Pattern Preservation: Cereal Box

Another great method for preserving patterns that you'll be tracing onto fabric is the good old cereal box method.

This is a great method for reusing what would normally become garbage, and creates a fairly long-lasting pattern with a nice, rigid edge for tracing.  In this post, I'm preserving another adorable Polluted Pixie bonnet pattern, the short brimmed version, in a 6-12 month size.

Supplies: 
*An empty cereal box (opened to become flat)
*Your pattern
*Scissors
*Pen or marker for tracing and transferring markings
*Tape (if needed)
*Hole punch (if needed)
*Ruler (if needed)

Print and cut out your pattern pieces, and tape together any parts that need taping.  In this picture, you'll see that I took a few liberties with some of my pattern pieces.  Instead of cutting smaller pieces to be placed on folds, I printed 2 and taped them together to make a longer piece.  I used the hole punch to make little holes in pieces where the ears, darts, and ties needed to go. (You don't have to do this, but I like to. I've found it's a super easy way to transfer those markings onto the fabric.)  I also created an additional piece for the brim interfacing, using the ruler to mark and trim it 1/8" smaller than the main brim pattern piece, to make it easier to iron on and stitch through.

Next, you'll open up your flattened cereal box, with the plain paper side facing up.  Trace all of your pattern pieces onto the cardboard, and transfer all markings and any additional notes you'd like to add to the pattern.  I made one more modification from the original pattern here, adding notches to the centers of the brim edges, which will help me center the brim when I'm pinning and sewing.

The last thing you'll do is cut out the cardboard pattern pieces, and again use your hole punch to transfer dotted markings.And that's it!  Easy as can be.  

I like this method because it's basically free, it's fast (this took me about 20 minutes), and it makes a good, rigid, reusable pattern.  This is a good one for patterns with smaller pieces.  It's really popular for pad patterns, where you're doing a lot of tracing.  I like being able to make notes directly onto the pattern pieces.  I don't love the feel of cardboard, but if I wanted to, I could just flip it over so I'm touching the printed side instead of the papery-feeling side when I'm tracing onto fabric.  Another thing to keep in mind is that if your marking tool slips while you're tracing the pieces onto your fabric, you'll permanently mark up the cardboard.  It happens to me every time.  That might not be a big deal to you, though.  The edges will eventually wear down, but it's not hard to just make new cardboard tracings.   

Obviously, these kinds of methods aren't ideal for every kind of pattern.  For example, if you're working with large pieces for something like a shirt, you'll want to just use a paper pattern so that you can pin it directly to the fabric and cut along the edges, instead of tracing pieces.  But for smaller things like bonnets, pads, or booties, traceable patterns are pretty awesome.