I picked up a little pattern booklet from Spotlight the other day. It was Burda autumn-winter 2009/10 collection. I found many of the designs to be very universal and practical. I showed it to my MIL and she really liked this coat.

I also liked this design, it is very safe choice, classic and practical. So the other night when I was browsing www.sewingpatterns.com I found this pattern, it was $USD 3.99 to download, a ridiculous price! I had paid for my pattern ( and two more, who can resist such price tag!) I proceeded to download it. I received an email with a link in it, it should have been as easy as click the link and print the patterns...

Well... After 2 hours of battling with Acrobat Reader ( my version was too old ), plugin for Acrobat Reader, downloading issues and so on I finally got my pattern. Be vigilant though, your pattern may come in several parts, so make sure you had printed ALL of the parts.

My pattern was now in a form of huge stack of A4 paper sheets, that I had to glue in particular order ( they recommend rubber cement, does anyone know what it is? ) and then cut out. But before you glue them together, bottom and right field of EACH page has to be trimmed... It takes a very, very long time. After my first hour of trimming I mused if it was a wise idea at all - sure it saves you money, but what about time?

I did not use rubber cement. The idea of carefully gluing all those sheets together gave me heart palpitations, so I just cellotaped them together. It worked fine, pattern is all cut out, ready and waiting for MIL’s phone call.... :)

My verdict - buy a paper pattern and save yourself a day worth of time.