If you've ever used a commercial pattern, there's a good chance you've encountered notches. They're little markings along the edges of your cut pattern pieces, and you use them for identifying the pieces and aligning them with each other.

Notches are important for a lot of things. First of all, sometimes parts are not easy to tell apart from each other, so notches make similar pieces visually distinct. They help you know which parts align, so that you don't accidentally sew something to the wrong edge of a piece. They also allow you to align parts that might not otherwise line up. If you're connecting an inside curve to an outside curve, or you're connecting a gathered piece to a flat piece, or you're connecting two similar pieces made out of different fabrics, notches help you make sure you're lining pieces up.

However, as much as I love using PDF patterns from indie brands, sometimes a small pattern company will, <screams internally> just not use notches.

We add notches to the pattern piece, and not to the fabric, for a few reasons. We cut most garments on the fold, so when you add notches to the pattern piece, the notches will be symmetrical across the garment. It's also easier to manipulate paper without distortion than it is to manipulate fabric.

For many reasons, one being a lack of notches, I started a blouse and had to scrap the entire thing and start over. The fabric that I was working with was relatively fragile, and couldn't stand to be ripped and re-sewn too many times. Since I'm making this again, from a new size of the pattern, I thought I'd take the time to show everyone how I add notches:

The basic technique for this is called "walking a seam." You're going to need a tool to use as a pivot for your pattern, and a surface where you can stab through. Carpet, ironing boards, and big pieces of cardboard all work well for a work surface, and you can use a push pin for your pivoting tool.

To walk a pattern seam, the first thing you need to do is to draw your seam allowance onto each pattern piece. When you walk the seam, you're going to be aligning the actual seam lines, not the edges of the fabric. If your pattern won't tell you what included seam allowance is on every piece, ask for your money back. That's basic information you should always get.

Start at the top of the seam, and stab your little stabby tool through both layers, so that you line one seam line up with the next one. You can now use that point as a pivot to swing either pattern piece around.

It's hard to see what's happening in photos, so here's an illustration.

In this illustration, the red dot represents your pivoting tool. In the top row, you a) place the pivoting tool at the end of both lines, so that they overlap. B) turn one of the lines/pattern pieces. so that the lines overlap. Due to the curves of these lines, it only overlaps for a little bit, before they start curving apart again. Now C) You move your pivoting tool so that it's at the point where the two lines diverge.

Second row: You now, using your new pivot point, move one of the lines so that it overlaps the other line. You can now move the pivot point to the spot where the lines start to come apart again. Once you've moved the pivot point, you can rotate the seam lines to once again make them line up.

It makes a little more sense in video form, though GIMP was being uncooperative and not saving this as an animation properly.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that it's an accurate way to make sure that two curved lines are the same length.

Now, if you're walking a seam, and you put a mark at a point in the walk, the mark will be at the same length on both pieces. This is how you use marks to make sure that two pieces line up if they're curved in different directions.

For example, these two pieces are different shapes, but they're the same length. Because fabric is weird and it stretches, if we don't put a mark in the same spot on each piece, when we match them up, we can't know for sure that they're actually meeting up evenly on both spots.

For princess seams like this, I like to do one notch above and one notch below the big curve.

If you're making a pattern to sell to other people, it can be really helpful to look at where notches are supposed to go in modern pattern making convention, and to stick with that. For example, a lot of the time notches are meant to line up with base foundation lines such as bust or natural waist.

If you're just doing this because you got a pattern with no notches and you fucked it up last time, the only thing that matters is that you give yourself help.

You'll see that I have a single notch above the curve, and a triple notch below. This is because on the front, I had a double notch below, and that would look too similar if they were the same number of notches.

Okay, so other pattern making convention here: see how the side back and side front both face the same side? This is technically wrong.

The reason this is wrong is that you should be able to put your pattern together like a puzzle and get half of a garment. Fronts and backs face opposite sides so that you can line them up on the side seam. When I wanted to walk these two pieces so that I could add a notch, I had to turn one upside-down and work on the back. That was really annoying.

Walking patterns is really important for complicated pattern pieces, like this rectangular collar that goes onto a very curved neckline. To ensure that this collar fits correctly, I wanted to add notches on the bottom that would line up with the shoulder seam. To walk that line, I had to place all four of my bodice panels together, so that the collar was all in one place. Again, you can see how half my pieces are wrong side up, and that's just becuase that's how this designer made this pattern.

You'll also notice that, for notches, I clip an actual notch in the pattern paper. I'm using a special hole punch for this, but you can use all kinds of different things. You can just cut a slit in the paper, or use a pen or something to draw in your notch.

night la noche

Remember: Notches on the bedpost.

The night is full of nocturnal creatures.

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