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LivingSoft Subscriber Newsletter | Volume 1

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Welcome to the first livingsoftnw.com Newsletter!   You'll find lots of information to help you be more successful with your Livingsoft purchase and new products.  We'll be sending these out on a monthly basis so stay tuned.

 

This Just In

We are proud and pleased to announce our latest Dress Shop addition, Illusions™:  Patterns for Real People, designed by Kaaren Hoback, and released June 28, 2004.

Illusions, is a New Design Collection to Dress Shop 5, offering patterns which flatter the body, provide a gentle hint of waist shaping as well comfort and custom fit.

We re offering this revolutionary collection at $129 with an introductory price of just $99 until July 31.

Illusions includes 26 new and distinctive patterns, including 4 dresses, 4 skirts, 4 blouses, 3 jackets including a real side panel jacket!, 2 vests and 2 tunics, a real sweatshirt and a baseball shirt , as well as 5 nightwear designs.

It also offers two NEW levels of fit. The Casual fit level offers a bit more ease, true side darts and a little gentle waist shaping as well as the New Comfort fit level- with no waist shaping

There are new features and tools which include , options for vents, pleats, godets ,front and back neck plackets and more.   To read more about Illusions, click here.

Dress Shop Tip of the Month

Would you like to understand how each individual measurement affects the shape of your pattern?  How you can make your shoulder lines come a little farther out without changing the angle of the shoulder line?  How to change your bodice so the shoulder seams are a little further forward?  How to give yourself a longer front armhole depth without adding to the back armhole depth which is fine? 

Here’s a simple way you can begin to understand how the different measurements impact the pattern, what measurements you might have to change to achieve a certain result, and how changing one measurement will change another measurement.

The first thing you’ll want to do is to select a standard size to work with.  Try for example Women’s Size 12.  It doesn’t matter which size you pick, really, even if you’re far from a size 12.  You’re only looking at how the measurements interrelate.  You can apply what you learn to your own patterns later. 

Draft a set of slopers for this standard size, and print them in quarter scale.  Write “original” on the pages.

Now comes the interesting part.  More

Sewing Tip

You can shrink out all appearance of gathering in a sleeve cap using steam, when you’re working with cotton, wool or linen, or a blend.  (Though this appears related to natural fibers, the technique doesn’t work for pure silk, because silk has a harder “finish.”)

A good way to remove the ease/gathering from a sleeve is to put in your double row of gathering stitches between the front and back notches, and pull the basting threads to gather just enough to exactly match the armhole (using your fingers to arrange the gathers evenly).  Then place the sleeve cap over end of a sleeve board and use your iron to apply shots of steam to the sleeve.  You can shape the cap with the palm of your hand, and use the point of the iron to eliminate the gathers.  Then you’re ready to sew in the sleeve.  More

 

Q&A

What's the difference in fit between Dress Shop Quickfit, Advanced, and Pro? 

Dress Shop 5 QuickFit includes standard sizes for women and misses, plus our QuickFit pattern adjustment system, plus the option to draft and fit to 24 custom body measurements.

Dress Shop 5 Advanced includes everything that is in QuickFit, plus the option to draft and fit to 57 custom body measurements. 

Dress Shop 5 Pro includes everything that is in QuickFit and Advanced, plus standard sizes for men, boys, girls, and small children.  DS5 Pro also includes options in the Layout Tool for laying out plaids, stripes, and border prints.  And finally, DS5 Pro includes a special option in the Crotch Tool for micro-tuning the shape of crotch curves.

I have measured myself repeatedly and yet my test garments don't fit.  What can I do?

Even with as many measurements as we take in Dress Shop (our most rigorous measurement system takes 57 body measurements), we still don’t measure all the lumps, bumps and curves that you might have on your body.  And we make some assumptions about the way you’re shaped, which are not going to be true in all cases.   More

 

LivingSoft Links

Do you want to join our online community, where information on the use of Livingsoft software, user groups, and help resources is available?  It’s easy and it’s free.  Just use the “Livingsoft Community” link on our home page at www.livingsoftnw.com  Or you can go directly to http://livingsoftnw.groupee.net/eve

To subscribe to this newsletter, you can register free here by creating a new account, or alternatively if  you already have an account you can modify your settings here.

 To write directly to Livingsoft for technical support, e-mail support@livingsoftnw.com.  Submit comments, suggestions, or proposals for articles to Newsletter@livingsoftnw.com.

 

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