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| Part of my 'modern and reissues' collection |
I'm no doubt late to the party on this, but I only discovered yesterday that the end is nigh for tissue patterns, in Britain at least. Once shops have sold the patterns they have in stock, there will be no more. The good news is that the Big4 pattern brands were bought out of the liquidation of their parent group. The bad news is that they are now, in effect, a small 'indie' company looking for ways to cut costs. And one way is to not have the expenses of printing and retail pattern distribution outside the U.S.
Patterns will still be available to buy in the UK from the Sew Direct website, but as PDFs only. As far as I can tell, these will be at the same price as the tissue patterns still on sale elsewhere; which seems a bit of a cheek given that the purchaser now has to provide the paper, ink, tape and assembly time. If, like me, you tend to swear at PDF patterns rather than by them, Sew Direct also offers a printing option - although with prices starting at £4.99, and more for larger patterns, it could add a hefty increase to the cost.
As I wrote in my post last summer, this won't really affect me as I almost never buy patterns which are in print. My recent 1986 dress was wildly up-to-the-minute by my standards, and I recently bought a 1990s pattern which feels positively avant-garde! Plus, like many experienced sewists, I have a large collection of paper patterns, and the skills to adapt them if needed. But for a would-be beginner who fancies 'having a go', this just adds to the initial outlay. Hopefully in time new options will come along and offer more choice. But for now, I definitely won't be getting rid of any more patterns!
