Ooooh - what does this button do?

Usually, I'm the kind of person that reads the manual first and then tries to figure things out. Problem is, I don't seem to be able to track down proper manuals for all those 3D programs we need to make 'proper' stuff for TSR.  Recolouring is nice, but sometimes I would like to make things from scratch.  Frustrating, to say the least :P  I made a maxi-skirt  and it looks quite nice, but when the Sim runs, it looks like those 70's bellbottom flaired trousers (yes, I did wear them in that day and age and yes, that kind of custardy yellow - the batiks were used in t-shirts, mostly :D) so I'm still trying to figure out what went wrong there.

Patterns - another thing, I made a few, but I'm still not satisfied.  Redo from start that one... 

Another project were curtains.  The weird thing is that they look good in the download, but the moment you place them in a lot and want to save the pattern/recolour them, the pattern is gone and you have just a grey blob O.o  I noticed that with some stuff too that the moment it goes in your storage (when you move for example) it reverts to its original product.

All in all, lots to learn still :D  I'm starting now with a little 10-hour crash course on CS3.  Going to check the net for some weblearning too - I heard about AutoCAD, maybe I can try that ;)  Like my grandma always said:"You have to keep on learning your whole life long, otherwise your brain dies off!" ;)