Installation and Introduction

Installation
The flash stick contains a folder that includes everything that you need. I suggest that you create a folder on your
desktop called ‘Valentina’ and copy contents of the flash stick into this folder.

Find the file called “valentina_0.6.0.0a-20170828122209_i386.exe”, double click on it and follow the instructions to
install the program and select all options. Once you have installed the program, you should have 2 icons on your
desktop… Valentina… and Tape. You may open them and look around by clicking on them while others are installing, if
you wish. And while you are waiting, you may wish to pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea.

While everyone is doing that, I will continue with the introduction to the program…

Introduction
Valentina is a patternmaking software that can assist you in creating your own patterns. (They are in the process of
changing their name, but that doesn’t affect us at this point.) It does NOT create the actual design for you. What it does,
is it stores your sizes and, once you’ve created your pattern, it grades it for you and you can print it in the size of your
choice.

Once you have your basic patterns created, you may edit them and add to them as you wish.

Once you have your basic measurements file set up, you can change the measurement values to suit different
customers as you wish.

As long as you use your basic measurements and pattern, you will be able to fit the pattern to whatever shape or size of
person

Tape is the database that stores the measurements. You may create new measurement files as you wish, or you may
create Multi-size measurements that cover a range of standard sizes.

My aim is to get you started in creating your own patterns. It may seem that it is a very long time to do such a small
thing, but it includes teaching you how to create your own patterns and how to use the program.

I found, downloaded and installed the program on 27 February 2017 and suddenly needed to learn how to create
patterns. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I found that the program only facilitates creating patterns and doesn’t
do all the work for you. It has taken me this long to reach a stage that I can share this information with others (and I’m
not sorry that I followed this route, at all) and I will try to teach you most of it today.

EXPLAIN HOW THE DIFFERENT SECTIONS OF TABLES WORK AND THE PROCESS TO BE FOLLOWED:

MEASURE – TAPE – DRAW – DETAIL – LAYOUT – PDF – PRINT – GLUE – CUT – CHECK – MUSLIN – EDIT – CHECK - MAKE

How to measure
The quality of a pattern depends on the fit after the garment has been made up, so measuring is extremely important
for a perfect fit. Use a piece of elastic around the waist and other areas to create a vertical line at strategic points while
measuring horizontal lengths.

It is also wise to hold the completed pattern against the person for whom it is intended once the pattern has been
printed, glued together and cut out, to ensure that all the bits fit in the right places. Once that has been done, a ‘muslin’
can be made up and fitted. Any changes are recorded in Tape and Valentina and a new pattern is then created and the
process repeated until the perfect fit is achieved. Only when the perfect fit is achieved, does one cut the final fabric and
produce the garment, and even then, a 2nd one may need to be produced. Perfect fit is extremely difficult to achieve, so
for now, we are going to create an Easy Fit blouse.

The first page of the instructions has a diagram from the Aldrich book which shows the areas to be measured and
entered into Tape. Sometimes, you won’t find the exact measurement, but most of them have been provided for in
‘Known’ (see the Guide to Measurements according to Aldrich page included). Any specific measurements that aren’t
included under ‘Known’ may be created under ‘Unknown’.

I am not going to show you very much about using Tape, but I have included the Tutorial Manual on the flash stick so
that you can go through it in your own time. We can cover Tape in a later mini-lesson, if you wish. At this stage, I will
show you how to add and edit items while creating your pattern, and provide you with a multi-size measurement file
with all the needed measurements for the garment we are going to create, and concentrate on showing you the ‘good
stuff’…

Creating the Detail

Now we will create the detail of the pattern pieces…

Open the Layout tool section and select the 1st tool – Workpiece tool.

Click on A, the curve from A1 to A9, A9, and A11.

We need to add front and back armhole marks so this part is going to be a little strange…

Click on the curve A11 to A24, A14 and then click the curve A11 to A24. We have to click the curve before and after
clicking A14, because if we click a point, it stops the curve there. Later, you will find that while the curve is continuous to
the eye, it is actually divided into segments that you can use individually as points of reference.

After the curve, click on point 24, A26 and A7. Hit enter and click on OK, as we won’t be able to do anything else at this
point. If the OK is grayed out, the pattern isn’t complete or there’s an error and you’ll have to redo it, so click on Cancel
and start again.

NB. We don’t click the 1st point a 2nd time to complete the piece, if we do, it will show as an error and we will have to
delete it before being able to click on OK. We ALWAYS work in a clockwise direction. If we don’t we will get an error and
we’ll have to drag the points into a clockwise direction before being able to click on OK.
Click on the Details quick icon:

And there’s your very first pattern piece. You can use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out to view it better.

Right click on the pattern piece and select Options. This will re-open the box that we previously closed so that we can
add seam allowances, labels, grainlines and passmarks.

Click on the Seam Allowance tab at the top and place a check mark in the box provided. Click on apply.

Select A1 in the Node box and place a 0 in the Before box.

Select A7 in the Node box and place a 0 in the After box.

Click on Apply and you will see that the whole pattern has a 1cm seam allowance, except the A7 to A1 section which will
be placed on a fold.

Now we need to broaden the hemline to allow for a hem.

Select A7 in the Node box and place a 4 in the Before box.

Select A26 in the Node box and place a 4 in the After box.

This will give a 3cm hem plus a 1cm seam allowance.

Now click on the Labels section on the left.

Place an A at Letter, type Back at Name, quantity will remain as 1 and place a check mark in the Placement box:
Click on Edit Template at the top, click on the folder in the top right corner, navigate to the desktop Valentina folder and
find the Basic.xml file that I have created for you and open it.

Click on the 3rd line and delete it.

You may delete any of the lines that you don’t want on your pattern piece. You may add other items by clicking on the +
sign and the Insert button at the bottom right. (For now, we’ll leave the other lines alone and concentrate on getting the
pattern done.)

Click on OK to close this box.

Next, click on the Labels tab at the top and place a check mark in the Detail Label Visible box.

Enter a 5 at the width and length boxes.

Click on Grainline on the left side, check mark Grainline Visible box, leave the angle at 90 and make the length 15cm.

Click on Paths on the left and Main Path at the top.

Right click on A14 and click on Passmark – you will see a vertical line appear next to A14 in the list:
Click on Passmark on the left and click on the 2 Line passmark:

You may now click on OK

If you zoom in really big, you’ll see 2 small lines in the seam allowance that will be printed on your pattern:

Click and drag the yellow label box and grainline to where you’d like them:

You may repeat the process to create the front pattern. I started at A26 and finished at A28
Place a single passmark at A19, create the seam allowance of 1cm all around, change A26 to A28 to 4cm, add the label
(quantity will be 2 and no check mark at On Fold).

Remove the 4th item in the label template. And here’s my 2 pattern pieces.

We haven’t created the sleeves, the facings or collar yet, but I’d like to show you how to export the pattern for printing
before we run out of time.

You may select the pattern pieces to be printed by turning the ones you don’t want off at the bottom of the right side:
For now, I want to print both.

I ALWAYS export the patterns to .pdf before printing them. I find that I have a wee bit more control over them when it
comes to the actual printing and I can leave out blank pages if I wish.

So let’s click on the layout tab and get started…

Change the paper size (A0) to fit the LARGEST pattern piece. This is not the actual printers’ paper, but the paper you
would have drafted the pattern on if you were drafting by hand.

Place check marks at the 2 places shown in the image:

Click on File, Layout and Preview Tiled PDF:

You will see that the pattern is going to take 25 sheets of paper. Click on the tiled button:

Click on the printer and select the printer Microsoft Print to PDF:
Click on Print.

Navigate to where you’d like to print it, name it and click on Save:

It will take a moment or 2 to complete.

In Windows Explorer, navigate to where you saved the PDF and double click it to open it:
As you can see, there are 25 pages of pattern. Some of the pages will be blank but all of the pages will have markings on
to line up the pages when gluing it all together.

To print the pattern to printer, click on the print icon top left and select the following:
I don’t have a printer connected at the moment, but you will need to select your printer, you can print it in grayscale to
save your colour ink if you wish, ALWAYS select ACTUAL SIZE and check that A4 is selected in Page Setup. Then you may
click on Print.

Glue everything together and cut out your pattern.

And this concludes this session.

Create a New Pattern File

Open Valentina.

Before we start creating patterns, we need to set a few defaults that will make our life easier in the future.

Click on File, Preferences

Check that the items with red arrows have been set to
your preferences.

The next tab can remain as it is.

The 3rd tab can be changed to point to folders that you create in your desktop folder to suit them:

Click on OK to close and save your preferences.

Open File/Pattern Properties.

Under Pattern Description and Technical Notes, you may type in anything that will be useful to you. For now, we’ll leave
it blank.

Click on the Heights and Sizes tab.

Remove the check marks at All Heights and check the heights 152 to 182.

Remove the check marks at All Sizes and check the sizes 30 to 42.

This will constrain the pattern sizes in height to keep them within the boundaries of the size section that we are creating
the pattern from so that it resizes correctly.

Now that we have our defaults setup, we can create a new pattern. Click on New and OK:

You now have the drawing board in front of you, ready to create your pattern.
At the top is the pattern details, below that is the menu, below that are the quick icons and below that is the main
drawing board.

To the left of the actual drawing board are the tools and to the right of the actual drawing board is an ‘options’ and
‘group’ section.

In the middle of the drawing board (you may have to zoom out a bit) is a small red circle with the letter A near it. This is
your very first point of reference. From this point, your pattern will flare out from. (This is point 0 in the reference
material provided.)

Since Winifred Aldrich starts all her patterns from point 0, we will ready 0 as A and all the other numbers will be read
having an A in front of them - e.g. 1=A1; 2=A2; etc.

Save your file to give it a name and so that it will auto-save while you work. With anything that you do on a computer, it
is always wise to save your work when you’ve done so much that you wouldn’t like to do it again or before you do
anything that may turn out wrong. I suggest every 5 or 10 minutes or even use the File/Save As option to change the
name of the file as you go so that you have different stages of the pattern saved.
It is very hard to delete points once you have made them and have moved on a bit, so always be very careful to follow
the directions implicitly and to create the curves last, once you have completed the basic pattern block.

Next, we need to attach a measurement file to the pattern so that we don’t have to keep referring to other pages to
create our pattern and so that our pattern will resize nicely later. Click on Measurements/Load Multisize and point to
the .vst file included on the flash stick. You will notice, at the very top left, that it now lists ‘your pattern name.val’ and
[Aldrich Women - 8 to 18 - 32 to 42.vst} – Valentine:

If you like, you can open the pattern file provided to have a quick look at what you are creating…

Using the tools

There are 8 sections of tools. Each section has tools in them specific to that section. We will be using tools from all of
them except the Arc and Elliptical Arc sections, which are a bit more advance than we have time for in this very basic,
getting started, tutorial. Just to be clear, we will only be using the tools relevant to the tutorial, which will be most of
them, and will include a lot of information about the general use of all of the tools. There is nothing that will prevent
you from trying any of the other tools at home.

Each section of tools opens and closes by clicking on the tools section bar.

If you hover over the tool, its name will appear which will give you an idea of what it does.

Once you have selected a tool, an instruction will appear in the very bottom, right hand corner to help you.

The Basic Grid

Click on the tool section title Point to open it, if it isn’t already open, and click on the Point at Distance and Angle tool. At
the bottom right it will tell you to ‘select point’. The only point that we have is ‘A’, so click on it. Drag out downwards
and click again. This will create a line going downwards in a general way for an uncontrolled distance.

As you can see, my line has no structure at all. To control the direction to the exact degrees of 0, 90, 180, and 270, you
can hold down the shift key while dragging it in the general direction. This will lock the direction to one of the 4 major
points of a compass.
Once you have your general starting line and you have clicked again, the pop-up box above
appears where you can enter the direction in the Angle box or use the formula button to
choose a direction from a predetermined point or points. The same applies to the Length.

The instructions that we are following read: 0–1 1.5cm.

And the picture shows that the line from 0 to 1 goes downwards at an angle of 270:

So... in Length of Line, we enter 1.5 and in Angle, we enter 270.

Our next instruction reads: 1–2 armscye depth measurement plus 2.5cm; square across.

Select the same tool again and click on point A1. Holding the shift key, drag downwards and click.

Here, we need to use a measurement to establish the length so we click the formula box, delete the length and in the
Measurements section, click on armscye_length and click on OK. Click at the end o armscye_length and add ‘+2.5’:

While we have this window open, you can change the Base Point, the Point
Label, the Type of Line and the Line Color if you wish.

You may re-open this box by right-clicking on the point A2 label.

By clicking on Apply, you can see what the result is (if you’ve zoomed out
enough before going into the options box. If any of your values show an error on
the right side, by hovering your cursor over the error, a short sentence will
appear giving you more details on it. Here I have created an error to show you:

If you have an error, the OK and Apply buttons will be grayed out and you won’t
be able to use them until you have corrected the error.
I will explain each point as we go and we will continue in this manner to until we have created point A7.
 These instructions are from the 4th edition and there are some errors
in the book itself. (I have subsequently found the 5th edition.) I’m sure
they have been corrected since then as they now have the 6th edition
out at R557 on Amazon, if anyone would like to buy it and check. In
the meantime, when something doesn’t seem to correspond with the
diagram, try to check why it doesn’t. In this case, I found that the
instruction was from the armscye length line to the shoulder, using
the measurement from the waist to the shoulder. This put the point
way above the shoulder. I have moved the instruction to the end,
completed all the other points, changing the labels and then created
this one from point A6

The result is that all my labels are correct and the point A4 is now in
the right place.

This is your basic grid that you are going to design your bodice pattern on. I have removed all the lines while creating
the points and have drawn in dotted lines using the line tool to mark out the grid nice and neatly:

All instructions to ‘square across’ should be left to after there is a point of reference to square across to and an easy tool
to use is the ‘Point at X and Y of 2 other Points’ tool.

This also enabled me to square ½ way across (using the length of line A2 to A3) as instructed in this instruction. I
changed the point label at the end to ‘z1’ because it isn’t a major point and wasn’t given a label in the instruction:

By the time you have completed this section, you will have used more point tools and your grid should look more or less
like this:

I like to group the different sections together as I create them. This enables me to make them invisible when I want to
and is especially handy when it comes to creating the layout details.
We can select the Operations section and the Group tool, drag over all the points to select them and hit enter. Type in a
name (I called mine ‘Grid’) for the group and select OK.

In the Group section on the right, there will now be a group. If you click on the eye to the left of the group name, the
whole group becomes invisible. For now, we need to see the group, so click on the closed eye to open it again.

Don’t forget to save your work often and especially now that we are about to start on the next section of creating the
back bodice pattern.

The Back Pattern

0-9 – Do not draw in the neck curve until you are finished with this section.

1-10 – Notice at the top of the 2nd image, you can see which tool I used to create this point:
Square ½ way across the back:

9-11 – this one is slightly complicated… Draw back shoulder to touch the line from 10. For this, we use the ‘Point at
Intersection of Arc and Line’ tool which was especially created for this task. There are other methods using the Arc tools,
but we will cover those tools at a later date.

First select point A10, then point z2 (1st and 2nd line points) and then A9 (axis point). Click on OK. Use the line tool to
draw in a solid line.
2-12

Draw in a dotted line.

12-14 There is a special tool that has the formula in to do this. It’s very handy and I use it often. It’s the last tool in the
Points section:
The Front Pattern
4-15

4-16 – A quick tip would be to copy the formula from the previous instruction and paste it into this instruction and
change the 0.7 to 0.2. Highlight the formula and press ctrl-C to copy and ctrl-V to paste it into the length box in this
instruction. Once again, leave the curve for last.

15-17
3-18

18-19 another tip is to use the search box to quickly find a reference. In this case, I typed in 16 to find all the lines that
have 16 in it.

3-20 Draw the lines from A20 towards A17 and A15. It will make it easier later to rotate the darts to the side seams, if
we wish.
11-21

17-23

18-24
Once again, we create the points but leave the curves for last.

We have now created all the points we need and can create the curves.

Drawing the Curves

Curves are a bit tricky. If not done really nicely, using formulas of pre-existing lines and angles, they tend to resize very
strangely. This is quite a large topic to get them precise, so I’m going to show you a quick way that may not be 100%
correct but it does tend to allow the pattern to resize very nicely.

We also need to bare in mind that when we create the layout detail, we select the points and curves in a clockwise
direction, so it will be best if we create out curves in this direction, too. If we forget and go anti-clockwise, we will need
to hold down the shift key when selecting the curves to reverse their direction. And if we forget to hold down the shift
key, all is still not lost, we can change their direction in the detail options.

But it is always best to try to get it right the 1st time.

Starting at the back neck and using the Simple Curve tool, click on A1 and A9. You will have a very funny curve and you
can hold the Bezier handles to manipulate the curve to look slightly more normal.

To create a perfect circle, the Bezier handles should be a 90 angle the point and be the length of the distance from that
point to the next point multiplied by 0.551915 (which we round off to 0.55). If you have a perfect square and use this
formula, you will get a perfect and smooth circle:

As far as possible, we will use this theory.

Another rule to comply with is that the angle of the curve must always be at a 90 angle to the seam that it connects
with.

So… with all this in mind, let’s edit our curve. Right click on the curve and choose Options.

The Bezier handle at A1 should be in the same direction as the line A – A9 and the length of the handle should be the
length of the line A – A9 x 0.55.

The next handle at A9 should be the angle of line A9 – A11 and the length should be line A – A1 x 0.55.
And so… We have a very nice curve:

We can do the same at the front neck curve.

To draw the armhole curve, instead of doing it in 1 piece like in the instructions, we’ll do the back and the front separate
because we’ll be creating 2 pattern pieces from this one pattern.

As you can see from the neck curves, it’s very easy when there are only 2 very well defined points to work with. We are
going to have to be a little more ingenious with the armhole curve.
We are going to use the ‘Curved Path’ tool because it allows for passing through a number of points between the 1 st one
and the 2nd one, thereby anchoring the curve to those points. Let’s create the back armhole curve by clicking on points
A11, A14, z3 and A24. Hit enter to complete the curve.

Right click on the curve and select Options. Click on A11, which is the first point and the length of the line can be A13-14
x 0.55, while the angle needs to be at a 90 angle to A9 – A11 which is the shoulder seam.

You can click on Apply to see the effect, if you wish, and then select A14 from the right side.

The length of line will be A12 to z3 x 0.55 and the angle of line will be A14 to A13.

At the 2nd control point, the length of line I have used is the line A12 to A14, but because the distance between A14 and
z3 is less, I’ve only x 0.5 and the angle is determined by the 1st control point.
Click on z3. For the length of line, I have used the line A12 to A24 divided by 4 and the angle of line is A12 to z3 plus 90.

At the 2nd control point, I’ve used the length of line A12 to A24 x 0.5.

Click on A24. The length of line I’ve used is A12 to A24 divided by 8 and the angle is the line A12 to A24 minus 180.

After clicking Apply, I wasn’t very happy with the curve at A14, so I adjusted the formulas to make the handles shorter. It
looks much better now.
As I previously said, I am using as much of an exact science to get the armhole nice as the lesson allows for, since there
is so much to cover in the time we have. The most important thing is that we are using existing reference points so that
if we resize the pattern from a size 32 to a size 42, these curves will also resize smoothly. If we used direct values, they
would be static, so the curve can’t readjust with the change in size. This way, if the width of the armhole became wider
(line A12 to A24), the Bezier handles would automatically become longer

For now, click on OK as our curve is looking very pretty and we can draw the curve in the front using the same methods
but working from A24, through z4, A19 and ending at A23.

Click on A24. Length of line will be A24 to A18 divided by 8 & the angle will be line A24 to A18. From now on, I think
you’ve heard me repeating myself so many times, I’m only going to paste the image of the control points to show you
what I have done.
And here is the final upper half of the 2 patterns:

The only thing left is to decide how we are going to get in and out of the blouse. For this exercise, I’m going to add a bit
to the centre front for buttons and buttonholes.

Add a Point Along Perpendicular – 2cm – to A27 and square down to A28.

Draw lines from A27 to A28, A28 to A7, A7 to A1 and A24 to A26.
And here is our very basic, easy fitting bodice block:

Our bodice pattern draft is complete. Well done!

If you get stuck or don’t understand anything, you are welcome to contact me – 0834776839 or email –
kwatieg@gmail.com. I am also on Facebook most evenings where you may send me a personal message. I will try to get
back to you as quickly as possible.