Learning digital drawing tools to level up my sewing planning

New to me: a whole new world of visualising sewing pattern and fabric combinations

Are you good at having a vision of a fabric and pattern pairing in your head? After 15yrs of sewing garments I feel fairly well-practised at this, but sometimes it’s still not quite right. Clothes that don’t turn out as I expect, patterns that I just can’t see in my mind’s eye before I start. Or just decision paralysis!

Superimposing fabric swatches on line drawings is not a new thing but I figured I’d finally bite the bullet and give it a go. Because sewing planning is a different hobby for me than actual sewing. My wardrobe is stuffed so making virtual clothes and outfits is a good alternative to the actual sewing and wearing that satisfies the “this probably looks good (or really OTT) if…”

Wondered if I’d ever want psychedelic canvas trousers! Probably not, ha!

When sewing planning becomes imaginary sewing

I’m curious if you’re reading this if you have ever coloured in line drawings (analog or digital) or put fabric swatches behing a line drawing. My theory is that it does not seem super popular because you typically need some kind of tech beyond a mobile phone, i.e. a tablet with a stylus, or a computer with Photoshop or Illustrator or Inkscape. And even then you can’t just click a button and be done with it and it takes a few steps to make it work, so the barriers just feel high.

One motivating factor for me is that this kind of feels like art for me. I was the child that did not enjoy having a blank page (still don’t) and I never became skilled in the visuals department. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it; I do really enjoy looking at visuals where photos are combined with illustrations to make something that’s a bit whimsical but a little realistic as well.

Case in point. Not that I’m going to make a chore jacket or overshirt with Liberty lawn - obviously not the right fabric and the print is way too busy for my liking - but it was a fun experiment to put it on the diagram anyway!

A darker shade of grass green might be the winner here although I do like this shade of pink corduroy!

Random aside: magazines are my favourite printed material since they have the perfect combination of photos, text and illustrations that give me all the happy visual feels. Here’s a pic of a page in issue 55 of Peppermint magazine (Australian lifestyle mag on slow living, craft etc.) to illustrate (pun intended).

Which digital drawing tools? Many options …

Procreate (iPad), Adobe Illustrator (PC), Pixlr X (web-based solution)

In case you wanted to try this out, I’m here with the options. Big shout out to Valerie (Joyance Fibre Arts) and Delphine (Just Patterns) for the education and patience on what to click / do because I was really in struggletown with watching YouTube videos!

In short: you need to trace over the line drawing with a mouse (computer) or stylus (tablet), put the picture of the fabric on top, and apply a clipping mask.

Adobe Illustrator:

Good result but works better if you have a big monitor, and you need to be patient with using a mouse to trace over line drawings. I watched a bunch of fashion drawing tutorials and also found some sewing-related ones. But they all assume I know something about Illustrator. Which I don’t. Here are the links anyway…

• Suzy Quilts (video): How to Edit Colors of Quilt Mockups

• Blackbird Fabrics (video): How to Mock Up Your Own Line Drawings

Procreate

Felt more straightforward but you need a stylus to trace over the line drawing. Using your finger just doesn’t work (ha, ask me how I know). Here are the resources I found handy:

• Jess Does Life (video): How to plan your makes using Procreate. This is the best video I found and the one I follow. Thank you Jess for making this!

• Sew Sew Live (video): Using Procreate to pick fabrics for your project. It is a longer video

• In the Folds (blog post): Behind the scenes: using Procreate to plan your makes

Pixlr X

I’ve used this one with some success previously, but I found it’s a bit clunkier than the other two (and you can see already from the photo below that the resolution isn’t great). The tutorial is from Deer & Doe (blog post): How to Create a Digital Sewing Pattern Mockup. The good news though is that it is a web-based solution that’s free to play with.

Example: here is the Fibre Mood Flavia cardigan, and I made the mock up it to check whether I’d like the buttons on the lighter check or darker check. Want to see the final result? Instagram reel about it here.

Removing background from photos

If you’ve seen wardrobe organiser apps or seen fashion flatlays you’ll know that it’s handy to remove the background from the pictures so you can arrange pictures of clothes without unwanted objects getting in the way. Turns out there’s an easy iPhone solution to removing background… and the tutorial is on the Apple site here.

Example: here’s an old pic of me wearing an Petite Knit Oslo hat I knitted, wearing a Fibre Mood Rya shacket that I sewed. Read my post about Rya here.

Limitation: the iPhone will determine for you the outline of the subject. So if you’re after just one garment then you’d need to take a picture of only the garment instead of a picture with a whole outfit.

A first attempt

Well, given the lack of time for actual sewing this month I decided to make a virtual outfit. For my own planning purposes this is good enough!

The blue jacket and trousers are the makes for the Spring Capsule course (as is the yellow cat shirt - read my post about that make here). The green shirt is a Paper Theory Olya shirt I made last year. The stripe tee is a Pinterest pic.

Since I’m not practised at this (and my sewing motivation is low) it took me a while to make the pictures. I don’t think I’ll do this for every garment I feel like making, but for the fabrics with a busy print or a new-to-me style I’m not really sure about, I think it’s going to be helpful to help decide whether I’m going to like it, or what I could wear it with.

Hit the subscribe button if you’re curious to see the results of future planning or sewing (or knitting) … in the meantime, how’s your sewing planning for spring going? What do you think of this kind of digital drawing, yay or nay for you? Do you use other planning tools?

Till next time

Kate x