". Your direction arrows should be perpendicular - at 90 degrees. If you look at the pants drafts (sorry no more drawings for today), you can see his direction arrows are drawn down the center of the pant legs with two black triangles - meaning the lines should all be perpendicular. In my head, I was seeing "point of origin" or (0,0) on an X-Y coordinate plane. Interpreting things this way caused me to move my pattern pieces incorrectly (my own dumb fault for trying to over analyze things).
Anyway, by nesting my pieces I found my error and realized Handford's direction arrows do not always show the point of origin on all of his drawings. They just show direction.
Clear as mud?
This will be a short entry and only partially about grading pants. Mostly it is about Handford's notation and what caused me confusion.
In this drawing I superimposed the direction arrows onto a bodice pattern. There is a similar drawing in Handford's book, page 6 and in Kathleen Fasanella's book, pg 174. All movements start from your point of origin which I have indicated in my drawing. Depending on how you set-up your grading, it will be helpful to draw direction arrows on your patterns.Now notice the little black triangle under the point of origin. Handford uses this triangle in many drawings. I interpreted those triangles to mean the "point of origin" and that is where I messed up.
Compare the drawings for pants of women (pg 77), men (188-189), and children (219). You'll notice that Handford adds or drops those black triangles almost randomly. Some drawings have them, some don't.
The black triangles don't indicate "point of origin". Instead, I think Handford is borrowing the notation from geometry where it means "right angle". Your direction arrows should be perpendicular - at 90 degrees. If you look at the pants drafts (sorry no more drawings for today), you can see his direction arrows are drawn down the center of the pant legs with two black triangles - meaning the lines should all be perpendicular. In my head, I was seeing "point of origin" or (0,0) on an X-Y coordinate plane. Interpreting things this way caused me to move my pattern pieces incorrectly (my own dumb fault for trying to over analyze things).
Anyway, by nesting my pieces I found my error and realized Handford's direction arrows do not always show the point of origin on all of his drawings. They just show direction.
Clear as mud?
January 03, 2008
Grading Pants Notes pt. 1
The following are my notes on grading infant-toddler pants. Having a copy of the Jack Handford grading manual will be helpful in understanding what these notes mean. Hopefully you have at least read the introduction and the instructions for grading a bodice. If you don't have a copy of the book, save these notes anyway - they may come in handy.
These are the first of my notes on grading pants using the Jack Handford book. Part one of these notes is an explanation about directions and movements of the pattern pieces. Later I will talk specifically about grading pants, shorts, and what I think is a mistake in the children's chapter. Handford's book is a textbook and like most design text books he starts with grading women's styles. The book progresses from woman's bodices, pants, and skirts, to men's styles, and finally to children. When design/pattern making/grading book authors finally get to the children's info, the information becomes abbreviated and incomplete (if they include it at all). Handford's book is different because he does include infant and toddler information and it is more complete than any other grading manual out there. Still, he falls into the same trap. He assumes the student has worked through all of the previous chapters before arriving at the children's chapter. He assumes you have a strong grading background and understand his method completely. But what about those who have no interest in grading woman's clothing and skip ahead to the chapters with the most relevant information? This is what I did.
Now I do have a strong grading background - computer grading. Hand and computer grading are similar and Handford's method is how it is done in the industry. The direction of the grading is done in a similar fashion. The grade rules are similar. The grade steps are the same. But physically moving a hard, paper pattern around versus selecting points and entering relative coordinates is different. Despite that, I have a general sense of how a pattern should grow or shrink between sizes - and that helped me finally understand Handford's method better.
To start out, you will need to compare the grade instructions for women's pants to children. If you turn to page 79 (grading of women's back pant), you will notice arrows with words around each pattern piece. The arrows look like this drawing. If you flip over to the toddler pant grade (page 225), you will see arrows, but no words. It is at this point that Handford assumes you will know what direction is In, Out, Up, or Down. Now study the drawings of the women's pant and the children's pant. Do you see any other differences? There is one major difference that threw me off - I'll explain later...
The next thing to understand are directions. All patterns will move IN, OUT, UP, or DOWN. Handford shows how this works on page 6 in relation to a bodice. The children's chapter doesn't have these extra helps. So I drew arrows like on the right and below to help remind me of grading direction. I added the words to body center or to body side to remind me of how to move the pattern IN or OUT. As you can see, IN or OUT can change depending on whether you are grading a left or right piece (applies to front or back too). Directions may change again when grading darts. Be sure to study styles with darts to see the changes. Infant-Toddler styles do not have darts, so movements will occur like these drawings. Movements UP move toward the body head and DOWN toward the feet. UP and DOWN movements are always the same.
I hope I haven't thoroughly confused anyone yet. I felt like this brief explanation of the notation and movements was necessary before getting into more detail.
If you have questions, please leave them in comments.
These are the first of my notes on grading pants using the Jack Handford book. Part one of these notes is an explanation about directions and movements of the pattern pieces. Later I will talk specifically about grading pants, shorts, and what I think is a mistake in the children's chapter. Handford's book is a textbook and like most design text books he starts with grading women's styles. The book progresses from woman's bodices, pants, and skirts, to men's styles, and finally to children. When design/pattern making/grading book authors finally get to the children's info, the information becomes abbreviated and incomplete (if they include it at all). Handford's book is different because he does include infant and toddler information and it is more complete than any other grading manual out there. Still, he falls into the same trap. He assumes the student has worked through all of the previous chapters before arriving at the children's chapter. He assumes you have a strong grading background and understand his method completely. But what about those who have no interest in grading woman's clothing and skip ahead to the chapters with the most relevant information? This is what I did.
Now I do have a strong grading background - computer grading. Hand and computer grading are similar and Handford's method is how it is done in the industry. The direction of the grading is done in a similar fashion. The grade rules are similar. The grade steps are the same. But physically moving a hard, paper pattern around versus selecting points and entering relative coordinates is different. Despite that, I have a general sense of how a pattern should grow or shrink between sizes - and that helped me finally understand Handford's method better.
To start out, you will need to compare the grade instructions for women's pants to children. If you turn to page 79 (grading of women's back pant), you will notice arrows with words around each pattern piece. The arrows look like this drawing. If you flip over to the toddler pant grade (page 225), you will see arrows, but no words. It is at this point that Handford assumes you will know what direction is In, Out, Up, or Down. Now study the drawings of the women's pant and the children's pant. Do you see any other differences? There is one major difference that threw me off - I'll explain later...
The next thing to understand are directions. All patterns will move IN, OUT, UP, or DOWN. Handford shows how this works on page 6 in relation to a bodice. The children's chapter doesn't have these extra helps. So I drew arrows like on the right and below to help remind me of grading direction. I added the words to body center or to body side to remind me of how to move the pattern IN or OUT. As you can see, IN or OUT can change depending on whether you are grading a left or right piece (applies to front or back too). Directions may change again when grading darts. Be sure to study styles with darts to see the changes. Infant-Toddler styles do not have darts, so movements will occur like these drawings. Movements UP move toward the body head and DOWN toward the feet. UP and DOWN movements are always the same.
I hope I haven't thoroughly confused anyone yet. I felt like this brief explanation of the notation and movements was necessary before getting into more detail.If you have questions, please leave them in comments.
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