Lutterloh System The Golden Rule Patterns

I remember as a kid overhearing mom and her good friend Estela being amazed at a Lutterloh System pattern drafting class they had been to. This would not have made any sense to most kids. But I enjoyed sewing and it made sense to me. At the class, they were taught how to make full size clothing patterns, in any size, from a miniature pattern no bigger than a playing card. Wow indeed.

They did purchase the system. Neither of them was frivolous in their spending. They both had budgets to stick to and carefully considered the purchase of the Lutterloh System. It was not cheap. I honestly do not know what they paid at the time. That was in the 1970’s. Today, in 2021, the system costs between $150-$220 depending on features chosen.

I don’t know if mom lost that original system but she purchased a new one in 2002. As mom and dad lived with me many years, she and I happily shared our stash of fabrics, patterns, sewing machines and notions. I always thought the yellow box labeled “The Golden Rule” in many languages was her 1970’s system. I discovered today that it is not. While the box itself shows a copyright date of 1974, the patterns inside (supplement 244) show that the collection is from 2002. No wonder the whole thing looks great. Not to mention that the patterns are for fashions popular in 2002. DUH me.

Mom always spoke amazingly about the system and the many possibilities. But I don’t know if she ever made anything using those patterns. She passed away a few years back so I’m not able to check. I miss our chats and our shared love of sewing. My sister never cared for sewing. She figured mom and I could handle that for her LOL. So when mom passed away I kept all the sewing stuff. That yellow box now sits with my pattern collection. The plan is to put it to use. I’m going to cut myself some slack and just commit to making 1 item before 2021 ends. *Update – I wrote this post in 2021 but didn’t publish it til 2022. I haven’t yet used the Golden Rule system to make anything, but it’s still on my radar.

Here’s a close up of one of the pattern pieces. The number sequence on the left of the pattern card shows 024402. The first 0 is just a leading 0. I’m guessing the company is just ready for when the supplements get to the thousands, instead of the hundreds, and they need another digit. The 244 is the supplement number. The 02 at the end refers to the month the supplement came out. In this case, February. They come out with quarterly supplements in February, May, August and November of each year. You can see the year of my supplement in the Roman numerals MMII, or 2002. For a detailed history and details of Lutterloh’s supplements, check out this post