Great question!
There's a few things you need to know before diving into your first sewing pattern.
Printing & assembly:
Printing
For Planet Peach patterns, you should print the pattern at 100% scale. Start by printing the first page and ensure that the square on this page is the correct size. This way you ensure that there are no distortions or cut offs.
Assembly
For Planet Peach patterns, you should assemble the paper pieces by not cutting off any margins and not overlapping any paper. This makes the pattern assembly process much fast since you won't have to cut off small margins on every paper piece.
Terminology:
Cut on fold
Sometimes you will see icon on the edge of a pattern piece, what does this mean?
This means you should cut that specific pattern piece while having the fabric folded. This will create one large fabric piece that is symmetrical. This will often happen if you are given a half of a front and back piece and be written as "cut 1 on fold". Then you will cut one large piece which will be symmetrical of your pattern piece.
Grainline & bias
If I see this arrow on a pattern piece. What does this mean?
Great question!
This indicates the direction of the pattern piece. Every fabric has a "grainline," sometimes it will be straight up and down following the same direction as the lines of the fabric. Sometimes this will indicate that the fabric piece should be cut on the bias of the fabric.
Now what does "bias of the fabric" mean?
The "bias" is the diagonal grainline of the bias. This is typically more flexible and will give that specific pattern piece more stretch. If you are asked to cut bias tape on the fabric's bias it is very important that you do this, since it is necessary to have this extra flexibly and stretch to have a smooth sitting fabric piece. This is most important for "woven" fabrics (cutting on the bias is not always necessary with knitted fabrics, since the fabric already has stretch). You can try at home to stretch your woven fabric vertically and horizontally, and then try to stretch it diagonally. This will show that the fabric will have much more stretch on the bias.
Facing
Sometimes you will see that a pattern piece will say "cut 2 facing", what does this mean?
This means you should cut 2 of those pattern pieces but the pieces should be mirrored. The two pieces should not be identical, rather they will end up as the mirrored version of each other.
If you have any other questions, feel free to send a message!