Unique Patterns

Try news.admin.net-abuse.email. Takes hardly any effort at all to get things riled up.

Beverly

Beverly

Not to worry. I have another playground or two. ;-) Jo

Now, would you be referring to that man I sleep with? I don't use his name.

Sorry, jumped to an unwarranted conclusion. You win....

Beverly

"BEI Design" scribbled while perusing news:ktWdnY_t5-wXDV7YnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

I've been around since 1994. I don't take offense easily and none was taken with your posting. I can do snarky. That wasn't snarky! haha

Oh, goodie! I love to win! Buy you a drink?

Thanks! ;-)

Beverly

Sure, I'll go make a nice blended Margarita.....on you.

Beverly

Sounds good! Make two, will you?

Sure, I never like drinking alone....

Salt, or no?

Salt, please. Thanks for asking.

And a quarter fresh lime?

Why thanks. Is that Persian lime or Key Lime?

Beverly

That would be a large, deep green lime with a thick rind? That's a Persian lime. Key limes are nearly round, have thin skins, are pale green to yellow, and are sweeter than Persian limes. Either will do nicely for margaritas or even straight tequilla. You know, the kind you drink in shots with salt on the web of your thumb and a bite of lime. Or perhaps you don't know.....margueritas are neater.

Here endeth the lesson on limes.

I feel so honored! ;-]

Beverly

Just to add my experience with a few custom pattern options.

I own DressShop and use it. I apologize on the lack of details on the other three, but when searching though my emails so I could remember which program was which, they were in 2002.

I tried Unique, even took a "class" to be measured by someone than knew the system. Each company measures slightly differently, I have found. The pattern didn't come out right, and I found the long distance/email help from Unique was not working out. Each trial took along time to get the pattern, so the feedback was slow. They did "fix" it for free. The original instructor had surgery and wasn't available, so I ended up on my own, but after the class didn't think much of her fitting/pattern adjusting skille, but that's OT. Gave up for a while, then decided to try the scanner when it was at a local sewing show. When I got my new set of measurement I decided to compare to the original. MY WAIST MEASUREMENT WAS OFF BY INCHES. Didn't really look much past that, since that's just about the easiest measurement to make. I never tried the pattern that I ordered as a free pattern with price of the scanning. Don't bother to fight over the cost or discrepancy. By that time I had already wasted too much effort on this option and I never liked the idea of waiting for a pattern. And the per pattern price was high. Decided to cut my losses and move on.

I tried PatternMaker. They had a bra pattern and that was my ultimate goal. Started with a basic jacket to get the fit right. The pattern was so distorted it could not be sewn. The dart was wider than the pattern. The arm hole did a loop-d-loop. Ended up with various other oddities with various dart/seam options. Don't remember what kind of a customer support help I got, but there was some back and forth. Since I couldn't even sew it together to see how it fit I didn't try very hard to make it work.

I tried a ClickNSew blouse - the low cost starter pattern from Wild Ginger. The pattern was better looking than PatternMaker, but still had some issues. I did have some back and forth customer support help. I first email response was a lengthy babble about how strange my measurements were, and they must be wrong. Eventually I convinced them they were right, I'm just very short and very large busted. The basic suggestion was to lie about the dimensions until the pattern fit. And by inches not fractions of inches like I ended up tweeking DressShop. Changes to one area through off another. Not something I thought would be repeatable as my weight changes, not something I wanted to try and do on my own.

I tried DressShop. My main reason was that a few women in the local sewing guild used it and there was an "expert" available locally to measure. But by this time I had already be playing with a few of these programs, so I knew what to look for. My first pattern was wearable for most garments.

I did end up buying DressShop and still use it. I'm not crazy about there marketing and spending more time coming up with new ways to sell the program, and not fix a few basic bugs, but that aside I would buy it again.

I have spent alot of time tweaking the measurements to get a PERFECT fit. Again my goal was to make a bra, so I need an exact fit. For most things except very closely fitting, the original set of measurement would have been fine. What worked for this pattern software for me was that the measurement split your body back to front. Looking back at the first three software/custom pattern options, that was probabley the biggest reason they didn't work as well for me. Since I have a very full bust it is easier to fine tune the front with out distortion the rest of the pattern. Although I did have to learn how the measurements interact, everything measures from the waist up and the shoulders in. The help file and support from Livingsoft were better than the other programs. So if you have a significant non-standard body in any way, DressShop might be a better option. True there are more measurements and that might be a putoff, but you might need the fine resolution it gives you.

Joy