Friday Facts 8: Plotting large sewing patterns

Here’s a use for Makelangelo plotters that I never considered, offered up by Discord member Jolo: Sewing patterns for home sewing, cosplay and costume design!

It turns out that there’s many free pattern sites. Here’s just one example of a hoodie.

I used Freesewing.org to get a pattern for a hoodie and then chose export pattern > SVG and saved to my desktop.

In Inkscape I opened the file, set the document size to A2 and used that as a guide to split up the file into sections that fit on the paper for the Makelangelo. Just to be cautious I used Object > Ungroup and Path > Object to Path to prevent any import questions. These might not be necessary, but I do them with my laser cutter and it’s a habit now.

I had to delete everything except the part on the paper for each export. Then I used Save As > DXF R14. Makelangelo also understands SVGs – another habit from my laser cutting work. (this post was not paid for by Big Laser – Ed)

Then I loaded it into Makelangelo software and drew it just like any other drawing.

Final thoughts

The HUGE extension for Makelangelo draws up to A0 (841 x 1188 mm aka 33-1/8 x 46-13/16 in)

Do you have other great uses for a large plotter? Share with us and we’ll share it with the world!

You might also get a kick out of open source, parametric pattern design app called Seamly.