Why is it that in neither Dress Shop nor MPD I cannot do a fishtail design where the skirt flare occurs at the kneecap? Because I make fancy dresses for nieces I need that ability to reduce the amount of hand drawing and time required to produce such a pattern.

Hi Mr Pat
I'm not sure what length you are making the dresses but the longer the skirt length the better the result you'll get. I started with #122623 -
Women's Fitted Waist Skirt with Trumpet Skirt, Natural Waist and Vee Hemline.
Length = floor,
On the Shaping and Finish options set Skirt Flare pivot = Waist to knee measurement; then set the Skirt flare degrees. Play around with the Hemline and added length options for the curved back and front and you may be able to get a bit closer.
The trick is the Trumpet skirt and the length of the skirt.
The degree of flare required has to have room to be calculated without making the garment impossible to sew.
This also works with the Gored Trumpet skirt.

Hope this helps.

SNIPPET: I'm not sure what length you are making the dresses but the longer the skirt length the better the result you'll get. I started with #122623 -
Women's Fitted Waist Skirt with Trumpet Skirt, Natural Waist and Vee Hemline.
Length = floor,

Floor length using the sheath dress that is a built in pattern that comes with the program. If there is a pattern that I should be able to make that modification to in the program then I should be able to make that modification. Dress Shop Pro has the same issue, the flare point cannot be changed from the waist.

Hi Mr Pat

In order to do this you need to be using a Trumpet skirt pattern. I rarely use DS any more (moved to MPD) so I'm not sure what is available there.
Trumpet and Slinky are the ones that allow you to specify the flare start point (pivot) and flare angle.

Hope this helps.

In a well written design program I would not have to splice patterns together to achieve the desired design.