I had a little nudge yesterday from Sarah about a
PDF pattern that I'd had my eye on. Turns out it all SewHouseSeven pattern were still 25% off but something held me back. Being a dungaree/bibs pattern, I knew it would take a lot of paper to print and I already have a stack of patterns printed on A4 waiting to be assembled.
I have been curious about the growing online print shop services starting in the UK that offer copyshop AO size printing- when I've looked at this locally, the service has been difficult to find and when I did find it, very expensive.
Jenny from Cashmerette wrote a very helpful post,
How to Print PDF Copyshop Files Cheaply with services listed for different countries, including the UK. I looked at them all and after weighing up costs,
netprinter.co.uk looked like the cheapest option for a few patterns. It's also relatively near to me and I was hoping that the printed patterns would arrive quickly- they did, less than 24 hours! Cost is £0.75 per print (AO size and b/w). There's a minimum spend of £5 for printing so I went through my Dropbox PDF patterns and found any with Copyshop options that were in my making queue. Some of these I have already printed on A4 paper and they have not yet been assembled so instead I will reuse that paper on other printing. I had 8 sheets in total to print from various patterns, total cost £10.80 including £3 postage and 20%VAT on printing.
The sheer relief of not having to stick the Bibs patterns together meant I cut and prepped the pattern pieces very quickly- the highlighter is used on dots and any info like seam allowance changes. The pattern notchers make cutting out those triangles quicker and neater plus make it easier to transfer the markings to fabric and were a cheapo £2 buy from Amazon. You do need to take care loading the correct file. I loaded the wrong file for dress pattern so I'll have to go back to my A4 print out for that but otherwise, it was excellent value for money. I'm not sure when the postage increases for weight but 8 paper sheets were neatly folded and arrived in an envelope. I'll definitely use this service again in the future! Now to get on with the Burnside Bibs, my sewing plan for the weekend...
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I've been thinking for a while about using an internet service like this to get patterns printed on A0. Just wondering whether you find printing in B&W is adequate? I'm worried that it'll be confusing if I don't have the colour coding... Hope you don't mind me asking for your thoughts x
ReplyDeleteHi Rosie, when I print at home I have a B/W laser printer so it's always been like that for me. I guess it depends on how the pattern designer has differentiated their lines. Most of the patterns I use are B/W and I prefer the dotted/dashed line variations for sizing to colour options. Colour printing would push the price up quite a lot I think.
DeleteThank you! I think I'll try it with a couple of patterns and see how I get on x
DeleteThank you for this, I've just ordered my first PDF patterns from Netprinter. Fingers crossed it all goes ok - will make life a lot easier!
ReplyDeleteReally helpful post, thank you
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