Home / Guides

Dressmaker grain quality: line up every piece

Grain quality is how well each pattern piece lines up with the fabric when you cut it, and it's 30% of a commission's quality. Turn every piece until its arrow lies flat, left to right, before you cut, and it gets full marks.

What the grain line is

Every paper pattern piece has an arrow drawn on it. That's the grain line, and the game wants it to lie flat along the roll of fabric:

Tutorial

Aligning the grain line horizontally will result in a higher quality garment.

Use the rotation knob to rotate the pattern piece so it aligns with the horizontal grain line

When you cut a piece, the game shows its grain quality. It's best when the piece's grain line runs along the length of the fabric. On the cross grain a normal piece gets at most 75, and a piece that's too far off gets 0. A bias-cut piece gets full marks either way.

Line up a piece, step by step

1Pick your fabric and a piece

Tutorial

Select the fabric you'd like to use by clicking on it in the sidebar.

To begin cutting, switch to patterns on the sidebar.

Drag your pattern pieces onto the fabric to begin cutting.

2Turn the piece

Click the piece on the fabric and the rotation knob appears on it. Drag the knob for a smooth turn, or roll the mouse wheel for neat steps.

In the cutting room, roll the mouse wheel to turn the selected piece, 9 degrees at a time.
Hold the rotation knob and drag it, and a small label shows the piece's grain quality with one word: Straight, Cross or Bias. On a normal piece, Bias means it's off the grain. On a bias-cut piece, Bias is the word you want and Not Bias means it's off. Let go and the label hides again. Turn a piece with the mouse wheel and the label shows for 2 seconds.

3Watch the arrow

The arrow on the piece you've picked changes colour as you turn it: green on the straight grain, orange on the cross grain, blinking red when it's off. A bias-cut piece blinks red until it lines up, then turns green.

4Cut it out

Tutorial

Now select the scissors and click on the pattern piece to cut it out.

A piece's grain score is set the moment you cut it, from the angle it has right then. Turning or moving it afterwards changes nothing, so check the arrow first. Want a better score? Cut the piece again.

How the grain score works

Grain drops fast as a piece turns away from the line. One click of the mouse wheel off the straight grain (9 degrees) leaves a piece at 88%, and two clicks (18 degrees) at 61%. Past 22.5 degrees it gets 0, unless it's close to the cross grain.
Every piece counts the same in the grain score, big or small. A little cuff matters just as much as a whole skirt panel.
The grain arrow can point either way along the roll. Tip to the left or tip to the right scores the same, so you can turn a piece end to end to fit it into a gap.

Running short of fabric? Players often turn some pieces end to end, so they nest closer together on the roll.

Bias-cut pieces

A few pieces are cut on the bias, the diagonal of the weave. You line them up with the same arrow, and the words on the knob change for them.

23 patterns have bias-cut pieces. On this wiki, each pattern page marks those pieces Bias.

The Bias Cut Skirt is bias-cut all the way round, and the Peter Pan Collar has a bias-cut piece too. You start the game with both.

How much grain counts toward quality

A commission's quality is 30% grain, 20% fit and 50% stitching, rounded. Grain is the average over all the pieces of the dress, and a piece you didn't cut counts as 0.

Without a client, quality is 40% grain and 60% stitching. The game uses this quality for the sell price, for gifts and for the top-quality achievement.
Fabric and accessories never change quality. Quality only looks at the angle each piece was cut at, how close your stitches land and, on a commission, the fit. A cheap fabric scores just as well as a costly one.

Arrows all green and quality still stuck? Look at your seams and the fit: why quality gets stuck.

Prints and patterned fabric

Grain works the same on every fabric: the score only looks at the piece's angle, never at the fabric or its print. The print you see on a cut piece is the patch of fabric that lay under it, turned the way the piece was turned.

Want a print to flow from one piece into the next? The FAQ has a tip for lining up a print.

Fix a piece you cut badly

Changed your mind about a piece? Drag it to the bin before you cut off the used slice. The cut is undone and that fabric is yours to use again.
Once you cut off a used slice, that fabric is gone for good. The bin can still turn the piece back to paper, but those metres never come back.

Already sewn it on? The steps to replace the fabric of one piece work here too: take it off, then cut it again on the grain.

Common mistakes

Pointing the arrow up and down on a normal piece. That's the cross grain, which never gets full marks.
Skipping the small pieces: cuffs, straps and collar pieces count as much as a whole skirt panel.
Taking Bias on the knob as good news on a normal piece. It means the piece is off the grain.
Trying to fix the angle after the cut. Too late, the score is already set.

Need a lower quality for a line with a maximum, like the one Not Haughty has? Turn a piece or two off the grain on purpose. The quality guide has more on that commission, and here's what "max" means.