Copying A Favorite Garment

One of the most frequent questions I hear from budding sewists is, "I have a favorite top [pants, jacket, dress]. Can I make another one just like it?"

Yes, you can. It can be pretty easy, too!

There are several methods for making a pattern from a finished garment. The method I used for copying this top is by far the easiest and requires only the tools and materials you should already have on hand in your sewing room (or corner).

You need pins with a head on them, muslin or an old, plain bedsheet, wax chalk or a soft crayon, markers, and a ruler.

I won't get into an exhaustive tutorial here, but I'll describe the process. First, lay your garment flat. Insert pins into the seams of the garment every one or two inches, leaving the head of the pin exposed and the point of the pin pushed all the way into the wrong side of the garment.

Next, lay a fairly generous piece of muslin over one section of the garment at a time. Make sure it's all nice and flat and smooth. Now it's time to go back to your preschool days. Remember when they'd give you a piece of paper and a crayon and send you outside to do a rubbing off textured surfaces? Take your wax chalk or soft crayon and do this same thing. Rub your crayon over all the little pin heads. The outline of your pattern piece will appear!

This was fairly easy, in my case. I had to make a neck yoke, a shoulder yoke, and a bodice. The front and the back of this top are mirror images of each other.

My pattern pieces. Notice that you must draw in your grainline.

After you've done a rubbing of every piece of your garment, you must add stitching lines, grainlines, and seam allowances. You've also got to decide on an order of construction. And for what it's worth, if you've never sewn pants with fly closure, or a tailored jacket, don't make these sorts of garments the first thing you ever copy.

Here's my neck band piece, stapled to some newsprint. Notice I've added my seam allowances. Once you've tested the pattern in some cheaper fabric, you'll know how successful your copying was, and where you need to make changes. Then, make a clean copy of your pattern onto some pattern tissue or pattern marker paper.

I wanted to make sure my pattern was just right before I cut into my fabric. It's hand-screened with a Peach Berserk print.

 The finished result. Notice I left off the bottom band that the original garment had. I decided I didn't really need it. That happens a lot when you copy a garment. "It's perfect, oh but I want to change this about it … and that …"

I'm Berserk for Peach Berserk

I've not often wished I were someone else, but if I had a chance to slip into another person's skin, I would choose to inhabit the amazing, fabulous, and exuberant Kingi Carpenter, proprietess of the Toronto boutique, Peach Berserk. She is my hero!

Kingi, a former art student, sells one-of-a-kind and custom fashions made on the premises from silks and cottons she has screenprinted by hand with her own original, crazy, and delightful designs. She always says she got her inspiration for Peach Berserk when she visited Paris and looked everywhere for a dress that had Eiffel Towers printed on it. No Eiffel Tower dress was in evidence anywhere. Kingi thought that was just a shame and went home to Toronto and made her own fabric, "so no girl would have to go without Eiffel Towers on her dress again!"

From there, she used all sorts of other imagery — everything from flowers, to kitchen implements, to David Bowie — for her 100+ silkscreen designs, and more keep coming every year. Each and every one is sold in any color fabric and ink the customer chooses, and you're encouraged to mix and match freely, even on the same garment. For those who are decision-impaired and in a hurry, a selection of clothing off the rack is available. Peach Berserk is the go-to spot in Ontario for "out-there" prom dresses, and even does a great wedding clothes business as well.

I'm a fan of "outsider" fashion, and yeah, I love the reinterpreted Bettie Page look that's so popular among the roller girl/rockabilly crowd. But I love Kingi's unapologetic celebration of femininity in her clothing. There is no hard-edged irony or parody in her silhouettes. She even has a print called "I Enjoy Being A Girl." I love that she loves color and can't live without it. I love that she teaches others the fun art of silkscreening in monthly workshops right in the shop. I try to bring a little of her spirit to my own life and sewing, but don't quite make it. Speaking of which, I want to decide what to do with my own Eiffel Tower fabric!