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For independent pattern designers

Draft it on paper.
Sell it as a PDF this week.

The draft is the part you love. Retracing it in software so it can be graded, tiled and listed is the part that eats the weekend. Photograph the piece instead.

Digitize a piece See the output
A hand-drafted bodice pattern on a wooden table with a rule, a French curve and a pencil beside it

What your buyer downloads

.PDF

Full size, one sheet

The piece at true scale for a copy shop or a wide printer. Nothing to assemble.

.PDF

Tiled on Letter or A4

Home printer pages with trim marks and page numbers, taped up the usual way.

.DXF

Vector for grading

Clean outline with notches and grain on their own layers, ready to grade.

LETTER / A4 TILED PDF·JOIN MARKS & TEST SQUARE·AAMA DXF FOR GRADING·SEAMLY2D · VALENTINA · OPTITEX·CRICUT & SILHOUETTE· LETTER / A4 TILED PDF·JOIN MARKS & TEST SQUARE·AAMA DXF FOR GRADING·SEAMLY2D · VALENTINA · OPTITEX·CRICUT & SILHOUETTE·

What this actually solves

Three reasons a finished draft sits in a drawer instead of a shop listing.

TIME

Retracing by hand

Rebuilding a drafted piece point by point in software is hours of work that adds nothing to the design. A photo gets you to the same outline in about a minute, and you spend the time on the curve that actually needed attention.

TRUST

Customers who print at home

A tiled PDF that prints at the wrong size costs you a refund and a review. Ours carries a test square, join marks on every edge and an assembly map, so a customer can prove the scale before cutting.

RESALE

One draft, several formats

Buyers ask for the PDF, factories ask for the DXF, cutting-machine owners ask for something their software reads. Every run gives you all three from the same geometry.

Before and after

Real photo · real trace · nothing retouched

BEFOREA drafted paper piece on a dark surface with a sheet of paper beside it
The drafted piece on a contrasting surface with one sheet of paper for scale.
AFTERThe same piece with its traced outline
A closed vector outline at true size, with notches marked and every point editable.

What you can list the same week

.PDF

The file your buyer prints

Split across Letter or A4 sheets with a 0.4 in overlap, join marks and an assembly map, so taping it up is obvious.

  • Test square to prove the scale
  • Prints at true size, no dialog
  • Page numbers and match letters
  • Ready to attach to a listing
.DXF

The file your grader wants

AAMA / ASTM layers with cut line, notches and grain kept separate, so grading starts from real geometry.

  • Seamly2D and Valentina
  • Optitex, Gerber, Lectra
  • AutoCAD and Illustrator
  • Editable piece names
.PLT

The file a cutter reads

HPGL for plotters, and the DXF covers desktop machines your customers already own.

  • Graphtec, Roland, Mutoh
  • Cricut and Silhouette via DXF
  • Same geometry as the PDF
  • No conversion step

From draft to listing

Four steps on a kitchen table, no software to learn.

STEP 01

Shoot the draft

Piece flat, one sheet of paper beside it, phone straight above. Even light beats bright light.

STEP 02

Trace and tidy

Smooth the curves you drew by hand, place notches exactly where you want them.

STEP 03

Take all three files

PDF for the listing, DXF for grading, PLT for anyone cutting on a machine.

STEP 04

Print one test page

Check the test square with a ruler before you publish. It takes a minute and prevents refunds.

Questions from designers

Will my hand-drawn curves stay smooth?+

The trace follows the paper edge, so a wobble in the pencil line shows up as a wobble in the outline. In the editor you can bend a whole segment into a true curve in one move rather than nudging points one by one.

Can I add seam allowance?+

Not yet. We digitize the piece exactly as it is on the paper. If your draft already includes allowance, so does the file; if it does not, add it in your own software.

Does the PDF work for customers outside the US?+

Yes. The PDF is tiled on the same paper as the sheet in your photo, Letter or A4, and you pick it at upload. For customers on the other size, photograph the piece again with that sheet and you have both files for the same listing.

Do I own what I upload?+

Entirely. Your photos and traces stay private to you and are never shared or sold. We keep one working copy of the tracer output, your corrections and the photo, with no name or email attached, and use it only to make the tracing better.

Other benches

Small sewing factoriesPaper blocks into AAMA DXF for grading and markers. Home sewing and quiltingSave a pattern before it tears, cut it on a desktop machine. Upholstery and coversTemplates off the job, straight to a CNC table.

Photograph the draft on your table.

Free while the demo runs. Fix the trace yourself if it is not right.

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