The Pattern Drafting Sessions.
Learn to draft your own blocks and bring your creative visions to life
Passionate about sewing and eager to bring your design ideas to life? Join us for a series of pattern drafting classes focused on the bodice, pants block and dart manipulation.
This summer 2026, join us for the Denim workshop series with Zoe.
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Draft your pants block from scratch and manipulate it to create a 5 pockets jeans. Zoe will guide you through the whole process, from taking your measurements to adjust and fit your muslin.
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After drafting your block and creating your pattern, join us to sew your pair of jeans. Zoe will share her tips and industry techniques to make the pair of your dreams!
If you haven’t followed the previous class, you are welcome to bring a commercial pattern.
Draft your Pants & jeans construction
Have you ever wondered how a workroom develops patterns for garments? Have you searched high and low for the perfect pair of jeans, only to come up empty-handed? Maybe you have an idea for a wild design that has yet to be unleashed. Whatever the motivation, the Jean Block Building & Construction Workshop Series is for you.
Zoe takes her experience in fashion education and breaks traditional pattern making systems down in a way that requires no prior fashion industry knowledge. Her approach focuses more on how cloth responds to the body’s movement and proportions rather than relying solely on rigid drafting formulas.
Series I — Jean Block Drafting & Fit
How to take lower body measurements
How measurements relate to flat pattern making techniques
How to draft a custom jean block from scratch
The differences between trouser fit and jean fit
How to create and sew a sample toile
How to identify and correct fit issues
How to transfer corrections back to the original draft
How to create a finalized hard copy block for future use
How to transform their block into a traditional 5-pocket jean pattern with their own design twist
Students will walk away with a personalized jean block, fitted toile, and finalized jean pattern that can be used repeatedly as the foundation for future garment designs.
Series II — Jean Construction
How to construct a pair of jeans using their custom pattern from Series I
The differences between jeans construction and standard trouser construction
How to sew a zipper fly, exposed button fly, or hidden fly
Industry sewing techniques used in denim production
How to apply topstitching techniques commonly found in jeans
How rivets, hardware, and construction details contribute to fit and durability
What makes jeans “jeans” versus simply denim pants
Students will walk away with a deeper understanding of denim construction techniques and the knowledge needed to continue developing and constructing their own custom garments.
Class details:
Start date: July 12th
Schedule: every Sunday mornings for 2 weeks/3 hours
Cost: $550
Student level: you should know how to use a machine and have pants construction experience.
About your instructor
Zoe Cobb is a fashion educator, designer, and owner of Atelier IV, a high-end drapery and soft goods workroom based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her career began in 2006 as a lab technician at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where she had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn from highly esteemed colleagues who had worked with designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen, as well as tailors from London’s famous Savile Row.
In 2018, Zoe joined the faculty at California College of the Arts, where she currently teaches pattern making, draping, and sewing courses. Alongside her teaching practice and work at Atelier IV, her personal work is deeply rooted in slow fashion, repair, and traditional fiber arts, including screen printing, chainstitch embroidery, knitting, crochet, and natural dyeing using plants grown in her own garden.
Her approach to draping and pattern making breaks traditional systems down in a way that focuses more on how cloth responds to the body’s movement and proportions.
