Lutterloh Pattern Making

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Welcome to your best source for free Lutterloh tips and system information! We are a couple of fans of the Lutterloh patterns who love to sew clothes that fit. You too can successfully make a wardrobe from your Lutterloh pattern book. Be sure to check out our side bar for links to Lutterloh dealers and all of our best tricks! DISCLAIMER: Some patterns and tools have been provided by the Lutterloh company for our unbiased review.

Welcome to the Winter Lutterloh Sew Along! Well, here it is , the second sew along here on the Ugly Dame! I am really excited to be doin…

What if my pattern collection doesn’t include the style that I’m looking for? This is one of those FAQs that comes up often. Even though…

I am making the PJ’s on the right. I’m going for the pants and top Taken from a 1989 pattern book You can click on all the photo’s to enlarge I have listed over to the right some great places to view video showing you just how to make a Lutterloh pattern but here is a photo run through my P.j pattern. (Finished P.j photos pending. 🙂 First I take a peek at the picture of the outfit. What does it tell me? I see a ruffled collar, button’s down the front. Looks like the front shoulder is dropped and the dart has been moved to the shoulder for some slight gathering. That’s nice. Looks like a pattern for neck facing in the back You can’t see that in the picture. I will also need to look at the pattern to really see what is going on with the pants. It’s good to be able to check back to the pattern picture so I can think through how this will sew together. I scan both pattern and picture from my Lutterloh book and print so I can write on it and use it fully. Now I look at the pattern. The pants look loose and they have an elastic waist that will sew up quickly! The top is marked for a facing, see the hatch marks? The PJ top back has a neck dart, that will keep it fitted nicely. The sleeve is straight cut so it will be comfortable. These are real laze around clothes I see. There are but very few pieces so I will have these made in no time. I should remember to trace over the facing while the patterns are still taped to my table……. Here we go……….. I bought a wide fold up table perfect for any pattern and puts away easily. This is in my kitchen where I have lots of light! Some of my tools include some foam for the tack (it is smaller than any I have been able to buy so I don’t want to loose it) I have a couple of pieces of scrap wood. One to tape under the pattern cross and one in case I loose the first. I have a collection of Lutterloh tape measures. Some are very old The best ones have the marking hole clearly m
arked by the number. The old ones are a bit of a puzzle and if you have one let me know and I’ll tell you more. The red and black numbers are only for making it easier to read and it does! I use colored fine tip markers for making the dots and a pencil for outlining the pattern. I often make changes in the outside line for my body shape adjustments and pencil is best. I keep all the small stuff in this zippered pouch it is very handy! You may have gotten a cardboard tailors curve with your kit. You can buy plastic ones from Lutterloh and other locations. These can be very handy OR you don’t need anything but a good ruler. I’ll show you how. I use a light weight white pattern paper for making my patterns on. This lets me hold the pattern up and test if it is a good fit. Paper testing. 1st. once you have studied your pattern. Tape the little piece of wood to the center of your table. This protects your table from pin holes and holds the pin firmly while you pivot for marking the pattern parts. 2nd Pre-hole your pattern cross. I scan my pattern to the exact size (I hold the scan and the real pattern up to a window and compare the outside lines) I never poke holes in my real patterns. By putting a hole in the pattern before putting on the tape you will not end up missing the middle of the cross. One of these tapes is old and it does not have arrows pointing to the hole for the numbers. This causes mistakes and I don’t use this one. The newer one on the left has little arrows pointing to the numbers so no worries with this one. If you have one without arrows go to the top number (140) see that the hole for 140 rests under the number, at the end of the line. This means that every number will have it’s hole below the number. Watch carefully if using a tape like the one on the right. Before I tape things down I like to test and see if the largest number on the pattern will fit where my papers goes. I stretch out the tape and test. If it doesn’t I take the tack out and move that paper a bit. It isn’t a big deal if I run out of space I just add some paper with some clear tape. For the marks above the waist I use my bust measurement #128 . My measurement was 127 but these are Pj’s so I went up to #128. I am careful to mark these numbers on my pattern in case I do make choices different than the norm. See where the little block is under my paper and pattern I push the tack into the wood and save my table! I go to my first number #32 and I line up my tape with the line next to the number. Then I smooth my tape down as I stay at the angle of the line until I get to #32 and I put a dot The dark line under each number is the correct place to mark your dot Here I am at 32.5 go to the dark line at 32 and move to the light line that is a 1/2 or .5 Now I am ready to make the two dots that are below my waist. I move the tack into my hip measurement and then I pull the tape to the last two marks and put my dots. I leave the tack and tape in the pattern while I draw the outline. It helps if I can’t figure out a dot I can recheck….just remember if you are above your hip or below you will need to change what number your tack is in. Most of my mistakes are above the waist so when doing my pattern I start below the waist for hip marks and then change to my bust measurements so that is what is sitting there as I draw the outline. mark all the straight lines first, the bottoms the sides the shoulders then I move to the curves I am using my tailors curve to make the armscye Lutterloh suggests you always hit 3 dots that way you have the curve in the correct angle As you can see one dot doesn’t work out. Not a problem make that curve nicely and it will all be fine. The curve above I did by hand, no tools, just move from dot to dot with a swirl of the pencil. It’s fun, do it several times trying to make it as good as possible. In the next step you will see that I darkened the path that looked best and that is where I will cut my pattern Time to put in all the pattern markings normally I would make my pattern adjustments at this point but I’d like to cut these out first so you can see them. In another post I will show you how I shorten the length of the top and adjust the armscye and fix the pants for length I add all the markings for the pattern, this is the gathered shoulder And the neck, button band facing is marked and I can just trace a pattern off of this As you can see I ran out of paper on the sleeve it was easy to grab a scrap and tape it there for the next dot. If you look at the pattern the sleeve curves from the under arm scye. Not a lot and it straightens out quickly and goes down to the wrist. This takes pratice to get an eye for these little things that make fit much better. Here it is all the pieces for the top front, back, neck facing, ruffled collar, sleeve They do not have seam allowances or hems on them. I prefer to add seams etc. when I lay the pattern on the fabric. It leaves the patterns free of allowances I’d have to cut out if I were changing things in the pattern. Ann’s note: I have been taking the copies of my patterns one step further by cutting them apart into the separate pieces such as front, back, sleeve, etc. This way when I tape each piece to the pattern paper I can leave it taped there in case there is a question of accuracy later. The miniature pattern is in exactly the same spot as when I drew the pattern and I can easily check my dot placement.

I am making the PJ’s on the right. I’m going for the pants and top Taken from a 1989 pattern book You can click on all the photo’s to enlarge I have listed over to the right some great places to view video showing you just how to make a Lutterloh pattern but here is a photo run through my P.j pattern. (Finished P.j photos pending. 🙂 First I take a peek at the picture of the outfit. What does it tell me? I see a ruffled collar, button’s down the front. Looks like the front shoulder is dropped and the dart has been moved to the shoulder for some slight gathering. That’s nice. Looks like a pattern for neck facing in the back You can’t see that in the picture. I will also need to look at the pattern to really see what is going on with the pants. It’s good to be able to check back to the pattern picture so I can think through how this will sew together. I scan both pattern and picture from my Lutterloh book and print so I can write on it and use it fully. Now I look at the pattern. The pants look loose and they have an elastic waist that will sew up quickly! The top is marked for a facing, see the hatch marks? The PJ top back has a neck dart, that will keep it fitted nicely. The sleeve is straight cut so it will be comfortable. These are real laze around clothes I see. There are but very few pieces so I will have these made in no time. I should remember to trace over the facing while the patterns are still taped to my table……. Here we go……….. I bought a wide fold up table perfect for any pattern and puts away easily. This is in my kitchen where I have lots of light! Some of my tools include some foam for the tack (it is smaller than any I have been able to buy so I don’t want to loose it) I have a couple of pieces of scrap wood. One to tape under the pattern cross and one in case I loose the first. I have a collection of Lutterloh tape measures. Some are very old The best ones have the marking hole clearly marked by the number. The old ones are a bit of a puzzle and if you have one let me know and I’ll tell you more. The red and black numbers are only for making it easier to read and it does! I use colored fine tip markers for making the dots and a pencil for outlining the pattern. I often make changes in the outside line for my body shape adjustments and pencil is best. I keep all the small stuff in this zippered pouch it is very handy! You may have gotten a cardboard tailors curve with your kit. You can buy plastic ones from Lutterloh and other locations. The
se can be very handy OR you don’t need anything but a good ruler. I’ll show you how. I use a light weight white pattern paper for making my patterns on. This lets me hold the pattern up and test if it is a good fit. Paper testing. 1st. once you have studied your pattern. Tape the little piece of wood to the center of your table. This protects your table from pin holes and holds the pin firmly while you pivot for marking the pattern parts. 2nd Pre-hole your pattern cross. I scan my pattern to the exact size (I hold the scan and the real pattern up to a window and compare the outside lines) I never poke holes in my real patterns. By putting a hole in the pattern before putting on the tape you will not end up missing the middle of the cross. One of these tapes is old and it does not have arrows pointing to the hole for the numbers. This causes mistakes and I don’t use this one. The newer one on the left has little arrows pointing to the numbers so no worries with this one. If you have one without arrows go to the top number (140) see that the hole for 140 rests under the number, at the end of the line. This means that every number will have it’s hole below the number. Watch carefully if using a tape like the one on the right. Before I tape things down I like to test and see if the largest number on the pattern will fit where my papers goes. I stretch out the tape and test. If it doesn’t I take the tack out and move that paper a bit. It isn’t a big deal if I run out of space I just add some paper with some clear tape. For the marks above the waist I use my bust measurement #128 . My measurement was 127 but these are Pj’s so I went up to #128. I am careful to mark these numbers on my pattern in case I do make choices different than the norm. See where the little block is under my paper and pattern I push the tack into the wood and save my table! I go to my first number #32 and I line up my tape with the line next to the number. Then I smooth my tape down as I stay at the angle of the line until I get to #32 and I put a dot The dark line under each number is the correct place to mark your dot Here I am at 32.5 go to the dark line at 32 and move to the light line that is a 1/2 or .5 Now I am ready to make the two dots that are below my waist. I move the tack into my hip measurement and then I pull the tape to the last two marks and put my dots. I leave the tack and tape in the pattern while I draw the outline. It helps if I can’t figure out a dot I can recheck….just remember if you are above your hip or below you will need to change what number your tack is in. Most of my mistakes are above the waist so when doing my pattern I start below the waist for hip marks and then change to my bust measurements so that is what is sitting there as I draw the outline. mark all the straight lines first, the bottoms the sides the shoulders then I move to the curves I am using my tailors curve to make the armscye Lutterloh suggests you always hit 3 dots that way you have the curve in the correct angle As you can see one dot doesn’t work out. Not a problem make that curve nicely and it will all be fine. The curve above I did by hand, no tools, just move from dot to dot with a swirl of the pencil. It’s fun, do it several times trying to make it as good as possible. In the next step you will see that I darkened the path that looked best and that is where I will cut my pattern Time to put in all the pattern markings normally I would make my pattern adjustments at this point but I’d like to cut these out first so you can see them. In another post I will show you how I shorten the length of the top and adjust the armscye and fix the pants for length I add all the markings for the pattern, this is the gathered shoulder And the neck, button band facing is marked and I can just trace a pattern off of this As you can see I ran out of paper on the sleeve it was easy to grab a scrap and tape it there for the next dot. If you look at the pattern the sleeve curves from the under arm scye. Not a lot and it straightens out quickly and goes down to the wrist. This takes pratice to get an eye for these little things that make fit much better. Here it is all the pieces for the top front, back, neck facing, ruffled collar, sleeve They do not have seam allowances or hems on them. I prefer to add seams etc. when I lay the pattern on the fabric. It leaves the patterns free of allowances I’d have to cut out if I were changing things in the pattern. Ann’s note: I have been taking the copies of my patterns one step further by cutting them apart into the separate pieces such as front, back, sleeve, etc. This way when I tape each piece to the pattern paper I can leave it taped there in case there is a question of accuracy later. The miniature pattern is in exactly the same spot as when I drew the pattern and I can easily check my dot placement.

Welcome to your best source for free Lutterloh tips and system information! We are a couple of fans of the Lutterloh patterns who love to sew clothes that fit. You too can successfully make a wardrobe from your Lutterloh pattern book. Be sure to check out our side bar for links to Lutterloh dealers and all of our best tricks! DISCLAIMER: Some patterns and tools have been provided by the Lutterloh company for our unbiased review.

Oh, December already. . . .I bet by now the holidays will be creeping up on you but don’t forget to make some time for yourself….