top of page

Making Pattern Weights

I love cutting out pattern pieces with a rotary cutter. Recently, I discovered the joy of cutting out garment pattern pieces with a rotary cutter. However, unlike quilt pattern pieces, or other straight line pattern pieces, there's a lot of curves and other places where a ruler can't be used. You can pin the pattern piece to fabric, like you would to cut it out with scissors, but it takes a long time, and you better make sure all the pins are within the pattern piece or else...


Well. Bye bye pin. It was nice to know you.


Enter pattern weights. They don't have to be fancy. Just something that will hold down the paper enough that you can cut the fabric around it with the rotary cutter.


I started out by using these washers.

Basic. Simple. They do the job. They're about 1 1/2 inches big.


But they're not pretty.


They're also not very heavy on their own, I was always stacking two to keep the pattern from moving. So I decided to put them together permanently.


Remember that rainbow yarn I used to organized my vinyl the other day? I got to break it out again.

I started by threading two of the washers together. I pulled enough yarn through that I thought it would go all the way around the washer.

Then I started wrapping.


I had a bit of a problem with the yarn as the middle of the washer got full.

So I just wrapped a little piece of tape around the end to keep it contained.


The wrapping took a bit of time, and I had to keep pulling the yarn tight.


So worth it though.

I tied a little knot in the end, and cut off the excess yarn, and ta da! A pretty pattern weight!

Look at how pretty they are! They are going to be so gorgeous on when I'm cutting patterns!

63 views

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page