how-to ·

How To: Buy PDF Patterns From Us

Yes, Spool & Spindle Printshop now sells PDF patterns directly! You can buy your pattern and printing all at once, saving you time and money.

First thing first: yes, this is legit. We use an app called Replic, which was created by a woman in Waterloo, Ontario, who we have met in person. She deals directly with designers and makes sure they are real people too, before listing their patterns on the app.

They broker a deal between us and the designer to wholesale their PDF patterns. We know there are scams out there, so we want you to know that we pay the designer for every copy of every pattern that we sell. If a designer changes their mind, or decides not to less us sell their patterns, their patterns are automatically removed from our site.

Don't worry, we will always let you send us PDF patterns that you purchased from any designer, to print at Spool & Spindle. But there are several reasons why you might want to buy the pattern through us instead.

  • First, it's easier. You don't have to upload the A0 or CopyShop file on our site, since we already have it. You don't have to guess how many pages there are, we already calculated that into the price. And you can still provide us with notes about sizes to print or any other changes or questions.
  • Plus, it's cheaper. We provide a discounted rate on the printing portion when you buy a PDF pattern with printing on our site. So the overall cost looks high, but it's less than if you bought a full-price pattern elsewhere, then full-price printing from us.

To buy a PDF pattern from us:

  • Browse our patterns on our site or MyNextMake (details on that below). You can filter by designer or garment type.
  • Choose your paper type: we have regular (20lb), lightweight (18lb) and tracing (8lb) papers. For more info about each paper type, check out the description of each one here. You can also buy just the PDF and have it printed later, at any copyshop or at home, but you won't get the discounted printing rate.
  • Some patterns have size and style options. In almost all cases*, buying the PDF pattern gets you all of the files for all styles, versions, and size ranges. But there might be a choice of which one to print. So check if there's a dropdown selector and look at the pattern details to choose which one(s) you want to print.
  • If you would like more than one size range or style printed and the combination you want isn't listed, choose one option, and include a note about any others you'd like as well. We will invoice you for any additional pages at the discounted rate. Please don't order the pattern twice: you will get 2 copies of the PDF and we are not able to refund you for that.
  • If you know that you only want some sizes printed, you can include a note about that. If the pattern has colour, we will print in colour.
  • Same as for printing your previously-purchased patterns, you can add multiple items to your cart, so they can be shipped or picked up together.

*The exception to this is Merchant and Mills, where there are separate products for each size range. For these patterns, you will only receive PDF files for the size range chosen.

 

When you check out, several things happen all at once:

  • The Replic app automatically emails you a link to download all the pattern files.
  • We pay the designer their agreed fee.
  • Then we print the large-format version of your patterns and send them off to you.

 

It's that easy!

As for finding a pattern, we can help with that too, whether we sell the pattern or not! There are tens of thousands of sewing patterns out there in the world, and even on our site we have hundreds to choose from.

Our solution, which you may have read about before, is a website called My Next Make. We compiled a giant database (over 6,000 and counting!) of patterns by independent designers, then added some great filtering tools. The pattern designers listed are, as far as we know, real people with experience making sewing patterns. Our links go directly to the designers (not scammers). 

On the site, we have added a tag so you can filter to patterns that we sell, and there's also a dedicated page for our patterns. So you can use those awesome filtering tools to sift through the patterns that we sell directly. 

On each pattern page, the main link still goes to the designer's page. But there's also a button to go directly to the Spool & Spindle page for that pattern, to see your options and price.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us anytime, at info@spoolandspindle.com.

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