Making your own Patterns

**your_comforting_company** · 05-04-2010, 07:55 AM

After looking on the internet and doing some reading, I've found places that tell you how to make your own patterns for various articles of clothing.
BUT, I ran into an issue that is rather puzzling.
I have two hides from deer I harvested this past season and have every intention of making buckskin pants from them. If you hold them to your hip, there is a LOT of excess material all around on each leg and it appears that it should handle any pattern you put on it.
So we used some scrap material (old bedsheet) to make a pattern from a pair of old pants. Stitched it up right quick to check for fit and make modifications as necessary. If you fit the pattern on the hide it doesn't fit!
Where is the difference? Why would the hide have 6" extra at the bottom and at the inseam and 3" extra at my hip, but when you put the pattern on it, it lacks about 2" all the way around?

I've gotta run check how a project went with all this rain at the moment, so if I need to explain anything better or even take pictures to get better assistance with this matter, I'll do so when I return.
Thanks in advance!

**BENESSE** · 05-04-2010, 08:25 AM

Back when I had more time I used to make some of my own clothes. (all stitching by hand, no sawing machine) I'd take a skirt or a shirt apart and use that as a basic pattern then add other stuff. The store bought patterns just didn't work for me--complicated to the point where I would loose interest before I even started.

**Alaskan Survivalist** · 05-04-2010, 09:29 AM

Seems you've heard the saying "measure twice, cut once".

**BENESSE** · 05-04-2010, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by Alaskan Survivalist

Seems you've heard the saying "measure twice, cut once".

Bob Villa's famous words apply to so many things. The few times I was too impatient to follow them I always regretted it.

**kyratshooter** · 05-04-2010, 11:40 AM

I have run into the same thing several times. Several years ago I made a buckskin dress for my wife. I used a dress that I knew fit her comfortably as a pattern. When she tried it on she looked like she had been melted and poured into it. It was a very pleasing visual effect, but she could not sit down or make it up and down stairs.

I had to install pannels and darts everywhere before she could wear it to camp.

It generally takes more leather than you anticipate for proper clothes.

**mccaw69** · 05-04-2010, 01:20 PM

If i can't buy a pattern,i generally make mine from news paper,light weight,plus if i make a big mistake,it's simple,and cheap to make another.

**canid** · 05-04-2010, 08:13 PM

leather is a considerably more rigid material, with less stretch than textile fabrics used to make a lot of clothing. making clothing with it is a double edged sword:

to compensate for it's lack of easy stretch, you must leave extra material so there is spare room, and to compensate for it's rigidity, where it does not bunch or gather in the ways softer fabric does, you must avoid having too much extra material in a joint you expect to bend/flex comfortably.

consider a heavy leather jacket, such as a motorcycle jacket: they are more rigid even that other leather jackets, and to compensate, the arms are made to fit into a predetermined posture [in this case, about halfway through the range of motion you are likely to use while riding, rather than in a configuration that would be comfortable for normal wear].

at the least; it is far less a problem with fine leather that is well softened, but you can't expect it to behave like denim.

**your_comforting_company** · 05-04-2010, 10:19 PM

hmm..
CanId, I must ask if you've ever worn buckskin? This stuff is considerably stretchier than denim and has about 3 inches of pull and rebound. This is not "leather" in any way the traditional word applies. I do thank you for your insight, however.

Progress report: I got tired of putting it off. Using the pattern from the bedsheet, we fitted it 4 times and made adjustments till we thought it was just right, with extra in the hip area. Even after adjusting the size, it was still too large for the two deer I took. I never would have imagined it taking that much skin to cover my little booty, but it takes a LOT.
I had to go with two other buckskins that were larger. One was from "the Butcher" from my skinning tute. The other was a large 8 point buck taken by my co-worker. The colors don't match perfectly, but I don't care too much about that.
Both legs are sewn. All that's left is the stitching up the back seam adjusting the hem for length and stretch, and laying over the extra at the top for beltloops and making the bark-tan leather belt.
No fringe, no frills, no perks, no fancy schmancy stuff.
Neck of the deer is oriented to my shins and the outside of my legs for durability and resistance to briars and brambles. The only seams are the inseam and up the back. Took about an hour per leg and I'd imagine the final stitchings won't take another two hours. Simple running stitch for stretch.
They are very warm so these are definately NOT summertime clothes.
Luckily I can use the same pattern to make buckskin shorts!

Didn't have a lot of time to work on them today with all the leaky roofs that turned up, but I'm not gonna complain about having work to do! Maybe tomorrow I'll get a chance to finish them and put up some pics. Sorry I didn't get a chance to get back to the discussion till now.

I'm still a bit puzzled as to why the smaller skins would fit around me, but the pattern we made was much bigger. Have you ever had that problem Benesse? It definately took more material than I anticipated back in deer season lol!
I was going to enlist the help of my mom, who used to make all the family clothes when they were kids. Her mother was a commercial fisher and didn't have a lot of time to handle the household chores, nor the money for new clothes for 4 kids. After all the running around I had to do today checking roofs and watersheds, I didn't get the opportunity to learn her methods today. Maybe next time.

**hunter63** · 05-13-2010, 01:34 PM

I was kinda watching this thread on my brief "check-ins" and was kinda wondering if you had figured out a solution? to the pattern problem.

My original buckskin pants were made w/a purchased pattern, and I have to say that DW and neighbor lady. Came out fine.
They do stretch, and most buckskinners have a "Butt pooch" (in the pants, LOL), after a while.......and dirty knees.

My "war shirt" I did by just holding up hides and pinning a various places and kinda building it as I went along

**your_comforting_company** · 05-13-2010, 02:06 PM

check this out hunter
http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...ad.php?t=11944

ultimately, we made it work from an old pair of jeans. We used an old bedsheet to trace that pattern and we kept making adjustments till the fit was pretty close. still gotta add beltloops and make a belt to go with it.

**hunter63** · 05-13-2010, 02:57 PM

Yeah, I saw that, nice work!
I made some leggings using a pattern and found it ran a little small, but still usable.
Funny stuff, buckshin, sometimes, warm, but does get damp quick.

Now that I think of it, DW did use an old pair of jeans, as a pattern, but I wanted a "drop fly", so they did use a pattern for that part.

**Alaskan Survivalist** · 05-13-2010, 03:39 PM

I use patterns only when duplicating an item. It is the way to maintain consistency and you have to use the same pattern for all subsequent copies. You should not make a copy of a copy as minor errors will magnify themselves. Using the same pattern for all copies will keep inconsistency of cuts within an allowable standard. When making a custom fit I use the material it is to be made from for three reasons. First it saves the step of making a pattern, second it ellimates transfew errors like making it opposite because you used the wrong side of pattern and lastly the unforeseen factors like you are running into. It could be any of the things mentioned or maybe even material thickness. It is hard to figure from here. Cutting something to fit is a basic skill applicable to building anything and techniques used in other trade skills can often be applied to another. I look at it from a mechanical aspect. There is movement involved and material needs to have enough strectch or room to allow for it. An engineer probably has a mathematical formula to figure it or patterns can be passed down from generation to generation or you can clamp it together around your knee and bend it the way I do. I use this style paper clips to hold seems together in leather projects to avoid making holes will pins.

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One of the items I keep in a tool kit for working leather and the whole kit can fit in the palm of your hand. My mother in law is an Alaska native in her 80's and still makes Eskimo clothing for her livelyhood in the traditional way and uses no patterns or even clamp it together to check fit as I do. She can look at you and make it and occasionally throw a hide on you to mark it. That's it but she has been doing it all her life the way her mother taught her. That's the primative way. This may seem simplistic but the primative people of Alaska are simple people that I relate to well.

**your_comforting_company** · 05-13-2010, 11:29 PM

I wish you could explain her techniques a little better. The skills you describe are the way I want to learn to be able to do things.
I use clothespins, instead of the metal things, mostly because I'm cheap lol. Straight pins dont affect buckskin the way they do leather. Buckskin has a self-healing property about itself and as the fibers move about themselves the holes close up.

No way I was using my skins to make a pattern. Maybe if I had Grandma's skills, but I'm green in the sewing department. Old curtains and bedsheets are much less work, and if you screw up, you didn't lose a skin. I'll take the extra time to make a pattern from scraps, considering it takes me about 20 hours per hide to get the soft stretchy buckskin I like. I have the pants pattern now that will serve me again in the future with no risky business. (I've weighed the same thing for the last 13 years lol)
I guess I should have taken pics of the fitting stages so you all could better see the problem I was having. When held to my body, (the way Grandma does) the skins appeared big enough. When it came down to a good fitting pattern from scrap material, they weren't quite big enough, lacking an inch here and there... The difference between Pants and highwaters lol.

**Alaskan Survivalist** · 05-14-2010, 12:21 AM

I have been working on getting my sister in law to document her moms skills. Funny thing is the old gal wants her children to learn modern ways. I suggested making a video that she may go for since it uses modern technology. If my sister in law does not do it I know I can talk her into it. She's not shy and beams with a joyous spirit hard to describe that I have to get on video. I think I'll call Nome tonight and see if she has started. I'll post the video when if can get it made.

**your_comforting_company** · 05-14-2010, 12:34 AM

LOL. she sounds a lot like my grandma. She grew up with not much of anything and now she has everything! It would be great to get her on video if nothing but for your own joy. That would be great!!
I hope you get her to do it!!