Patterns & Freezer Paper

re-usable for garment patterns?

T.

Lots of companies have done that for years. It's especially nice if the bottom of you is far bigger than the top of you. You can trace the pattern to fit both parts of you!

Or, if you're buying a pattern for kids, one pattern will work for more than one child.

Donna in Idaho

My pattern collection now includes one that set me back $18. It really took my breath away but nobody died. What was annoying was that it took more than an hour just to separate which pieces went with which view and size and then trim it. No wonder most folks simply abandoned sewing clothing. While the quilt pattern creators have figured out that busy folks need every way possible to save time, the clothing pattern makers don't seem to have a clue how precious our sewing time is. IMHO, of course. Polly

OUCH! I guess I won't whine about $10 for a slipper pattern...... but I am certainly disgruntled about having to pay that much for one piece of tissue paper and have all the sizes lumped together! And you're right.... it took me longer to separate, trace and re-assemble the pieces than it did to actually sew the slippers!

Patti in Seattle

(Polly=A0Esther) wrote: My pattern collection now includes one that set me back $18. It really took my breath away but nobody died. What was annoying was that it took more than an hour just to separate which pieces went with which view and size and then trim it. No wonder most folks simply abandoned sewing clothing. =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0While the quilt pattern creators have figured out that busy folks need every way possible to save time, the clothing pattern makers don't seem to have a clue how precious our sewing time is. IMHO, of course. Polly

That's what they do with clothing patterns too.

Same reason so many companies make the patterns out of the most fragile materials possible and include instructions that will pretty much destroy the pattern if you follow them precisely, so that you only get one use out of the pattern. Many companies operate on the assumption that if you want to make more than one garment you ought to buy more than one pattern. Like that is gonna actually happen!

NightMist

Oh...I was trying to figure out how it could be reusable if it was fully ironed on

T.

Pat > Sure! Tissue paper patterns are reusable

I use plastic grocery bags to trace my patterns. I cut them open and tape them together where needed (patterns for me are necessarily quite big). Next, I trace the required size pattern onto the plastic using a sharpie pen. (It's not difficult: you smooth all the air out from beneath the plastic and it sticks to the paper pattern!) In this way, I never need to cut my paper patterns.

The advantages of the plastic are:

- it costs nothing! ;-D

- it folds up very flatly to be stored in a ziploc bag with the original pattern

- when using it, I rarely need to pin. Smoothing it onto the fabric causes air pressure to hold it nicely in place. Sometimes, I use bananas to secure it around armscyes etc...

- it's easy enough to wipe off mistakes and you can easily tape on more plastic if you need to make alterations to the original

- you can write merrily all over it if you want

- it's very easy to cut and doesn't seem to bother my scissors as much as paper does!

I have to add that when I was first told of this method, I scoffed. I thought: 'I'm not mucking around cutting open plastic bags. It's simpler just to use interfacing or tracing paper!'

Hah! Plastic is *much* easier to handle than either of those and the pin-free aspect suits me fine!

LOL, Trish, thank you. I have used some strange things to hold a pattern in place, especially fabric that I didn't want to 'pin mark' but never bananas. My first stop at the grocery is for a bunch of bananas. They do a very fine job of holding my shopping list. Polly

"Trish Brown" wrote >I use plastic grocery bags to trace my patterns. I cut them open and

I aways traced my patterns on to light weight interfacing Trish ( when the kids were little and 'Topkids' was available) but never thought of plastic bags Trish. Much better that the newspaper that mum used for the Enid Gilchrist patterns that she used for all of our clothes ...LOL

At $12 a kilo can't afford to use bananas as weights :-(

Dee in Oz

Trish Brown wrote:

Last time I went to buy a coconut they were $5 apiece. I have been told that they are considerablely less expensive in your part of planet. So I imagine I will stick to mostly making nummy banana cream pies, while you make the nummy coconut cream pies. That way we have it covered.

NightMist Got 5 pounds (about 2.25 kg) of bananas for $2.50 on manager's clearance last week. Banana cream pie and banana-nut bread, oh yeah!

Holy Cow Dee..... $12 a kilo???? That's pretty ridiculous!! But..... I'd love some of Nightmist's banana cream pie! My grandma used to make some kind of something - don't know what it's called - layering vanilla wafers, sliced bananas and vanilla pudding, with just the perfect meringue on top..... ohhhh it was divine (she made her own pudding!).

Patti in Seattle

Yuppers - $10 per kilo down here. Since Cyclone Larry (?) dropped by our banana growing regions and devastated them you are lucky to even SEE a banana. My poor kids are in withdrawal as they absolutely lived off them. Me too come to think of it. All this talk has made the cravings come......

I bought two bananas this week - at $14.55 per kilo!!!! I am not sure I can bring myself to eat them at that price.

ah.. but *not* eating them would make them even more expensive!

and here I was thinking that 2.99 euros (USD 3,50 approx) was dear - I'd send you some but they would be either black or deceased by the time they arrived :-(

Well ours are about £1 per kilo, so I guess we're lucky. I am rich in bananas and did not know it. Hmm. I suppose I could start selling them on Ebay......

-- Jo in Scotland