Problems With Printed Sewing Patterns
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The big 4 pattern company just filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and it’s highlighting the problem with printed sewing patterns.
Who are the Big 4
Big 4 pattern company is Simplicity, McCall’s, Butterick, and Vogue. They were purchased by a private equity firm called Design Group America’s back in January of 2020. Following acquisition, the company faced supply chain issues as did everyone affected by lockdowns.
Trickle down problems
Supply chain issues were followed by a huge blow to the sewing community. This blow came when Design Group decided to shut down the only wide format tissue pattern printing press in America, which was owned by McCall’s. A smaller Chicago facility was opened. But, the new facility required larger minimum purchases and didn’t offer as many paper options. Larger minimums pushed small indie pattern companies out of the market for being able to print on lightweight tissue paper.
High costs coupled with larger minimums made small indie pattern companies shift to creating digital sewing patterns. Then, Joann closed.
The closure of Joann’s was yet another blow to the sewing community. But, it was more of a problem for Design Group because printed sewing patterns were sold via Joann. In addition, the business had other products exclusively sold in the store. It was a huge financial blow.
So, Design Group sold their brand off to a liquidation firm called Hilco Capitol. Hilco Capitol has filed Design Group for chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is being said that this filing will allow Design Group to offload brands Hilco deems unprofitable. There may be a future still for printed sewing patterns.
But, there are other problems.
Fewer people are buying printed sewing patterns from the big four because indie patterns offer more sizes and better instructions. Likewise, the big four don’t produce many new patterns anymore. It is like they just dig into archives and repackage old patterns from 25+ years ago. Lack of printed pattern desirability coupled increased costs has set the printed sewing pattern industry on fire.
So, where do we go from here.
Folks are turning to other alternatives from using printed sewing patterns. The alternatives include:
- Print shops
- Vinyl cutters
- Pattern projectors
Print Shops
PDF pattern can be printed on a home printer and tiled together. But quite frankly, its a pain. So, there are all these large format printers now set up to print off your pdf pattern onto one large sheet. This eliminates the need to tile little pieces of 8×11 paper together. But, it adds costs on top of the price everyone pays for patterns. You’d think PDF patterns would be cheaper. Honestly, they are not!
Likewise, the overwhelming majority of garment patterns need alteration. This means a sewists still needs to trace of the pattern before cutting fabric. It’s not ideal, but still better than printing at home.
Vinyl cutters
In the past, vinyl cutters were exclusively used for cutting t-shirt vinyl. But now, many users are using the vinyl cutter to trace off patterns. It traces the pattern for you and eliminates the hassle. However, 99% of PDF patterns aren’t set up for printing on a vinyl cutter.
So, the user has to use a program like Inkscape to delete all unneeded sizes and markings before sending it over to the vinyl cutter. This process is often very time consuming. Likewise, vinyl cutters are noisy and take up a lot of space. So, the vinyl option is cool. But, it cannot work for everyone.
Pattern Projectors
Projectors are the most popular alternative to printed sewing patterns. They are small and easy to fit within a confined space and are most likely to be the future sewists choice. As of the time of this article, however, pattern companies haven’t caught up with this trend.
A large number of PDF patterns aren’t projector ready and need a grid added before any printing can take place. Also, you’ll often find yourself removing unnecessary sizes from the pattern. There are a few companies who do all the prep work for you, but not very many at the present moment.
In addition to having to set up files for use, users often complain about needing to adjust the projector so the pattern displays in actual size. An off projection means your pattern won’t get cut out correctly. So it’s very important to make sure the grid is at 100% and aligned with your cutting mat grid before starting a project.
It doesn’t look good
The future of printed sewing patterns looks very bleak. But hopefully, the alternatives will get better as technology advances.
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