Wanna get your hands on my Dress Design Tools Kit?
The biggest challenge people face when creating their own clothes is chaos.
Strips of paper everywhere, threads on every tiny spots, pencil dust, needles and the list goes on and on.
On top of that we all suffer from shiny objects syndrome. When we see something cool, may be a tool, fabrics or any art materials we can’t sleep until we get our hands on it.
Building up our tools and messing up with our tiny spaces that are available to us and then they occupy different places in our homes and then a complete chaos and overwhelm.
Most of the times, we don’t even feel like to work because our workspace is not at all inviting.
Here’s the problem. There are so many options for tools out there and it’s really hard to pick one and we end up getting things more than we need.
And this is where today i’m going to help you. I give you the list of my complete dress design tools kit that helps you to design your own clothes. This is the basic list of what I like to have in my hand to create beautiful clothes. You don’t have to get them all but plan for one tool each month and build your dream design workspace.
Also, I made a beautiful pdf for you to download.
Basic Dress Design Tools
- First thing you need is a little corner that was dedicated to your work. It could be a corner on your living room or bedroom or basement or anywhere.
- Second is the Desk and chair. Floor would do but desk gives you more freedom to comfort. If you can’t afford it, you could go for second hand stores or if you are worried about the space, You can fix a plywood to the wall which can be foldable when you don’t use it.
Inspiration + Research + Planning Dress Design Tools
- Pinterest boards: Pinterest is a life saver for me. Before the pinterest, I have tons of books and lot’s of mess to keep the inspirations and style images. But now I use pinterest to store all my inspirations. Create a board on pinterest named Clothing Design Inspirations and collect anything you find interesting. Spend 10 minutes a day to collect inspirations, so when you want to design your clothes, you don’t have to start from scratch.
- Games: I love to play games with my niece and most of the times, when i’m not inspired, these games gives me bunch of refreshing ideas to get started right away. Some of the games I like are: Club penguin is like a virtual world for kids to hangout in form of cute penguins. You can find some virtual stores with awesome clothes that gives you amazing inspirations. Pixie hollow: OMG this is something I miss so badly (I even used to play sacrificing the night sleep lol) This is the source of ultimate inspiration. Everything here is inspired by nature. It is a tiny virtual world for fairies. Unfortunately this game was closed but you can still create fairies and dress them in cool clothes. Jojo’s fashion show: You can learn more about themes and looks from this game. Barbie fashion show: my second favorite. We were given fabric samples and silhouettes to work on given themes like school spirit etc… we need to design clothes and fit them to models and send them to fashion show. The animation and graphics are so brilliant that you need to check out.
- App: Evernote for digital notes. As we design clothes, we get this sudden inspirations or we see something cool and we need to note some ideas and this is why you need an app to jot them all. The thing I like about this app is it syncs with both phone and computer that allows me the flexibility to work on available device.
- Dress Design Roadmap: Recently, I put together a dress design roadmap, which is a checklist of the complete process of making your own clothes. It will be so handy to print it out and keep it beside you whenever you want to make your own clothes. You can download it here.
Dress Design Tools
- Sewing planner: Recently I put together a beautiful planner to help you right from design till creating the final garment. you can download it here.
- Sketchbook: I don’t think I need to talk about this much. As you know, this is the physical brain for any designer. we dump all our ideas in a visual form here. I like to use something that fit in my handbag to carry wherever I go.
- Templates book: I created a croquis template page with 4 croquis on it. I like to print 50 sheets of it and spiral bound to a book. whenever I get some ideas, I directly draw over the beautiful croquis without starting from scratch. If you like to take prints of it, I attached the sheet in the downloadable pdf below.
- Design your own clothes mini course: This is the 3 days mini course that i created which helps you choose your perfect colors, design clothes that suits you body. If you ever want to make your own clothes, this is the first place that you need to start. Click here to sign up, if you haven’t yet.
- Fashion Sketchbook Challenge mini course: Oh yes, You go some idea on your head and you don’t know how to put it in paper. This is where this fashion sketching course comes in. Since i started this course, more than 3000 people completed it. You can sign up here too.
- App color picker: colorwise has bunch of apps that helps you with picking the right colors when shopping for fabrics.
- Art materials for design stage: mechanical pencil 0.7mm: this gives me clean lines without any mess, non dust eraser, watercolor pencils that are so flexible to use as pencils as well as watercolor paints., 5 number round brush and a color palette.
- Book: creativity in fashion design: This book is everything about creativity and it takes your creativity to next level.
- Software: I am a huge fan of Adobe photoshop. I do most of my sketches using photoshop. I teach some of my techniques in fashion sketchbook challenge course. other software that I love is Adobe Sketch.
Pattern Drafting Tools
- Pattern master: This scales replaces all the other scales and frees up your room.
- Pencil 2b: This gives darker lines while drafting
- Color Markers: I use permanent color markers or sketch pens for drawing seam allowances and any fitting lines in drafting
- measuring tape: A flexible tape to measure your body.
- Paper cutting scissors: Never ever use the same scissors for both fabric and paper. You need to have seperate ones that are comfortable to hand.
- Tracing sheets or butter paper/ parchment paper: you I draft patterns on tracing paper, that allows me to look through when i trace it to the fabric. I found out it was super easy to work with tracing paper that any traditional pattern papers.
- Scotch tape: this is a cool tape that allows you to write over it.
- Sewing patterns: if you want to skip drafting and directly loves to sew, then sewing patterns are great start. There were so many free patterns out there buy I totally love seamwork patterns. when you subscribe for $7 a month, you can get a wardrobe building sewing pattern each month with excellent sewing tutorials. Also you get their magazine to take your skills to next level. You can get the first month for $1 and you can cancel any time.
- Sewing magazines: These are the cool things that you can buy each month and filled with sewing patterns and projects that can fill your month. I like Love Sewing magazine and simply sewing magazine
- Books: pattern making for fashion design by helen Joseph.
- Software: Valentina is a free clothing design software and is super awesome tool for drafting patterns for free. cool thing is the grading, once you drafted the pattern in it, all you need to do it change the measurements and it automatically change the draft for you. They were bunch of youtube tutorials about how to use it. Since it’s not that complicated tool, it took me one day to learn the software.
Sewing Tools
- Sewing Machine: Most of us confuse to choose which one to buy when they were starting out. With too many options out there, they buy something with hundreds of features and get scared to learn how to sew. My biggest suggestion is to buy something that can sew both straight stitch and zigzag stitch. That’s all you need.
- Sharp scissors that has good grip are comfortable on hand
- Seam Ripper: This is life saver to help you with easy seam opening when you have done something wrong.
- Marking tools like marker’s chalk and washable marker.
- Muslin or calico fabric to test the pattern fit.
- Ball pins to hold your fabric together while sewing
- Hand needles
- Steam Iron box for pressing (pressing takes your sewing to next level)
- Pressing Mat: you can simply place it on any surface to use it and can fold when not in use)
- Books: Professional sewing for fashion designer. OMG this book is a gold mine.
- Magazine: Threads magazine Once you subscribed to it, you will receive magazine every month with new technique and tips. You should check out their website to get some idea.
Hello Lekha,
Always helpful. I really appreciated. Please the book you mentioned, PROFESSIONAL SEWING FOR FASHION DESIGNER, is written by who? Knowing will ease my search.
Thanks a bunch!