This question has been asked of us a lot lately. I have said previously that you can use old newspapers or cut paper grocery bags and spread them out to make the patterns. Then, one day I was out of town at my cousin’s house working on a pattern for a member of the family. Without any pattern paper handy, I tried what I’ve suggested – tried the newspapers — YIKES! I could hardly tell where my lines were with all the newsprint. So, we cut and taped together paper grocery bags – that was a little better, but took a bit of doing to get enough bags cut and taped RIGHT so I could make all the pattern pieces. I’m here to tell you — as I told my cousin — the ONLY pattern paper I use, and now recommend it to everyone (don’t want anymore of you going through what happened at my cousins house)! I use Pellon’s Easy Pattern 830 pattern paper. It is 45″ wide and is even washable and dryable. Once your pattern is made you can keep it forever as this pattern paper doesn’t tear! Here is what it looks like:
I love Pellon products, and figured I would answer everybody that has the “where do I find pattern paper?” question at the same time!
And while we’re on the subject of making patterns – you’ll also need a “curved” tool. You can use a French Curve if you have one, but our Curved Ruler was made specifically for pattern making projects.
Happy sewing and pattern making! I’m hoping these two items will make your projects much easier!
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I bought the paper by the dozen. I got it at Betty Mills. It’s the paper doctors use on their tables. It’s sturdy and it’s cheap.
There’s also a really great product called Swedish Tracing Paper. It’s like a lightweight sew-in interfacing, flexible and thin, sheer enough that you can trace with it easily, yet strong enough that you can draw on it, pin it, sew it, etc., without it tearing. (It works best with a soft (2B) mechanical pencil, as hard pencils can sometimes tear the material if you use a heavy hand while drawing or tracing.) It comes in 10-yard rolls, and it’s about 30″ wide, or thereabouts. Amazon usually carries it for around $15/roll. For doll patterns, each roll lasts me about a year, so it’s a good deal!
I draft my own doll patterns (mostly for 16-inch and 22-inch fashion dolls) and I used to use Viva-brand paper towels—they’re more like fabric than regular paper towels, so they worked okay. However, you can’t really trace with paper towels, as they’re not thin enough. And the sheets have to be taped together to create a large enough piece to work with, even when sewing doll patterns. Once I discovered Swedish Tracing Paper, I never looked back! The stuff is marvelous, truly.
That’s another good idea. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! I’ve not tried that before. Thanks for writing.