Pattern Magic Bunka Sloper

From Wikipedia: "A sloper pattern (home sewing) or block pattern (industrial production) is a custom-fitted, basic pattern from which patterns for many different styles can be developed."

I've been working on a Bunka-style sloper since December. The Bunka sloper is used in the Bunka Fashion College in Japan, as well as the book series "Pattern Magic" by Tomoko Nakamichi, and the Japanese fashion magazine "Mrs. Stylebook". I was thoroughly fascinated by the pattern and fabric manipulation in Pattern Magic¹ when I first came across it. People have made some pretty interesting garments from it.  I wanted to try, too! 

Then I found out about Mrs. Stylebook - a fashion mag for older women that had the patterns in it, and that you drafted from that same sloper! Whoa!  Why can't there be a periodical in America catering to older, fashionable,  sewing people?

I used the bodice sloper in the back of Pattern Magic to try the "Inserting a circular design line"².  It worked, but did not fit me at all.  Enter the Bunka Fashion Series Garment Design Textbook 1 "Fundamentals of Garment Design" put out by the Bunka Fashion College, as well as a sudden deceleration in my progress forward. Wow. This is not a book for beginners.

I drafted a sloper based on my measurements which did not fit. I had no idea how to fix it based on the fitting instructions as they were not detailed enough for me - I need to know specific points on the body where the seams and darts should end.  For example, is the wrist point above, on, or below the wrist bone?

So I gave up on the instructions and just adjusted things. With the help of my sister and lots of photographs, I finally got something that I think fits.

I scanned my patterns and loaded them into Inkscape, then traced them with a tool I don't know the name of. It's the one you can make the lines bendy with.


There are three lines:
red - the stock Bunka sloper
blue - the sloper I drafted with my measurements
black - the final adjusted sloper

Square shoulders, anyone?

The Fundamentals book does mention the Bunka sloper is drafted based on average measurements of women in their 20s and that older bodies are shaped differently. Yes, thanks.

The next step is to get the line drawing of my final sloper in a format that will print out actual size across multiple pages.  I found a spot-on tutorial on creating tiled sewing patterns on a blog called Grow Your Own Clothes. Missing instructions: Move the printing stuff to the Page Area, then choose Edit -> Resize Page to Selection.

<sup>1. as well as the Drape Drape series by another Bunka Fashion College graduate, except they have premade patterns - there's no drafting.
2. This is a particularly cool example.</sup>