Re: A Piece of Paper

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
>   I was fiddling tonight with a sheet of plain ole' notebook paper,
> cutting out a pattern for a couple of flared dart inserts (gussets in
> another langwedge), when I got to thinkin'. (It's a dangerous thing,
> thinkin' is.)

<snipped Cea's thinkin's>

>    What piece of paper (no printed patterns,you silly thing!) have you
> used as an impromptu pattern, and what did you create?
>                             Cea

Ooo! Lovely thread idea, Cea! I"ve just recently sketched out a pattern for a
baby doll for my DGN. I haven't *made* the doll entirely because the body was
wrong and needs re-doing, but the hard part, the head, is fine and looks pretty
realistic as far as a cloth doll head can. I just imagined a baby curled up in a
crib and began sketching until the body parts looked about right. I got the
proportions of the head and the arms right, but the body was 'way too big so I
cut it down a bit. LOL! Well, more than a bit! So now the body is too small and
I'll have to do it again. Anyway, I used plain old photocopy paper for my
pattern-making and it worked just fine!

I hardly ever use tissue for patterns. If I need to trace something, I've
learned that plastic supermarket bags (we call them 'singlet bags' here in Oz)
are perfect and I feel Oh-So-Virtuous for recycling the plastic. I just cut the
bags apart, spread them flat and then sit on them for five minutes to take the
wrinkles out. (Don't laugh! I'm serious!) If I need big pieces (say, for a pants
pattern), then I just sticky tape the bits together very roughly. It's all very
easy! A permanent marker is perfect for marking on the plastic and I find
there's no really great implement for marking on tracing interfacing so...

The other thing I've used a great deal for tracing is book-covering plastic.
Only, I used that for transferring tooling patterns onto damp calf leather and I
don't think that's quite what you were getting at (LOL!)

-- 
Trish {|:-}
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

PS. I did exactly what I threatened to do and bought a dear little soft-bodied
doll for $5. DGN can have the cloth dolly for her birthday later on! Too much
stuff to do and too little time!