With the thousands of patterns—not to mention clothes—available for sale, why would you bother to duplicate an existing garment? Because you love it. It fits your body just the way you like. It has all the design details you prefer. As a sewist, you have the ability to make clothing that fulfills your needs and wants exactly: This frees you from the disappointments of ready-to-wear purchases. If you’re aiming to make a wardrobe that reliably works for you, you’ll want to duplicate clothes that have proven to be old friends, suiting your personal aesthetic and lifestyle. I’ll demonstrate one method for copying a garment, to get you started. My example garment is a darted camisole—a versatile and simple wardrobe staple.

Three ways to clone

The most obvious way to duplicate a garment is to disassemble it, trace the pieces, and make a pattern from them. However, you may not want to take your beloved clothes apart, and there is really no need to do so. There are three methods for copying the item without unstitching it at all.

First, you can try direct measuring. This is best for simple shapes, such as gathered skirts, or small elements such as rectangular cuffs, waistbands, or button plackets.

Next, you can trace the garment. This is the method I use most often, as it accommodates most garment elements easily. You fold the garment in half, anchor it to a pinnable surface, and trace around each section. There’s usually some finessing of layers, but once you’ve tried it, you’ll know how to isolate and flatten the areas you want to trace. I’ll demonstrate tracing in this article.

The most involved approach is via overdraping—sometimes called the rub-off technique—in which you mold lightweight fabric over…