The Why of Sewing 4: How to Avoid Scammy Patterns
As your sewing skills progress beyond following straight lines on fabric you are going to want to start looking for patterns to make your dream outfits a reality.
There are a lot of bad patterns out there, both in the AI generated flavor and in the more mundane human incompetence flavor. This guide is mostly going to focus on avoiding AI, but generally these tips will also weed out the worst of the ones poorly drafted by humans as well. Generally Etsy seems like the natural place to find indie drafted patterns, and while there are many designers posting their patterns on etsy who are legitimate, the market is FLOODED by scams at the moment. Beware of the Etsy sewing pattern. These are all things you should be able to spot BEFORE making the purchase. A later post can go into ways to figure out if it is you or the pattern causing issues.
Let's Lead with Positive Green Flags:
Multiple images of the model and garment where it is clearly the same person and garment from different angles. Many smaller indie companies are modeled by the designer, or just a couple models. The most important part is seeing multiple angles of the garment.
Line drawings that match the style lines of the sample garment.
Social media presence for the shop off of etsy. This is VERY important. All the big indie companies are on insta and make tags for their patterns (even though tags are broken). Instagram has been where the sewing community has lived for the most part and it is still pretty dang important now.
The pattern should always have size charts, yardage charts, fabric recommendations, and notion lists available for review without purchasing the pattern. Never ever buy a pattern where you can’t see the size chart before buying.
Cohesive design across the shop. It doesn’t have to be good design or interesting design, but it should look like the same person made the listing.
Fat Models - this is a big green flag, but it feels slightly weird to say as a hot tip to look for. AI is really bad at making images of fat people and scammers rarely care enough to do so. This is also a green flag for inclusive sizing.
Red Flags to watch for:
Headless models and stolen images - this is becoming less common as AI generated “samples” are taking over, but a quick reverse image search is a good idea. Some indie designers do prefer not to post their faces, but you can usually still tell that you are looking at the same person.
Only front view images, or any single angle photo.
A different model in every photo - this can be seen in well established indie companies who use lots of testing pools, but those tend to look very human and not the kind of human who earns their living with their appearance. Images of lots of models in sharp focus with an extremely blurry background. No human skin texture is a red flag.
Seamlines that don’t match across the garment - watch for sleeves not matching one another for example.
Way too many patterns in the shop at very low prices - pattern making takes a lot of work and having hundreds of $3 patterns is a huge red flag. At best its someone devaluing their work.
Weird videos of just a sewing machine stitching, usually not even threaded correctly. I don't know why this is showing up on so many AI pattern listing, but if the thread is just flopping around above the needle, buyer beware.
Okay so now you have learned how to spot some flags - where should you browse patterns and find something usable!
Threadloop - I should do an entire post on how good threadloop already is for a sewist and the makers are constantly adding new features. They are building a database of patterns and users can post reviews, link finished projects and I believe they have instituted a visible tag if users suspect a pattern has AI generated elements.
Sewing Pattern Review - This site looks dated, but the creators are still super involved. There is an active community of makers posting pattern reviews and it's easy to look for a specific pattern, browse through recent reviews, or look at a category like “pants”.
Curvy Pattern Database - this is a database of designers who have sizing that goes up to a minimum of a 60” hip and for any sewist with a larger body this is where I would start, but even if you are a straight sized sewist this is a fantastic resource. Every pattern is manually added and Sarah, the fantastic sewist behind the database, also does round up posts of new pattern releases. She includes free patterns and I’ve never spotted a scammy pattern company in the round ups.
Instagram - this is probably the most annoying option for me, especially since instagram broke their tags. That being said, if a pattern company isn’t on instagram that basically means they aren’t marketing to the kind of sewist who can spot a scam.
The Fold Line - a UK based pattern sales portal that has both indie and big 4 patterns (the ones in the envelopes with the books at the fabric stores). Even if you don't buy through their portal they have some handy search tools and a pleasant browsing experience, they also put out some great youtube videos of new releases and videos matching up patterns to trends in ready to wear.
