This charming 1940′s textbook book retails anywhere from $60 to $200, depending on where you find it, how many other people find it (on eBay), and the alignment of the stars (just kidding).  Outrageous? Maybe. Until you go and check the price of the 8th edition of Pattern Making by the Flat Pattern Method, paperback, $139 at Amazon.  (That was the textbook we used in my first pattern design class.)  On the inside of my $65-ish copy is penciled “$6.” I think I hate whoever found it for that price.

But, without further ado, we’ll hop into some cool pictures here.

We find this in the “Basic Skirts” chapter.  Not so basic-looking!  But it shows you step by step how to do them, so they’re not really so bad.

How cool is that?? I want one.

I draped Fig. 11 (far right) for my independent study, senior year.  (Here are some photos, if you’re curious. It was just to learn the technique, not a finished garment.)

I just thought the neckline treatment here was very interesting.

The shapes to the right of the sketch are the pattern pieces.  You cut and add pieces to your basic pattern as shown in the first drawing, and then spread them as shown in the second. That’s how flat pattern design works.

Not what I would decide to wear to church, but a really unique design nonetheless. We can appreciate it.

We want to know why today’s suits aren’t this interesting.

In this picture, the darts from the basic pattern are very craftily changed into design lines.

How’s THAT for a radical design!

And this one is just wild, too.

I actually have the second jacket in this picture almost complete. I had totally forgotten about it until I opened the book tonight to copy some collar instructions for my Moomer.

I need to hunt that thing up and finish it. It was quite flattering. And I think I only lack the sleeves and the lining.

But oh my word, it was a weird pattern! The waist-fitting dart is concealed in that scallop near the bottom.  It took both my professor and me quite a little while to figure out how to do this one, as there were no instructions (she actually called me from her vacation, where she had been puzzling over it, to tell me how it was supposed to be done!).