Hacked together a pattern drafting hack with a cheap projector from Amazon and it actually worked for evening gowns

I was getting so frustrated with tracing curved seams on silk for a client in Austin last month, so I just taped muslin to the wall and projected the digital pattern onto it to trace directly, has anyone else tried this shortcut for saving time on cutting intricate shapes?

2 comments

2 Comments

holly_foster8d ago

Huh, did you try scaling the projection to match your actual pattern pieces first? I messed around with this for some home dec stuff and found that calibrating the projector distance to get exact measurements saved me from a lot of trace-and-cry moments. For silk especially, the less you handle it the better, so projecting onto muslin first then using it as a stencil might cut down on slippage too. Just make sure your wall is perfectly flat, I had to redo a whole bodice because my plaster had a tiny bump that threw off the curve.

kai_nguyen9d ago

Ngl, "taped muslin to the wall" sounds like something that would end with a pile of fabric on the floor and me crying, but holy crap you actually made it work for gowns? That's wild.