Digital sewing patterns

Digital sewing patterns are PDFs that you print from your home printer and tile together to create a full size sewing pattern. There are many benefits to using digital sewing patterns…
1. You can print the pattern as many times as you like, enabling you to sew the pattern in various sizes and making aesthetic or fitting alterations to the pattern each time.
2. They are much less expensive compared to envelope pattern since you are not paying for the packaging, shipping, and professional printing.
3. You can sew instantly! Once you have the urge to sew a garment and you have some fabric already in your stash… Simply hop online and download a pattern to print and sew without leaving your home.

How to use digital sewing patterns

What you need : printer, A4 paper, tape, scissors, ruler, pen/pencil, adobe reader

Step 1 : printing the pattern

Before you print the entire pattern you should locate the page within the pattern that has the « test square ». This square is exactly 10cm (3 15/16 ») so you should only print this page first to measure the square to see if your printer is printing the pattern to scale. All printers are different, although we recommended printing the pattern actual size, some printers need shrink or fit in order to print the pattern to scale. So play around with the printer options and see which setting makes the test square 10cm.

Once you print the page with the test square and it measures exactly 10cm you can go ahead and print the entire pattern !

Tiling the pattern

 

After you print the entire pattern you will notice that the first page of the pattern has the tiling layout on it. This will help you understand the full picture of the pattern before you start tiling, and you should keep this at your side as you do. On every sheet of the pattern there are edges with numbers, letters, and triangles. These indicate which sheets go together. PDF patterns often print out in order so you should not have to dig through your paper stack to find corresponding pages.

First you must find the corresponding edge, example being 1a matches with 1a, 1b with 1b etc. First position the edges side by side and you can either :

Fold one edge under exactly on vertical line and t ape to the other page matching up triangle bases and vertical lines

Or you can juste cut one oh the pages on the line and tape t o the other side matching up triangle bases again. Lastly you can simply over lap the pages. Juste make sure you can see through your paper t o make sure things are aligned.

To piece together the rows you can either fold under the side tant has the larger allowance, or overlap the shorter allowance and tape to corresponding row matching up all triangles.

 

Seam allowance and cutting

First before you cut anything out or add any seam allowance you must first determinate what pattern size line you are. Refer again to the pattern intrusions to see which size line design corresponds to which size. Click here to view the Burda Style chart to find our your size !

In most Burda Style patterns seam allowance ar not included, so you have to add it yourself.

 

Drafting pieces not included

Often digital sewing patterns require you to self draft some pieces. Theses pieces are usually the waistbands, bias, strips, ruffles, juste basically any pattern piece that is square or rectangular. Refer to your pattern instructions to see if and what pieces need to be drafted and their dimensions. Here is an exemple :

You can draw the piece dimensions directly on the fabric, just make sure to check in the cutting layout how the piece is placed on the fabric. Or you can draw the pieces on a separate piece of paper and pin to the fabric like all the other pieces. Make sure to check within the instructions to see if the pieces have seam allowance included in the dimensions (they usually do).