Pattern Maker Classes & Pattern Making Education

Pattern Maker Classes & Pattern Making Education

Fashion Design Online is the very first e-classroom for computerized apparel flat pattern-making. Fashion Design Online offers professional pattern making classes taught by expert pattern makers. Their goal is to teach apparel flat pattern techniques using CAD (computer-aided design) tools to speed the fashion design process. Fashion Design Online is a virtual classroom using the latest in instructional technology. At Fashion Design Online, you can learn at your own pace, in your own home or office. Lessons are posted in their private Student Union and available to you 24 hours a day. Each class will include full-color step by step instructions in PDF format, Power Point slides, narrated computer movies, that you can play as often as necessary, on-line interaction with other students in the class, live instructor-led training sessions demonstrating the techniques in each lesson, and on-line live question and answer sessions. All live training sessions will be recorded and available for playback shortly after the class. Each class will also include advanced exercises to challenge and stimulate your creativity and a short optional exam to show you just how far you have come.

Made Institute offers pattern making courses in Philadelphia covering draping, slopers, and muslin mock-ups, with coursework that can transfer into their Fashion Certificate Program.

Miami Dade College offers a College Credit Certificate in Pattern Making and Construction, with evening and weekend classes in pattern development, textiles, and industrial sewing.

AD Patterns Institute provides online pattern making courses in manual methods and CAD systems such as Optitex and TUKAcad, from beginner through advanced levels.

Istituto di Moda Burgo in Milan, founded in 1961, teaches pattern making through intensive courses, including summer programs in haute couture and tailoring techniques.

If you are a pattern maker, we suggest you join the pattern makers group at the fashion industry network.

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What Pattern Making Training Covers

A complete pattern education moves through the same sequence wherever you study it: blocks and slopers — the basic fitted patterns from which everything is developed — then flat pattern manipulation, draping on the form, muslin mock-ups and fitting corrections, grading across sizes, and marker making for production. Fashion Design Online teaches the flat pattern side through CAD tools to speed the design process, with full-color step-by-step instructions, narrated lessons, live instructor-led sessions and exercises in a virtual classroom open 24 hours a day. Made Institute's Philadelphia courses cover draping, slopers and muslin mock-ups, and can transfer into its Fashion Certificate Program.

Manual Skills, CAD Skills, or Both?

Employers increasingly ask for CAD — AD Patterns Institute teaches manual methods alongside CAD systems such as Optitex and TUKAcad, from beginner through advanced levels — but the manual foundation is what makes CAD output correct: software will grade a bad pattern beautifully. Miami Dade College's certificate, with evening and weekend classes in pattern development, textiles and industrial sewing, suits working students building the full skill set. If you are choosing one course, choose the one that makes you produce patterns and fit them on a form or a body; pattern making is a hand skill, and it is learned by making and correcting patterns, not by watching alone.