Valentina, free software for sewing patterns

For a long time, I have been looking for a software that would allow me to speed up the creation of patterns, as well as make them with greater precision.

Having attended school to be a surveyor and later architecture, my first experience was with Autocad. But unfortunately it had limitations, if you wanted to change just one measurement, most of the time you had to practically design the whole model from scratch.

So I continued my research on the net, and after numerous extremely expensive programs with a decidedly old-fashioned look, I came across Valentina.

Valentina is a free open-source software for the design of patterns and is available on all operating systems. The project was created in 2013, thanks to Roman Telezhinsky and Susan Spencer and in 2017, what was known as Valentina was subsequently divided into two distinct projects due to differences between the creators. Roman Telezhinsky’s kept the name Valentina and Susan Spencer’s was renamed to Seamly 2D.

Personally, I decided to follow Valentina, because she has more updates.

Features of the free software “Valentina”

But where is the beauty of Valentina? Well first of all it’s free. Despite this, however, it has many features that allow you to obtain a professional result.

But its best quality lies in its ability to vary the measurements of our model according to those of the customer. How many times have we had to redesign the base of a bodice in order to create the desired model? With Valentina, you will no longer have to do that! You will only have to design your basic bodice once and then change the measurements for each customer.

The software is made up of two two programs that work together: “Valentina” and “Tape “.

 

Valentina is the actual drawing program, while Tape, as you can understand from the name, takes care of the organization and management of the measurements. We can insert the measurements already identified by the program and outlined by images, or we can insert the measurements we have created, if they are not present in the list already.

Valentina has a lot in common with various technical drawing programs, but it has some functions that are essential in pattern design:

• We can use formulas instead of numbers: if for example we have to draw a line that is the waist circumference divided by 4, just write: waist_circ /4. The program allows us to directly enter the value of the customer’s measurements, or refer to an element that we have already designed. We can then insert the length of a line, curve or corner of the drawing into the formula.
• The program automatically adds the seam allowance. You will set the desired value and voilà, done!
• Some tools of the program are extremely useful, the “True Darts” command allows us to modify the pince so that, when it is sewn, we will obtain a perfect straight line.
• We have the possibility to insert notches, symbols and labels related to specific points. As well as insert the indication of grainline.
• You can print our model using your A4 printer, or with a Plotter, export to PDF, SVG and many other formats.

What else could we want from free software?

 

Weaknesses and new features on the way

The program still has some weaknesses.

Layout and printing are still difficult to set up and understand, for this reason a new “Puzzle” software is being developed, which will allow you to manually set the “placement” of the various parts of the model.

If we want to create drawings that maintain perfect curves when changing each measurement, without having to modify the curve manually, it is necessary to use some mathematical formulas that may be a bit complicated at first glance.

On the blog, we can read that some new features will be introduced soon in version 7.0.0 of Valentina, including the possibility of inserting a watermark on our patterns.

Useful information

Here  you will find the project site, where you can download the program.

There is a Blog where you can keep up to date with the latest news, unfortunately it is in Russian, but automatic translation works just fine.

The official English manual was also recently released. It costs € 21.23. You can download a preview of the PDF HERE. The manual is full of images and delves deeper into the concepts covered in the wiki page. Subsequent revisions of the instructions following program updates are free. To purchase it you can contact the creator via TELEGRAM or Email (dismine@gmail.com). 

Let me know what you think of this software.

If you are interested in tutorials or have any questions about the program and its use, write to me in the comments or send me an email, I’ll be happy to answer you!