I’ve been receiving a lot of questions on where to buy patterns here in Manila/Philippines. Unfortunately, there really aren’t any stores/shops that carry the actual paper patterns (which are so much fun and so exciting to open).
A good alternative though if you’re keen on getting new designs is to purchase online through Sewingpatterns.com. You just have to create a user name and log-in and you can purchase using your credit card. My experience has been pretty good (no shipping required obviously), although you will need to keep the following things in mind:
- Make sure you test print that you’re printing to scale. There will be a test page and you have to make sure that the size you’re printing is accurate or the whole pattern will be totally ruined.
- You will need to have LOTS of paper and tape on hand and a BIG space to put everything together. My entire living room floor gets filled up when I’m taping the printed pattern together before cutting it out! Turn off your electric/ceiling fans (Don’t do what I did and get stuck chasing papers around and having a hell of a time reorganizing them hehehe)
- Have big envelopes/plastic dividers/clear books on hand. I organize the patterns I bought in big Manila envelopes for easy reference.
- For the patterns I’ve downloaded, you can only print each up to 5 times. This isn’t really a problem though, in fact I could see myself sharing patterns with my friends who sew too.
