{"id":1026,"date":"2010-07-27T00:21:32","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T04:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oliverands.com\/blog\/?p=1026"},"modified":"2018-11-28T11:16:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T16:16:50","slug":"drawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/blog\/2010\/07\/drawn.html","title":{"rendered":"drawn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in design school, one of our best professors frequently gave our class the assignment to go home and each sketch 50 dress concepts before class the next day. To come up with that many unique ideas in one evening, on top of our full course-load of homework, felt unimaginably difficult. But it took that many sketches to really push out new and imaginative designs, and somehow we always managed to complete the task on time.<\/p>\n

I recently gave myself the same type of homework and spent the past three full days filling a sketchbook with page upon page of ideas for future sewing patterns. Hopefully when I look back at the designs I’ll find some useful ideas, now that the fall patterns are at the printer and it’s time to start work on the spring collection.<\/p>\n

While I was in the studio, looking for some inspiration, I also came across some other sketches and thought you might enjoy seeing them. These are the spring sewing patterns, not in their first incarnation as preliminary ideas but as part of the package I send to Dan<\/a>, our illustrator, each season, so he can paint the paper doll clothing. Among the many ways that I communicate with Dan are sketches I make showing him what the clothes should look like on the dolls. I also send photographs, fabric and color swatches, and lengthy notes about each garment. But the sketches are the most useful part of the package, I think. I can show exactly what the silhouette is: how long a skirt should be, how closely (or loosely) a garment should fit, where the pockets are placed and how the collar sits. Here is the Ice Cream Dress (sorry for the smudges; I generally work with pencil on vellum so I can draw directly on top of the a paper doll to get the proportions right.):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I get to pretend that I’m an illustrator when I do this, except that I use a lot of words to show what I mean. Dan doesn’t have that luxury. (On the other hand, he’s a professional illustrator; I merely need to communicate an idea, thank goodness.)<\/p>\n

Here are the other spring patterns, just for the fun of it:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So I spell out (literally) a lot of information here, but there is one area in which I let Dan have complete control: I always suggest a few props to coordinate with the name of each pattern, and Dan chooses exactly which prop to draw and how to show it. He’s never disappointed me. My favorite prop is still the bunny slippers<\/a>. After he finished the painting, I found an exact match for them and bought them as a prop<\/a> for Quilt Market.<\/p>\n

Ok, back to my sketches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in design school, one of our best professors frequently gave our class the assignment to go home and each sketch 50 dress concepts before class the next day. To come up with that many unique ideas in one evening, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20687],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Untitled-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5jZS5-drawn","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":57626,"url":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/blog\/2016\/09\/building-block-dress-for-knits-and-a-few-other-things.html","url_meta":{"origin":1026,"position":0},"title":"building block dress for knits and a few other things","author":"Liesl Gibson","date":"September 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Liesl checks in this afternoon with answers to some of the questions she has received this week about the Building Block Dress--including whether it can be used with knits.","rel":"","context":"In "general post"","block_context":{"text":"general post","link":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/list\/general"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oliverands.com\/community\/content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/knits-womens-etc.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":43009,"url":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/blog\/2015\/02\/ask-me-popular-patterns-and-new-sizes.html","url_meta":{"origin":1026,"position":1},"title":"ask me: popular patterns and new sizes","author":"Liesl Gibson","date":"February 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's another installment in the Ask Me series where Liesl answers readers' questions.","rel":"","context":"In "general post"","block_context":{"text":"general post","link":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/list\/general"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oliverands.com\/community\/content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/ask-me3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10989,"url":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/blog\/2014\/05\/introducing-waffle-patterns.html","url_meta":{"origin":1026,"position":2},"title":"introducing waffle patterns","author":"Todd Gibson","date":"May 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We're happy to be carrying Waffle Patterns by Yuki Maeshima. Today Yuki joins us to introduce herself and her collection of sewing patterns.","rel":"","context":"In "general post"","block_context":{"text":"general post","link":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/list\/general"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oliverands.com\/community\/content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/WaffleStyle.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":83189,"url":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/blog\/2025\/02\/start-to-finish.html","url_meta":{"origin":1026,"position":3},"title":"start to finish","author":"Liesl Gibson","date":"February 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"From sketch to finished pattern, a few behind-the-scenes examples of how several of our recent sewing patterns evolved and developed.","rel":"","context":"In "general post"","block_context":{"text":"general post","link":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/list\/general"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oliverands.com\/community\/content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/development-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":57295,"url":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/blog\/2016\/09\/brainstorming-your-dress-with-a-design-sheet-free-download.html","url_meta":{"origin":1026,"position":4},"title":"brainstorming your dress with a design sheet: free download","author":"Liesl Gibson","date":"September 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Ready to get to work designing your own dress to sew from Liesl's Oliver + S Building Block Dress? We've got a fun little design sheet giveaway for you today that will help you do that.","rel":"","context":"In "general post"","block_context":{"text":"general post","link":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/list\/general"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oliverands.com\/community\/content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/TitleHero.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7685,"url":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/blog\/2013\/09\/a-lovely-library-dress.html","url_meta":{"origin":1026,"position":5},"title":"a lovely library dress","author":"Liesl Gibson","date":"September 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"We gave a few of our favorite bloggers an early shot at the new patterns to see what they would do with them. Here's the first of the lot. Isn't the dress lovely?","rel":"","context":"In "general post"","block_context":{"text":"general post","link":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/list\/general"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oliverands.com\/community\/content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/nest-full-of-eggs-library-dress.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67768,"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions\/67768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oliverands.com\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}