A Complete Guide to Sewing Patterns For Women

Women’s sewing patterns are a fun and useful guide when it comes to creating your own clothes. People with all different levels of expertise use them, even the experts! Sewing patterns allow you to make clothes that are exactly the right size and fit for your body, something that clothing stores can’t do 100 per cent of the time. 

You can also modify your self-sewn garments to make them look completely unique to your personality! No matter what level of experience, a sewing pattern can be your best friend when it comes to making clothes. Not only do patterns provide step-by-step instructions, but they also provide different variations of one garment, along with illustrations to help you visualise a piece.

If you want to get into sewing, you’ve come to the right place! At Pattern Emporium, we want to help you on your journey and make learning to sew as easy as possible. That’s why we have crafted this comprehensive guide to sewing patterns for women. Keep reading to fully prepare yourself before you hit the pedal and get that needle moving.

Completely new to Pattern Emporium’s sewing patterns? Welcome! We have created a video series for you to follow along with when learning all about your new PDF pattern.

Different Types of Sewing Patterns

There are two main types of sewing patterns: commercial patterns and independent patterns. Commercial patterns are created by large companies and are mass-produced. Independent patterns are created by small businesses or individual designers and are typically produced in smaller quantities — or available as a PDF, such as our format.

Pattern Emporium’s sewing patterns for women are perfect for beginners. Start out with something simple, such as a shirt or top, and work your way up to more intricate, difficult patterns.

Pattern Sizing

Every women’s sewing pattern has a certain number of sizes, and it varies between different brands. Pattern Emporium’s size range considers women who are up to size 30, allowing women of all shapes and sizes to enjoy our fun and unique designs.

While many of our patterns can be adapted to different sizes, make sure you choose a pattern that is right for you. Read the description to ensure that you don’t have to spend too much time on alterations. To understand sizing and how to measure yourself, watch our step-by-step instructions.

Styles

There are countless styles of women’s sewing patterns — the creative opportunities are endless! You could sew an entire wardrobe filled with different pieces and still not cover everything.

Styles of sewing patterns for women range from formal to casual. Whether you’re in the mood to create a flowy dress or oversized shirt, you can achieve this with Pattern Emporium. In addition to our range of patterns, we offer many resources to help you tailor-make beautiful garments. Take the Ocean Daze Very Oversized Shirt sewing pattern, for example. You can take a look at what’s in the sewing pattern and ensure you’re fully equipped to get to work by watching our YouTube video.

Fabric Type

Every Pattern Emporium sewing pattern suggests certain fabrics to use when creating your garment. It’s best you stick to these recommendations; otherwise, your piece may not turn out the way you expect — and it may look very different to the pattern.

Printing and Assembling the Pattern

Once you have chosen a pattern, you will need to print out and assemble it before you can begin sewing. Our patterns come as PDF files that can be printed on standard printer paper. This means that you can easily print the file on your home printer. For a larger printout, you can head to your nearest copy shop. Once you have printed the pattern, you will need to tape it together following the accompanying instructions. Or try a new way of following the pattern and use a projector. Whichever way you choose, PDF files from Pattern Emporium make it easy to start sewing! 

Tips For Following Your First Sewing Pattern

Now that you know exactly what a sewing pattern for women entails, it’s time to get sewing! We have some useful tips to help you along the way, so you can make a garment you’re sure to be proud of.

Read the Pattern Before Sewing

We know that you want to jump straight to the fun part – sewing – but it’s important to know exactly what you’re in for! This will give you a good idea of what the finished product will look like and what steps you need to take to get there. Reading the sewing pattern will also help you identify if there are any techniques you need to brush up on before getting started.

Wash and Iron Your Fabric.

Pre-wash your fabric before you start sewing. This will help to prevent shrinkage and colour bleeding later on. It’s also a great idea to iron your materials before you get to work, as this will ensure your fabric remains as flat as possible and creases don’t get sewn into the garment.

Follow the Pattern Instructions Step-by-Step

Don't try to skip steps or take shortcuts, as this can lead to problems later on and result in even more time spent trying to fix the piece of clothing. If you're not sure how to do something, ask someone for help or look for a tutorial online. 

Pattern Emporium has a helpful Facebook community you can reach out to when stuck! We also have a selection of how-to videos available on our website.

Now that you know all about sewing patterns, it’s time to get to work! Check out our favourite summer dress sewing patterns to get your style and pattern inspiration sorted.