Learn Digital Pattern Making Techniques in Adobe Illustrator CC

Digital pattern making is fast becoming a popular method of pattern making and is starting to replace manual or paper pattern making. This is simply due to its speed, precision, shareability and space saving abilities. You no longer need a big studio, large table, expensive tools, rolls of paper or storage space for your patterns. With digital pattern making, you can work from your laptop or desktop PC, saving thousands of patterns in folders and files on your computer or memory stick. You can even share them online with your community or send them to friends on the other side of the world in seconds! Not only that, but you can copy and paste full scale patterns without having to spend time tracing them from existing templates. You can add one-click seam allowance without having to draw it by hand. Maybe you want to create your own independent sewing pattern company? Great! With digital pattern making, you can transform your patterns into multi-page PDF printouts – we have a tutorial for that! There are countless benefits to digital pattern making.

Software applications such as Adobe Illustrator CC, CorelDRAW, Affinity designer and free software, like Inkscape, are making it far more accessible for individuals and students. The hard part is learning how to use the software and then finding digital basic blocks/slopers/basic sewing patterns to adapt, experiment with and eventually turn into finished professional sewing patterns. And that’s where we come in!

Digital Basic Blocks, Slopers and Basic Sewing Patterns

Our online software (the Lab) automatically drafts made-to-measure or custom fitting digital basic blocks/ slopers /basic sewing patterns to fit you or your clients measurements exactly. We then provide them as either multi-page PDF sewing patterns or fully-editable digital basic blocks. These digital patterns can then be adapted to become any design or style using our digital pattern making tutorials. 

FREE Digital Pattern Making Tutorials

We have created a series of in-depth video tutorials that focus on digital pattern making in Adobe Illustrator CC, since it’s by far the most popular platform. In these tutorials, we show you step-by-step, where to find the Adobe Illustrator CC software, how to set it up specifically for digital pattern making, what tools you need and how to use them. You don’t need any prior experience of either digital pattern making, regular pattern making or Adobe Illustrator CC. We’ve designed the tutorials for both absolute beginners and experienced pattern makers.

Below you will find a list of video tutorials. It’s very simple- start at the top and work your way down the list. Each tutorial will reinforce the last and then introduce a new tool or concept. It’s important that you complete each tutorial in order. This will ensure you don’t miss anything crucial. Once you have finished all the tutorials, you should have a firm grasp on the basics of digital pattern making in Adobe Illustrator CC. You can then go on to learn and develop your pattern making skills by following our design tutorials.

That’s pretty much all you need to know, why not give it a shot! Before you know it, you’ll be a pro at making your own digital sewing patterns.

Tip: Some of our followers have found it useful to watch the tutorials on a tablet or mobile device, at the same time as having a go on their laptop or PC. This means they don’t have to keep switching between screens. Try it, maybe it’ll speed up your learning process.