I found myself taping together a PDF pattern yesterday and as usual I found myself swearing and grumping the whole time!
Now I HATE them, but some people seem to LOVE them so I thought I;d make a list of reasons I hate them in case anyone can give me some tips to make it easier so I can start to love them!
1. I have to save them on my computer. Which basically means I'm banishing it to the depths of hell. I can pretty much guarantee as soon as I save something I can never find it again ever!!!
2. Then I have to print it. Now maybe its just me but my printer HATES me! Like Rikki wants to print something and its fine but as soon as I want to print its like "eh nah?". It needs ink, it needs paper, it needs aligning, It doesn't know what it needs but its not happy. The dammed thing drives me CRAZY.
3. They use a lot of paper. Now I wouldn't consider myself a hard core environmentalist but I hate wasting paper and huge amounts of paper are wasted printing off pdf patterns. I for one never print the instructions because it seems like a waste. [Although thinking about it their is also a lot of waste with paper patterns!]
4. I have to tape it together. Now this poses two problems for me. One I have to find the sellotape which is pretty hard because for some reason my house is the place sellotape comes to hide and two no matter how carefully I cut and stick the bloody thing always ends up wonky and that the lines don't match up.
5. After I've spent lord knows how long trying to get those lines to match up and taped it together, I then have to cut it all up...... Facepalms. Everything that I spent ages making straight its now in a big pile on the floor waiting for the bin.
6. Then I finally get to sew it which is OBVIOUSLY the fun part but after that I have to fold up sheets of paper which are way more bulky than tissue paper.
7. AND PDFS patterns are still pretty expensive to say you have to do most of the work!
So do you love or hate patterns?
Much Love
Frankie
x
I agree totally with you. This kind of pattern are a pain in my neck. And with printing and paper it is not cheaper than a comun pattern. To make me feel better about the waste of paper I cut the remants of paper in nice pieces to write my grocery lists on it.
ReplyDeleteOh that's a good idea for the scrap bits of paper! X
DeleteI write my shopping lists on the leftover paper scraps for the same reason too! One benefit of PDFs over paper though are that you can be more fearless about hacking and tweaking the fit, as you can always reprint if it goes wrong! Plus it makes it easier to make the pattern for someone else in a different size. Agree with all your negative points though!
ReplyDeleteYes that is one of the good points that you can just keep reprinting x
DeletePritstick. Use paper glue instead of sellotape. Easier to align, you can slide it around a bit before it dries and it folds a lot easier than taped paper. I have a special folder for PDF paper patterns although OH suggests keeping them pegged together on hangers so they don't need to be folded so much but I don't have the space for that. But glue changed how I felt about paper patterns. However I agree they are far too expensive for what they are.
ReplyDeleteI'd have never thought of using a glue stick I'll try it for next time x
DeleteI can solve a couple of problems for you by suggesting using Google drive or similar to save them with a helpful file name so uou can search for it. Alao get them printed on A0 paper although that does then take away my favourite part of how instantaneous they are and adds to the cost...
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of having them printed the a0 but that just adds more expense onto the pattern!! I do love how instant they are too though x
DeleteFunny post. Why? Because I can SEW sympathize. Computers, printers, and patterns hate me, too. At least your new bag turned out great!!
ReplyDeleteI always think if technologies involved things take twice as long!!!
DeleteI try to avoid them as much as I can but I am a sucker for a Free pattern unfortunately! Jo xxx
ReplyDeleteI love a free pattern!! I always end up printing them off!!! X
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