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Thursday 27th September 2007

Hi All. No I haven't disappeared. It's been a busy at this end. I've recently had the mother in law over for a holiday, a TCF meeting to organise and number of family matters. It's been a fun time but I'm starting to miss my patterns!

Because there are so many ways to do tutus I'm still concerned about publishing a particular method for making tutu patterns. Although I have already written a great deal of text, I'm in the process of rewriting it to better explain the differences. For example, some people use stretch fabrics with much larger amounts of negative ease to make the tutu panties and others use wovens with the smallest amount of positive ease. Some have even used one way knits and elastic. The bodices are fairly straight forward and more a simple matter of design choice thus are outside the scope of this exercise, but the panties, basque and ruffle calculations are appropriate. Stay tuned as I'm still waiting on some netting to arrive to make up some samples.

Tuesday 28th August 2007

Not a great deal to report. Been a little busy this week with a few family tasks (birthdays, school stuff, etc).

I've managed to obtain an awful lot of information on tutus from all manner of sources (theatre, dance schools, manufacturers, supposed experts in the field, commercial and private patterns etc) and I am in the process of going through it all slowly. Interestingly, such a classical garment doesn't seem to be anywhere near as standard as I had anticipated. Period costumes, for example, have very strict rules, and I would have thought the same of such a traditional dance piece. While each of the writers I'm studying say that'there is only one true traditional method of tutu construction (their own), they all seem to be quite a bit different and in places, completely contradictory.

I'd like to get some kind of tutu instruction online before I commence the bras and lingerie as I think a dance section would round off the swimwear section nicely (even though tutus aren't stretch, people use the swimwear instructions to make leotards and leggings, so why not finish it with something special!).

Tuesday 21st August 2007

Time for a rant! Noticing a sudden increase in visitors the last couple of days I looked at my stats page to find a German referring website called http://www.hobbyschneiderin.net. So off I went to take a look and to my horror they have put my website under the topic of "Dealer Discussion" because they believe I have a hidden commercial interest somewhere. I wrote to the moderator to describe how insulting it is to have it implied that I am trying to gain a profit by deception and he said it was not a matter of disrespect.

Over 500 German people come to my website in one day and download patterns at absolutely no cost but the site that directed them here infers to them that I'm making a profit out of them. Can someone please tell me how that is NOT disrespectful? Why can't people take me at face value? Why can't people accept that all I'm trying to do is help people to learn about stretch fit patterns.

OK rant over ... but you can bet I won't be buying a new BMW ... maybe I'll choose a Volvo :-)

Friday, 17th August 2007

I think I finally have the solution for those people who were using Internet Explorer version 7 and couldn't see the pull down menus. For about 15% of IE7 users ( on Vista and XP SP2) there is a quirk in how IE7 interprets XML and CSS ... I'm not technically minded enough to understand it but it boils down to nothing being standard ... thanks to a kind programming friend who pointed out the work around for me ... now things seem to work. If you were one of those who it didnt work for previously, please refresh each page and try again ... then let me know if you still have a bug!

Thursday, 16th August 2007

Just checking in to let you know there's a couple of one piece swimsuit patterns in the free pattern library now. I've also re-modelled the bit where you input your measurements so you have a guide to help you. It's not perfect but I have to make it workable for the majority which it now seems to be. I'll give it a little longer on test and if all goes well I'll allow a greater range of measurements to be entered.

I have one more set of manual instructions left to finish in the swimwear section and I want to add a few more to the pattern library and then I'll start work (finally) on the lingerie section. This has been a lot more work than I originally anticipated but everything is getting there. I'm sure the lingerie section will be just as much work!

I'm also working on a little side project at the moment. I am in the process of re-interpreting all my tutu patterns. I've contacted a collegue who makes them for theatre and dance and with his permission I may also be able to publish some of his notes. Things don't seem to have changed much over the years but I've purchased a few commercial tutu patterns just to compare. If you have any tutu pattern links I'd love to hear about them!

Wednesday, 8th August 2007

Some of the block and pattern generators have been online for a week now and I must say there's suddenly a lot of interest in those and little interest in learning how to actually make patterns. It's a little sad to see but I guess I expected it. The other really interesting thing is many people are entering some very bizarre measurement sets. For example I'm seeing things like nape to waist measurements of 45cm and greater paired with waist to hip measurements of less than 12cm ... and this is a very common thing. Now unless there's a whole population group out there with a waistline below their panty line I think people might be having a problem. A nape to waist of 45+cm usually corresponds to a 6ft tall woman ... and while they do exist I doubt greatly that half the worlds female population is that tall!! I also seem to have an awfull lot of people coming out at an A-B cup on a bra bands greater than size 44 ... I have never in my life seen a 44A.

Conclusion: people either don't know how to measure or they're just seeing how far the generator will go. These measurement sets are producing some bizarre patterns to say the least so I might need to tighten up the rejection criteria a little more or I won't have a hope in hell of calibrating the programming. At least in the short term anyway! A little feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!

Tuesday, 31st July 2007

I think I've got the bugs ironed out of my pattern generator. Now after you enter your measurements you can then go to the free pattern library and test them out on a swimsuit block and stretch leggings block. There's a lot more room for developement and making the whole thing look pretty but I need to make sure it's fully functional and the demand is there before I spend several weeks building hundreds of different patterns! So please give it a go and send me an email to let me know how it worked (or didn't) for you.

Thursday, 26th July 2007

I'm making some good progress working out how to get the server to generate patterns made to your personal measurements. So far there is a page that will take your measurements (adult female only) and store them in a cookie on your browser. I'm mostly finished the programming that then turns those measurements into a fully scalable block or pattern that both displays in and prints directly from your browser or can be saved and then opened in a CAD program for tweaking or modifying. Should be better than an uneditable PDF file! Read more here.

Tuesday, 17th July 2007

I've made the new server public today. Please make yourself at home. There may only be the swimwear section at the moment, but if you explore the menu system you'll see what I plan to have online in the future.

Monday, 16th July 2007

I haven't been feeling well lately so I've been watching a little more TV than I should. One of the wonders of satellite TV is the Fashion TV channel. Ok I've been thinking this for years and it's time for a rant! What on earth is up with the way models walk by crossing one leg across the other with each step? I know "it's the way it's done in Europe" and "all the New York girls do it" and "the best designers want them to do that", but really ... come on ... you look like an uncoordinated camel that's been sipping too many of those equally fashionable vodka mix bottles. Having worked with hundreds of them I know the average model isn't too bright (something to do with nature's equilibrium laws of only having so many points to allocate to either beauty or brains), but do we really need to look any more stupid? Don't get me wrong, I've met some amazingly intelligent models, but why can't they see what the rest of us "normal" folk can see? Move a little, swing those beautiful hips, relax, or even (dare I say it) try to bloody smile! Ok I'll get back in my box now.

Saturday, 14th July 2007

It's been one of those weeks. I've been slowly dragging the pages across from the old website and modifying their layout to suit this website. It's fun, but requires a little forethought. I never really anticipated the old website would attract so much attention beyond a few students so this time I'm leaving open the room for growth. This is going to take a while and keep in mind I do have a life as well!

Saturday, 7th July 2007

I've been having fun toying with the server settings and designing a site layout. Today I created the CCS style sheets and drop down menus. I'm not sure if it works in all browsers yet as I can only test in a couple of them and even those behave differently. I do need to use some kind of scripted menu because there's so much content to put into the site that it would get messy if done any other way.

Wednesday, 4th July 2007

I finally have my own domain name! This is something I always wanted to do for my swimwear pattern site but never quite got around to. I was forced to finally move fom my ISP provided web space when I ran out of the measley 10Meg they allow. Now I have to spend some time discovering how this new web server works. Some of it's features are PHP, ASP, Perl, SSI and 500 gig of transfer each month! I think that should keep me occupied, don't you?