How to scale up a magazine or book sewing pattern by hand, without a printer

The skirt pattern block used in the tutorial was created in the free course https://bit.ly/patternillustator I scaled it down to ¼ size for this tutorial.

If you’ve ever picked up a sewing magazine or book and fancied trying one of their free makes, but you’re stumped as to how to scale up the pattern provided (they don’t all provide the sewing patterns at the correct scale), here’s a very basic tutorial how you can do it without a printer at home.

You’ll need the following tools:

Pencil
Large paper (large enough to fit your new pattern)
Ruler
Calculator

Step 1
Take the original pattern and trace it onto the new paper

Step 2
Mark a spot on the pattern as the starting point. In this example I’ve used the bottom left corner.

Step 3
Draw lines from the starting point, though all the key points on the pattern, extending past the end of the small pattern.

Step 4
Measure from the starting point along one of the lines to a key point. Multiply this by the factor you are increasing by.

In this example I used a factor of 2 or 200%. If the pattern is quarter scale you’d multiply by 4 or 400% etc.

Step 5
Measure along the line the new distance you’ve calculated. And mark the new point.

Step 6
Continue doing this around the lines on the pattern.

Step 7
Add in any guidelines and darts using the same process.

Step 8
Draw in the curves and complete your pattern

Optional: you may find adding extra lines through the curves helps if you need to be very accurate. There’s no limit to the amount of guides you can add.