catherinemadeit: PDF Pattern Printing

Many of you have heard me voice my dislike of PDF patterns. My dislike stem from the fact that upon purchasing the said pattern, you are then directed to print for use. For that reason alone I flat out avoided PDF patterns until now! I have finally found a solution to this dilemma and I am going to talk about three here today.

One PDF pattern 96 pages

First up is Staples who offers Blueprinting service here. You can upload the item you want to be printed and have them printed in three standard sizes 18 x 24, 24 x 36, and 36 x 48 with the pricing starting at $1.79. This is great but because I wasn't always sure of the size to choose and the only way I could be sure is to go to the store, which was an hour drive one way, I admit I have only used their service once, the prints were nice and inexpensive, just one large sheet of what feels like rolled copier paper.

Staples blueprint pattern the crumpled one on the far left

Next up is Patternsy run by a lovely couple Mark and Su in the UK. I had first discovered them through a mention on Instagram, so at the time I had just a few patterns in PDF form, but I had just purchased Sew Liberated's Metamorphic Dress pattern so I uploaded that to be printed. Now they provide, what I call, the Cadillac service of pattern printing. When the pattern arrived folded and in a plastic ziplock. I discovered it was printed on a not too heavy tissue paper. Perfect right, but unfortunately this perfection came at a price £11.40 GBP or $13.29 US which for a pattern that cost $14.95 bringing the total to $28.34 for one pattern, ouch. Way more than I could afford on a regular basis. The silver lining is, I happened to win 50% off of printing on their IG feed by being the first to comment, so I decided to go for it, getting 10 patterns printed at the discounted cost of £35.33 GBP or $46.98. Which when averaged brought the cost per pattern down, also most were free downloads, to about $5.00 per. I discovered they are also able to print tiled patterns and put them together on one sheet like you see below with my very first PDF pattern purchased. As I said the Cadillac pattern printing.

Tova Top and Dress Pattern Tiled pattern

My latest Patternsy haul

My final discovery is PDF Plotting who is located right here in Virginia and have great customer service by way of Mike Barnes, Vice President of Operations. He walked me through all the steps of ordering. Your patterns will have to be AO or print shop ready for them to print, however, they are unable to print the tiled ones. They also have a minimum shipping of $6.99 so I wanted to order enough to justify the shipping. The site is very user-friendly I needed help because unbeknown to me I need to view the patterns in Adobe to find the size and page per pattern, I work on a Chromebook and Adobe is not available as an app. I ordered a total of 10 patterns one of which happened to be the Sorbetto and somehow requested all the sizes. even at that, the cost including shipping was around $15 US. They arrived fast in a cardboard triangle shipping box and in perfect shape.

PDF plotting printed pattern

PDF Plotting Patterns are the three neat printouts to the right

I hope this helps in making a decision on what to do when you love the pattern but don't want to spend time taping 96 pages together BEFORE you can begin to cut out your fabric.

I have also added a few pictures of how I store my patterns once they have been cut and used.

Happy Sewing

Catherine