Drafting a skirt block

I had a great time this weekend. I spent the weekend doing a 2 day course at the English Couture company in Syston, which is north of Leicester. We had a bit of a giggle measuring each other (there were three students) and then drafted up a skirt block for ourselves and made a toile, and then adjusted the skirt block. This was based on the very good Winifred Aldrich book, which is very easy to follow. I managed to mess up the sewing machine (it was a very scary one with a computerized display) and I spent an hour adding some fabric to the wrong half of the skirt, but we got there eventually. I've since drafted the finished block up in CAD - found an excellent free 2D drafting program called Draftsight by the same folks who make Catia. Seems to work exactly like AutoCAD so I had no problems in using it. We also had a go in designing our own patterns using the basic block as a template. Great fun!

Now I want to use the measurements to draw up some other standard blocks. There is also going to be a trouser and a bodice class this year, which I may well sign up for!

Alas, it meant I missed National Knit in Public day. I'm hoping the girls had a nice "indoor" picnic at Mrs Ts! :)