Oh, that is good news, I love that site, and it has loads of good advice, but ... it needs to come with a really important health warning.
There are several errors in the instructions for the pants part of the leotard that means that it doesn't work properly if you use any measurements other than his standard size 10 from the table. It's the same in the basic swimsuit, but it isn't so bad as the leg cut is higher for that one.
If you do what he says with personal measurements, and your measurements aren't very similar to the size 10 in his size chart, you end up with a massive lycra diaper that defies fixing except to cut half of it away! I wasn't the only one to have problems, and there used to be a blog, that I now can't find, where someone had pictures of her baggy outfit. I was too humiliated, and frustrated, by mine to photograph it. He was very dismissive if you wrote to him, suggesting that it was because we are not professionals and must be doing it wrong, but it is definitely his pattern that is wrong.
I spent (wasted) way too much time a few years ago struggling with those PS directions, and in fact it was that that first brought me to TSF in search of advice
. In the end I drafted up the pants parts of leotards/swimsuits from a bunch of sources including him. I also used Winifred Aldrich, Ann Haggar, Helen Joseph-Armstrong and Kristina Shin. In each case I used my measurements and their directions.
The results were really striking (see photo with lines). There is some variation in leg line, but they are all pretty similar where they go under the body, except the Pattern School one. His gusset underneath is way too long at the front, and way too wide at the back. The other photo with the orange blocks, shows what I had to cut away to make the Pattern School leotard actually fit me. I meant to write this up as a blog, but when the site and then the archive vanished, there didn't seem any point.
So here goes. I think there are three fatal errors in the directions:
In Step 1, for 5-6 square across 4.75 not 9.5. The final measurement should be 9.5, not 19 cm as here! No one is that massive at the half gusset line pretty much right under the body!
In Step 2, for 12-16, you need to square down half the gusset NOT 9.5cm (which is half the gusset for his size 10) and ignore the bit about varying it per size. The variation is about grading from a size 10 not using personal measurements. I imagine this has crept in from a block used for teaching, where they work from size 10 not personal measurements.
Also in Step 2, line 16-17 is 4.75 (not 9.5) as above.
Additionally, as a general point, if you (or your subject) does not have a very high, pert bottom and the fullest part of the hip is nearer the crotch (making waist to hip length longer), you may want to consider raising his point 7 to make the leg line less flat so that the nominal line between his points 11-19-20 is placed about half crotch length.
I've used his site a lot in the past, and the material about negative ease is great, and once you have a block that works, it's easy enough to adapt it using his patterns. The top of the leotard block also works fine, but the sleeve drafting method is over complicated if you don't use CAD.
Hope someone finds this useful and is saved from some of the hassle I went through.
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