The news of the arrival of a newborn baby girl often times brings the creative juices flowing.  If you have time in your hands, you may automatically think about sewing dresses for the baby even before she could walk.  Here are a few tips when designing patterns for babies and toddlers.

Modesty

Families who embrace modesty in their way of life can design modest clothing styles for their toddlers, thanks to My Sloper Software.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it. — Proverbs 22:6

Although training for modesty should begin early in the education of a girl, the exact age to start varies from community to community.  This training could begin as early as the age of 3 or 6.   Regardless of the age variance, parents provide modest clothing to their young daughters to accustom them to ways of modesty.  Modesty as we know, is not limited to just our outer appearance, but includes our behavior to G-d and society.

Ease

Babies in their toddler stage are quite active little people.  Add enough ease to their clothing to enable movement and activity as well as to accommodate the diaper.

Fabric

Sewing baby clothing takes very little yardage.  You can use your fabric stash for coordinating fabric to make up a whole garment and leftover trims for that extra cute adornments.  Use cotton whenever possible for the sensitive baby skin. You may try synthetic fabrics and at the same time, you should watch out for any allergic reaction to the material.

Lining

Line the upper bodice if you will be using a zipper to reduce any skin irritation to the zipper tape.

Button Closings

Your garment may have a button closing instead of a zipper.  Ensure that the buttons are secured properly to prevent the baby from swallowing them.

Gallery

Here is a sample gallery of baby clothing you can design with My Sloper Blouse, Skirt and Dress.  This gallery will be updated for more ideas.

Download

Although not comprehensive, here is a free XML Profile for babies age 12 through 24 months to be used in conjunction with My Sloper.

The post Sewing for Babies & Toddlers appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.

Color-blocking is a technique where colors from the complementary color scheme is used in a garment.  To understand any color scheme, one has to understand the color placement in a color wheel.

Color Wheel from tigercolor.com

Colors that are opposite each other in the color wheel are the complementary colors.  For example, red and green, purple and green, orange and blue, yellow and blue, etc.

Complementary colors are tricky to use in large doses, but work well when you want something to stand out. — tigercolor.com

As you can see, color-blocking which highlights the complementary colors is a way to boldly attract the visual attention of the onlooker.  In terms of modesty, whose primary value to is to not flaunt but to conceal, color-blocking is not a viable application in modesty.

An alternative to color-blocking is to use what we call the Analogous Color Scheme.

Analogous Color Scheme from tigercolor.com

This color scheme uses a triad of colors that are next to each other in the color wheel to produce a serene visual appeal.

Analogous color schemes are often found in nature and are harmonious and pleasing to the eye. — tigercolor.com

These colors are more suited for modesty as they are not loud and attention-seeking as their complementary color counterparts.

To answer our reader, we would suggest using colors that blend well to create a balanced and peaceful appearance.

Here are a few fabric ideas that we have incorporated into some of the designs from My Sloper.

Fabric Ideas for Box-pleated Blouse

Fabric Ideas for a simple, modest belted dress.

Fabric Ideas for a Belted Victorian-style Empire-Waist Dress

Fabric Ideas for a Empire-waist Paneled Blouse

Fabric Ideas for Drop-waist Pleated Tucks Dress

If you enjoy this article, please share it with others who care about modesty.  In addition, send us a picture(s) of your application of the modest color scheme in your modest clothing created with My Sloper.

The post Fabric Ideas for Modest Clothing appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.

Benefits of XML Profiles

XML Profiles are ideal for the professional dressmaker as well as for the amateur dressmaker who is not yet confident taking personal body measurements and wants to choose from a standard size range.

KosherPatterns.com now offers the following expanded size ranges for women and girls.

Womens Sizes 6-18

We have included a variance of height from petite, average-height to tall as well as XS through 3XL.

Womens Sizes 20-30

We have included average-height and tall women with sizes 20-30.

Young Womens Sizes 6-16

This size range is for younger slender women, available in numbered ranges 6-16 and lettered ranges XS-XL.

Girls Sizes 3-14

This size range is for children.

Reference these articles on how to use XML Profiles.

How to Load an XML Profile

How to edit an XML Profile

The post New XML Profile Sizing Charts for My Sloper appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.

Navigating the Skirts Grid.

Navigating the Skirts Grid.

Chrome Version

This issue occurs in the Skirts Tab, Blouse Tab, Dress Tab and Jackets & Coats tab.

This is not an issue in either Firefox or Opera.  We have removed Chrome from the list of preferred browsers for My Sloper until further notice.  Our sincere apologies to faithful Chrome users.

Update:

We have reported this issue to Chrome under this report #550204.  You can access its status reports by going to this page, https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=550204

The post More Chrome Issues appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.

Caftan Sleeves Cowl Neckline Blouson Top

To create an overall “caftan” look, we designed a band-collared Cowl neckline Blouson top. Yes, you can add a back-opening collar to a cowl neckline.

Blouse Styling

Style the Blouse

In the Blouse Tab, we chose the Waisted Aline Panel style and Cowl Neckline.

To create a Blouson effect, we reduced the Waist Intake to zero and added a Waist Line Extension of 5-cm.  We also added Hip Ease to create an Aline lower bodice and make the lower bodice longer by adding a Hip Line Extension.

Caftan Sleeve Styling

To produce a “Caftan” style sleeve overlay, all we have to do is create a full even-width flounce which we sew over the regular sleeve.

To design this flounce, we added up the Top Armhole and Bottom Armhole measurements generated from the Blouse tab and multiply it by two to get the full armhole measurement.  We use that measurement as the Flounce Length.

Top and Bottom Armhole and Sleeve Measurement

So, for instance, if our Top Armhole is 8.2-cm and our Bottom Armhole is 7.9-cm, our overall armhole measurement would be (8.2+7.9)*2 = 32.2 cm. That would dictate the length of our flounce.

To find the width of our flounce, we chose half the measurement of our full-sleeve or overarm measurement.  For instance, if our full-length sleeve is 45-cm, our Flounce Width would be 22.5-cm.

We then go to the Trims tab and select the Even-width Flounce.

Flounce Styling for the Caftan Sleeve Overlay

We enter our Flounce Length and Flounce Width measurements that we computed earlier.  We can choose between three Flounce Spans: half, three-quarter, or full.   A fuller span will create a more dramatic flounce with more drape and folds. For our model, we chose Full span.  We can also choose between generating one or two pieces of the flounce pattern. Since a full-span flounce would take up a lot of paper, we decided to generate a 2-piece pattern instead which we will have to cut 2 pieces and join them at the seam allowance.  By clicking Draw, we get the following pattern.

Caftan Full-span Even Width Flounce Pattern

Band Collar

We chose a Band Collar to adorn our Cowl Neckline.

Band Collar

Modesty Requirements

For modesty, we will never just wear this “caftan” sleeve by itself.  This sleeve is only used as an overlay to our existing full-length sleeve.  Ideas for fabric include using a lace fabric or eyelet fabric as the overlay.  A white-laced caftan sleeve will look good for a Victorian style on a wedding gown.

Download My Sloper

The post How to Design the Caftan Sleeve appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.

First, a little background about why the Jewish bride and groom wear white on their special wedding day.  The custom of wearing white garments is common in Judaism.  There are several occasions when Jews wear white: Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and a Jewish wedding.  On these special holidays, we beseech G-d to forgive us of our sins committed against Him and we pray for a chance to begin anew in another year.  We wear white to emulate the angels in heaven which symbolize purity of sin because our goal in this earthly world is to get closer to G-d and reach a level of holiness close to the angels.

On a typical Jewish wedding day, the bride and groom take upon themselves a fast until chupah time, and they pray independently for a bright beginning to start their lives anew as one entity.  The groom typically wears a kittel and the bride wears a modest (and hopefully kosher) wedding gown.  On this holy event, we want to invite G-d’s Divine Presence into the wedding hall and it is appropriate to act and dress modestly to merit this.

And your camp shall be holy, and there should not be seen amongst you anything immodest, ervat davar. — Devarim (Deuteronomy) 23:15

The question is raised whether a wedding gown can be sewn by an amateur.  At KosherPatterns.com, our belief is a resounding ‘Yes!’  Designing a wedding gown is a totally different matter, but we have been striving to provide modest and kosher sewing patterns to the general public who aspires modesty in their lives so that they become more attached to our Father-in-Heaven.  Our tznius bridal gowns are tastefully designed with ample ease so as not to compromise on the femininity of the bride.

We strove to the challenge of our reader, a modest clothing advocate, who wants to see simple modest and kosher wedding gown patterns for amateurs to make on their own budget that is achievable.  So, we looked into what My Sloper currently offers and we came up with a sampling of eight different easy styles that one can make.  Here is our portfolio of sample wedding gown patterns from an ascending order of complexity.

Our sister site, KosherBridal.com, is now offering some of these styles for sale.

[rev_slider kosher-bridal]

 Cowl Neckline A-line Maxi Gown

We start off with a waist-level bodice A-line maxi-length gown adorned with a cowl neckline and gathered sleeves with a high cuff.  This is a rather easy pattern to generate and to make.

Empire Waistline A-line Tiered Maxi Gown

This is another piece which is easy to make by assembling all the pieces together, a tiered empire-waistline a-line gown with a mock collar for formality.   We use plain sleeves for this, but of course, our end-user can replace the plain sleeve with other sleeve patterns that come with My Sloper.

Simple A-line Dress with Lace and Front Overlays

This option is actually inspired by a wedding gown from one of our clients who chose a similar pattern from a magazine and had it professionally made by a seamstress.  The gown is a simple A-line dress but it has added to it a frontal overlay from the same material that reaches the high-waist level.  In addition, a sheer lace overlay is added to the plain sleeves and skirt and Venetian lace borders all the overlays.

Layered Tiered A-line Gown with Sleeve Flounces

For those who love flounces and layers, this pattern is another easy one to generate and sew.  The layered tiers are flounces that are added on to a regular tiered skirt pattern.  Add two pairs of tapered flounces at the sleeve caps for a matching layered effect.

Multi-paneled A-line Gown

The gathered sleeves with high cuffs return for this pattern, matched with a waist-level multi-paneled skirt.  Our illustration shows ten panels.

Box-pleated Drop Waist Maxi A-line Gown

This pattern calls for a drop-waist bodice paired with box-pleated skirt and regular gathered sleeves with cuffs.  Add a nice bow or flowers along the waist seam line for a lovely feminine touch.

Cowl Neckline Blouson Waist Laced Caftan Sleeves and Skirt Overlay

This Victorian-style gown has a laced Band collar with a Cowl neckline and Blouson waist.  In addition it is laced with Caftan Sleeves and skirt overlay for a soft feminine charm.

A-line Gown with a Drop-waist Shawl Collar Jacket

This last pattern is probably the most time-consuming of all, only because it comes with a formal shawl-collar jacket with turn-back cuffs.  The gown itself is a simple A-line dress pattern that comes freely with My Sloper Demo.

Sewing Time

All the above patterns are easy for beginners and can be sewn in a day or two, depending on the sewer’s sewing speed and comfort level.  Pattern assembly is a breeze with My Sloper.  The most amount of time spent on these wedding gown patterns is not the sewing but the fabric and notions selection and purchase.  Learn how to estimate fabric yardage.  Lining a garment depends on the opacity of the outer fabric.    Satins come in different grades and textures, but most bridal satins are quite opaque and of medium weight. We are not limited to using satin as the fabric of choice.  We can also try cotton or cotton-polyester blend jacquard or chenille fabric that are usually medium weight.

Ordering a Custom Pattern

Contact us if you would like one of the above patterns custom-made for you based on your measurements.

Download My Sloper Dress Demo

Get a free dress sloper pattern by downloading the DEMO version of My Sloper Dress.

Bridal Gown Gallery

Here’s a Bridal Gown Gallery with prototypes made from some of the designs above.  Some of them are available for sale at our sister shop.

The post Tznius Bridal Gowns appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.

While developing the latest version of My Sloper, Version 1.81, we have noticed that the latest Chrome, version “43.0.2357.81 m” has not been rendering our patterns correctly.  This is a new issue and we thought you might like to know, should you encounter similar issues.

Chrome Issue

The following is a mis-rendering of a sloper by the latest Chrome.

Chrome Bug

Chrome Version

We compared the rendering of the same sloper on Firefox and Opera.

Firefox Perfection

Opera Near Perfection

As you can see, Opera is near perfect as it is also not marking the waist line correctly, unlike Firefox which has done a superb job.  Since we are not the developers of any browser, we have notified Chrome about this issue and we hope to hear good news.

Update from Google

Google has updated us with information that they are able to reproduce errors like this one on certain platforms including Windows 7 and Linux, and that their current version is a regression from a bad build.  They have requested their developers to look into it further.  A developer has been assigned to this issue.  We will update you further when we hear from them.

Temporary Solutions

Until then, should you encounter issues similar to this one on Chrome, where the pattern is not rendered correctly, first try it on Firefox and Opera.  If all three browsers render the same way, please contact us to report a bug on My Sloper with a clear step-by-step reproduction of the error.  Thank you.

The post The Latest Chrome and Its Rendering Error appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.

The half-flounce pattern that is created one edge longer than the other has many uses.  You can construct this pattern by hand, or you can generate it from My Sloper, Version 1.81 (to be released).

Vertical Triangular Jabot Collar Extension

By folding the pattern overlapping the folds at equal length along the half-circle, you can create a vertical triangular tie-looking Jabot extension that you can attach at the garment neckline.

Two-piece Pleated Collar

Because the half-spiral flounce is circular, it is easy to blend into a circular neckline, both front and back.  Using two pieces of the same pattern, you can join them at the longer edge to make one long piece.

Pleat each flounce sideways as many times as you like along the half-circle edge.  Repeat for the other flounce.  Baste along the half-circle edge.  Attach the two-flounces-in-one piece along a garment neckline to get a nice pleated collar extension.

Two-piece Full-Pleated Collar

By increasing the length of the flounce or by reducing the number of pleats, you can extend the two flounce patterns to cover the full length of the neckline.

You can also anchor the short edge of the flounce to the shoulder seam, and/or anchor the long edge of the flounce to the center button stand or zipper opening.

Have fun with the versatility of the half-spiral flounce pattern and decorate the front of your garment with the lovely ideas you learn in this tutorial.

Happy sewing!

The Versatile Flounce

The post The Versatile Half Spiral Flounce appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.

Profile

Head over to the Jacket/Coats tab.  Enter your custom profile for a Jewish male.

Kittle Sample Profile

Coat Ease

The default ease for a Jacket/Coat is as follows.  Note that the Neck Ease of 2-cm is added to the overall Neck Girth.  You can change any of the ease values to make it work for you.  When you choose a separate collar from the Neckwear-Collars tab (see below), you will need to add this ease to the Neck Girth measurement.

Default Jacket/Coat Ease

Collar Style

Select the first icon, No/Separate Collar.

Head over to the Neckwear=Collar Tab and pick a collar for your kittel.  For this sample, we choose a Traditional Collar.

Traditional Collar

We then style the collar as follows.  The highlighted areas show what are needed: Neck Girth, Back Collar Width, Unit (in or cm), Shoulder Slant and Collar Tip.  Remember we need to add the 2-cm Neck Ease to our Neck Girth.  Whem we are satisfied, we click the Draw button to draw the pattern and click Print to print to PDF.

Kittel Collar Styling

Coat Styling

Kittel Styling

We return to the Jacket/Coats tab and continue styling our kittel.  Since a kittel is usually worn at knee length, we select the jacket/coat length to be Knee instead of other options (drop-waist, hip, 2-in below the hip, and mid-calf).  We ignore the shoulder pad option.

We can choose a plain kittel that looks like a lab coat or we can style it with pleats.  For our sample, we choose Front Shoulder Pleats with 3 pleats of 2-cm wide each and a Center Back Box Pleat of 4-cm wide.  When you sew the back pleat, you can sew it as box pleat or inverted box pleat.  We then choose a straight side seam because this is for a man’s coat.  We ignore the lining and use the default.

Kittel Opening

We then style the opening of the kittel.  A kittel normally has a front button-down opening. We can choose from three button-down openings: Add-on, Separate, or Faced button-stand.  The Add-on button-stand is easy to sew; the Separate button-stand allows you have contrasting fabric for the button-stand that matches the collar and sleeve cuffs (if any); and the Faced button-stand is hidden from view as it is turned inside the garment.

Then we click Draw Back Coat to preview the pattern generated for the Back Coat.  At this point, we may tweak the sleeve cap if needed and re-draw the pattern.  If we are happy with the back pattern, we then draw the front pattern.  When we are happy with both patterns, we can print each pattern separately via the Print button.

Sample Kittel Pattern

Here is a sample drawing of the front and back of a kittel styled by My Sloper.  Note that the belt is not included in the pattern and you will have to generate that separately with ease based on your desired width and length.  The front pleats which run from the shoulder down to the hem may be sewn partially until the chest or waist level and left open below.

Front Kittel with Front Shoulder Pleats and Separate Button-stand

Back Kittel with Center Back Pleat

 Kittel Decorations

Commercial kittels come with fancy decorations which include trims.  We can sew a wide ribbon along the sleeve hem line, collar border and front button-stand and replace the regular buttons with snap buttons underneath the front button-stand.

Front Kittel with Decorations

Back Kittel with Decorations

Kittel Buttons Overlap

Unlike Western secular mens’ wear which follow the left-over-right button overlap, a kittel follows  the right-over-left convention.  Here’s a snippet of this tradition from the article, ‘The Man in the Glass Case':

There are two more customs I would like to note here. In the world of Western fashion, men button their garments left over right. The origin of this custom, I am told, was to make access to weapons easier. When you meet a stranger be on guard and have your weapon ready. To ensure that you bear no malice stretch forth your right hand and shake to show you conceal no weapon.

Jews have no fear of this. Our garments are traditionally buttoned right over left because we bear no weapons and when we meet we need not show that our hands are empty. Instead, we say: “Shalom” (“Peace!”) The Kabbalahsays that the right side of a person should always take precedence over the left, for the right side of man signifies kindness while the left signifies sternness, justice and retribution. Just as G-d created the world primarily out of love and kindness, so love and kindness should predominate in men’s dealings with one another. Therefore one buttons the right over the left even though this may hamper the drawing of a weapon.  — the Man in the Glass Case, Chabad.org

Learn More About My Sloper

We hope you enjoy this tutorial of how to design a kittel using My Sloper Version 1.8.  Besides a kittel, you can also make other styles of jackets and coats.  We look forward to working with you to make modest and kosher garments for children and adults.  To learn more about My Sloper, please visit our front page.

The post How to Design a Kittel appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.

The post Modest Cowl Collar Sewing Pattern for Women appeared first on KosherPatterns ®.