Small Business Saturday: Digitizing Patterns – Getting Your Patterns Ready To Sell
- At May 03, 2014
- By Kelly
- In Sewing Business
0
This post is part of a weekly series – Small Business Saturdays.
You have a great pattern, you have used it for your child and now you have made it in different sizes and want to sell it! How do you plan to distribute it? Paper copies or pdf files?
If you are planning to sell paper copies of your hand drawn patterns, you will need to either digitize the drawing on a large format scanner at the copy shop so you can have the copy shop mail out the patterns (if they offer such a service), or you will need to make copies to mail out. Will you have enough? What if you need to tweak the pattern after you have made 50 copies? Well, then you will have a lot of large doodle paper for your kids. Yikes!
Today we are going to focus on pdf patterns.
Pdf patterns are popular because they offer instant gratification to the modern seamstress. Delivered via email or instant download, a pattern can be purchased and then printed at home – some assembly required. Plus, they make it easier for you to send the files to testers. The US Mail system is great, but it never runs slower than when you are waiting for something!
This photo by Jürgen Schiller García is used under Creative Commons license.
How do you get that big pattern you have drawn out onto all those pages of a pdf?
To do this, you will need a scanner and some kind of editing software. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are great, but if you do not already have one of those, you might want to check out InkScape or GIMP. Both GIMP and Inkscape are free, and are worth trying if you do not already own the Adobe products.
If you follow Sewing Mamas on Twitter, you may have noticed I posted a few links that showed how to make your own pdf patterns from your hand drawn patterns. These are all great tutorials, so I am going to link them up here:
BurdaStyle – Create a Print-at-Home Pattern PDF
Sewing In No Man’s Land – Making Your Pattern: Digitizing Your Pattern
Spoonflower – How to Digitize Your Sewing Patterns
Here are a few quick tips for your pattern pieces.
Be sure to check the links above, as they include even more helpful pointers.
1) Include a test square to check size.
Make sure to put 1″ square to verify printing on a page that contains a piece that will be used for all sizes of the pattern so someone does not have to waste paper and ink on a page they would not otherwise need.
2) Make sure fold lines and grainlines are clearly noted.
(part of an Oliver+S Pattern – so lovely!)
3) Each pattern piece should be clearly marked with who/what/how many.
Pattern pieces tend to wander off from time to time. Labeling them can help get them back in their proper folder.
- Who made the pattern?
- What is the name of the pattern, and if the pattern has been through revisions since its initial release, which version is this?
- What piece is this?
- How many of the piece are you cutting and from what material(s)?
- If you are not overlapping sizes, include the size on the piece. (Tip: Use layers to create your pattern so users can opt to print just one size.)
4) When you are done, print all the pattern pieces. Check that they all go together like you think they do.
Once you have your pattern digitized, you will want to make sure your directions are clear.