Your Personal Dress & Sleeve Block

Your Personal Dress & Sleeve BlockA three day workshop to create a foundation you can trust Do you struggle to find clothes that fit, or find adapting commercial patterns frustrating and hit and miss? If so, starting from scratch with your own personal blocks can be a far more empowering way forward. Learning to draft and adapt your own patterns gives you the freedom to design clothes that genuinely suit your body and your style rather than trying to make yourself fit a standard size

A three-day workshop to create a foundation you can trust

Do you struggle to find clothes that fit, or find adapting commercial patterns frustrating and hit-and-miss?
If so, starting from scratch with your own personal blocks can be a far more empowering way forward.

Learning to draft and adapt your own patterns gives you the freedom to design clothes that genuinely suit your body and your style — rather than trying to make yourself fit a standard size or shape.

As with anything technical, confidence comes from having a solid foundation. And in dressmaking, that foundation is a well-fitting block.

A block (sometimes called a sloper) is a simple, uncluttered pattern template. Once it fits well, it becomes the starting point for countless future designs — dresses, tops, and variations you can return to again and again.

In this workshop, your own personal measurements are used to draft a basic dress block with a sleeve, which is then carefully adjusted to fit you as an individual. Any fitting issues are addressed early in the process, so you’re not carrying problems forward into future garments.

This is the Blueprint of You.

Over the three days, you will:

• Learn how to take accurate body measurements

• Draft your own personalised dress and sleeve block

• Take a first pattern from the block

• Sew a calico toile and fit it directly to your body

• Make any necessary adjustments to refine both the toile and the block

By the end of the workshop, you’ll leave with a reliable, well-fitting block and a clear understanding of how to use it as a springboard for creating your own patterns — with confidence, clarity, and far less trial and error.