Kinder, gentler...and faster!

After designing and making purse patterns and all those purses for about eight years, I finally hit on something that made life just a titch easier: fabric pattern pieces. Now, this is probably a yawner to some of you (especially if you don't sew :)), but it fairly well changed me into a kinder, gentler pattern cutter-outer. All I did was to find some material that I had gobs of and no immediate use for (natural denim from an attempt at slipcovering - eesh) and cut out all the pieces of one of my patterns. If I needed to "Cut 2" from a particular piece, I did so in the denim. I labeled them just in case I had amnesia someday and voila! Now I can lay out my pattern, no pins required, and ...

easily cut the pieces of fabric out. The fabric pattern sort of grips the other fabric so it stays in place while I'm cutting.
The other advantage is that the fabric pattern pieces might last longer than their paper sisters. This works great for purse patterns or a pattern you tend to use many times over. And, of course, you don't need denim for your pattern pieces. Just find the oldest scrap in your stash that isn't slippery, and that's probably a good candidate.

Now to find some trick for making me a kinder, gentler wife :)...!