Saturday 21 April 2012

FREE patterns

When Red Kitty began sewing a few years ago, she was totally clueless to the world of patterns and corresponding COST.  In the days before austerity, she would think nothing of spending £14.99 on a single Vogue pattern - oh those were the days! Meeow!!!!

Then she wised up.

Advice: Scan your favourite catalogues and note the pattern numbers you like the look of. Wait for a sale and buy those babies at half-price for your stash.
Find out where FREE patterns live, download and print them from the internet. Even if you don't like the whole pattern or style, download it anyway, I guarantee there is a sleeve, collar or pocket which will come in handy one day.

Burdastyle.com have a whole section of free patterns - hundreds in fact - drafted by fellow crafters. From dresses to coats and purses to yoga bags, you can build a whole wardrobe provided you're not fussy about having a particular style. You must register a brief profile before you can download but after that it's plain sailing!

Free patterns available via Burdastyle.com

Bernina - yes they of the sewing machines - offer a small range of free dress patterns, all of which are quite lovely! They also have random stuff like an egg warmer pattern (?).
Downloading is simply 'one-click' no registration needed.

Dress and bag pattern both free at Bernina

Lekala, a well-established Russian pattern company, offer many free patterns for download. However, they are all 'made-to-measure', i.e. a fixed size (I think UK size 8-10) so if you are larger you'll need to grade it to fit. Cutting a muslin for Lekala is essential, as you'll only get to your size this way. Some lovely designs on offer so worth a try if you are feeling thrifty and experimental.
Tutorial on grading here - http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/4368/making-sense-of-pattern-grading/page/all


Free dress pattern available at Lekala

Collette.com offer a cute summer blouse for free download called 'The Sorbetto Top'. A little 1950's chic, perfect for that 1 metre of fabric you just don't know what to do with. It's a winner!

50's style Sorbetto top, free to download 

Happy sewing!

Meeow for now...
RKx

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