Acknowledgment of Participation and Achievement [Pattern Making Teaching Course]

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It's @bossj23, a student who took up the pattern making course for steemit engagement challenge season 20

It may look unnecessary to write this post, but I won't forgive myself if I don't thank my mentor on Pattern making course @lunasilver. When this engagement challenge diverted its attention to teaching teams and then paved the way for us to learn numerous skills, which include programming, mobile web development, crochet, pattern making, fitness, etc., my interest was first diverted to pattern making as it involves what I do with my hands when need be.

I love creating and altering garments, and that was what I found in this course. My line or field is specially for men's wear, not women. So I saw this as an opportunity to learn how to cut and join ladies dresses for free and by professionals. Let me take you down my journey from week 1.

When you have interest in a particular thing, it becomes part of you, and since I'm used to handling scissors, tape, chalk, rulers, and fabrics, I took to learning this course and became skilled at it.

Week 1 — Introduction to Pattern Making

Week 1 course was basically on draughting the pattern of a blouse and skirt. The tutorials given were easy to follow, and I worked based on measurements with my tools, which enhanced clarity. Though the tutorials made use of cardboard paper, I tried it on a fabric that's not in use to see the beauty that comes out from the draft and to make what I'm patterning to be so real and realistic. These are pictures of how I was able to achieve the patterns for both the blouse and skirt.

Participation Link	Week 1

Working with the basic body measurements helped me a lot to be accurate and precise in my measurements and calculations. These basic body measurements include;

• Hip - H

• Bust - B

• Waist - W

• Bust and Waist Circumference

• Waistline and Hipline

• Chestline

• Shoulder - Sh

• Sleeve - SL

• Armhole length - AL etc

These basic body measurements were what helped me in drawing the patterns. Measurements were put in place to avoid wrong joining.

Challenges

The challenges I faced as my first time draughting patterns for a blouse and skirt were my inability to follow the tutorials back to back, which was improved over time. I even requested a video as I found the sketches confusing at first. It was later I realised that it was the way I viewed it as stressful. I needed to be intentional about draughting the patterns so I could understand and follow the procedures accordingly. Ever since then, I've been trying my best to be perfect as long as the message passed and tutorials shared were understandable enough.

Benefits

I benefitted from week 1, which was the start of the program, in the sense that I became intentional about women's dress other than just focusing on men's wear. Aside from instilling interest in me, I got to know the basics of women's dress, the division over 4 and over 2, etc. Though I wasn't among the winners 🏆 for week 1, I got supported real big.

Week 2: Basic Bodice Pattern

This basic bodice pattern was exclusive to the blouse of a lady. This time, we worked on using actual measurements in terms of centimetres and size 10 for personal usage. The differences between industrial sizes and personal sizes were elaborated on, and I saw to it that in personal sizes, lots of measurements are required to fit the body of the individual, while few measurements are required in industrial sizes since it's general clothing of which selection is later done.

I was able to draw all the curves, darts, neckline and surfaces on the blouse which I later cut out my fabric to portray how real it could be. I learnt how to convert from centimeters to inches exclusively though I have another way of checking that. I also saw those body parts that need lots of divisions to attain a desired shape and size.

Participation Link	Week 2

Challenges

The challenges I faced during this challenge were little, as my interest was already glued to the pattern-making course and wasn't just doing it for the votes. I faced challenges getting the darts correctly. I had to look at the tutorials time and again, which was time consuming enough to get that right. Aside from this, I faced no other challenge, as the instructions were to follow the tutorials back-to-back instead of outrightly using methods popularly known in your region to ease assessments.

Benefits

The joy and satisfaction from creating what looks like a blouse at the end of my pattern draughting was on the next level. There's this joy and happiness that comes with accomplishments. That's how I felt after spending hours doing something tedious and then came out with the best of results in correspondence to the mentor's.

Week 3 — Ladies Skirt Base Pattern Layout

This course focused exclusively on the basic pattern drawing of a skirt. After the blouse was done in week 2, we moved to drawing the skirt, which involved **waistline measurements,

• darts

• sleet

• Length of the skirt

• Hip size

These were taken into consideration to produce something significant. I drew the skirt patterns with chalk still on a rough fabric to avoid mistakes using cardboard paper and pencil markings . I preferred the chalk on a black fabric as it can be easy to erase.

Participation Link	Week 3

Challenges

I faced no challenge working on this particular program, and in fact, I won the challenge and got supported real big. The benefits are indescribable.

Sad to say I wasn't consistent in submitting my entry for weeks 4 and 5 due to lack of proper time management. Regardless, I still practiced this to get a sense of what is done and how it's done even though I didn't participate in the assignments.

	Proposed participation

Week 6 - Finale

Here we are in week 6, the grande finale of the tutorial. I wish more weeks were added to it to refresh my memory on the things I've learnt. This week's course focused on joining the patterns of the blouse and skirt I draped initially. It was a success completing the program with a measure of knowledge added to my store of knowledge. I want to especially thank my mentor for this opportunity.

Participation Link	Week 6

To the Steemit team, I'll say a big thank you for allowing people to share what they know professionally and also allowing us to get a sense of this knowledge as learners. It makes Steemit not just a platform for financial benefits but also for academic benefits, and these are done for free. Just imagine.

Mentor
Username	@lunasilver
Student	@bossj23
Course completed	✅