Design software for pattern making?

[doubleh]

11 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

that's really to bad I don't have to update it then relearn how it works, don't have to pay for using the extra features, and the makers never make a new app and quit maintaining the old one so i don't have to re-buy, the whole set was way under 20 bucks, doesn't need a cloud to save it or a printer to go with it. 

How did we ever get anything done before computers, smart phones, and power tools? I started drawing as a little kid. There wasn't TV so things like drawing, reading books, and building model airplanes were my pastime and I had some talent with pencils. Essential tremors have done a number on that but with medical help I can still do a simple pattern. It's not like it's fine art.

[chuck123wapati]

9 minutes ago, doubleh said:

How did we ever get anything done before computers, smart phones, and power tools? I started drawing as a little kid. There wasn't TV so things like drawing, reading books, and building model airplanes were my pastime and I had some talent with pencils. Essential tremors have done a number on that but with medical help I can still do a simple pattern. It's not like it's fine art.

I hear you there. I guess us old timers forget that we were actually taught to use a pencil, compass, square and ruler in grade school, jr high and high school.  Spent my whole working career learning and relearning computer programs, operating systems and I don't miss that one bit.

[doubleh]

Several years ago my son that was almost 50 years old got a degree in fine arts. During one of the classed the students were instructed to bring a square to class the next day He was the only one to bring a framing square and the only on that knew what a square was. The professor gave him the job of teaching the much younger students how to use a square. He told me that most couldn't even read a ruler.

A long time ago I worked with a guy that was helpless with anything less than 1/4" marks on a tape measure. He called 1/8ths big marls and 1/16ths little marks. Later as a construction supervisor I had a crew on one job and the pusher couldn't read  a tape measure. By the time the job was finished he was capable of doing so as I taught him. Evidently schools no longer teach basics, just how to have a computer do it for you.

[DJole]

Inkscape is a free program that I have downloaded and installed, to help build vector-based patterns. Again, there is a learning curve involved, of course...

[fredk]

On 11/29/2022 at 5:30 PM, chuck123wapati said:

i use a pencil, paper and some measuring tools, ruler ,compass etc. 

Me too. Plus cereal box cardboard. Sometimes I need to eat a lot of cereal.    The things I do for this craft!  

I envy you guys though; I think most of you learnt to do proper drawing in 'shop' or something. We don't have 'shop' here and I reckon its a big loss

[MarlinDave]

I use a box cutter and steel ruler on file folders usually. I should use my homemade walnut drafting table I built back when I tried woodworking. Got another left hand drafting machine somewhere. 

[MikeRock]

My computer box and monitors sit on my K&E 4'x5' drafting table, big x/y drafting machine sits on it.  I can clean off a space and draw D sized drawings.  3 K&E slide rules, one a 20", LeRoy lettering set, Compensating Polar Planimeter (for measuring areas on maps when laying out mining sites)....  Proportional dividers......  all within hand reach.

Remember, the average of the engineers who put us on the moon was something like 25, and it was with slide rules and Marchant mechanical calculators.  I had graduated engineering school a month before they landed on the moon. 

God bless

Get out the pencils and get to work, if it looks right, it is......if not, more paper or an eraser.  I know one kid who did not know what an eraser was, or what it was for.  He knows NOW!  He'd never used a lead pencil, only ballpoints since whenever.... 

[chuck123wapati]

54 minutes ago, fredk said:

Me too. Plus cereal box cardboard. Sometimes I need to eat a lot of cereal.    The things I do for this craft!  

I envy you guys though; I think most of you learnt to do proper drawing in 'shop' or something. We don't have 'shop' here and I reckon its a big loss

i had several different shop classes that set it in stone but where i really learned it was basic math class long before shop class. Geometry was a hands on learning experience back in the day using these tools to draw the answers.

[Hags]

I've been getting the paste board from between the toilet paper at Costco.  Works well for patterns, good for staining, big enough for most things, and best of all, FREE!

[doubleh]

5 hours ago, fredk said:

Me too. Plus cereal box cardboard. Sometimes I need to eat a lot of cereal.    The things I do for this craft!  

I envy you guys though; I think most of you learnt to do proper drawing in 'shop' or something. We don't have 'shop' here and I reckon its a big loss

Not me. I stared drawing as a little kid. Cereal boxes? No way as I am not much on cereal. Hobby Lobby has white poster paper that isn't expensive and I use that. Cheaper than a box of cereal and more square footage to boot. I just bought a pack today while my wife was trying to wipe out their selection gf Christmas decorations as I used my last piece for a holster pattern I made Wednesday afternoon.