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I try whenever possible to have my pattern pieces print out on a single sheet of paper – but sometimes I just need to go a little bit bigger. In those cases, you need to tape two pattern pieces together to make one larger piece.

For clothing patterns you can get into taping LOTS of pieces together, but for my softies and applique patterns it’s almost never more than two pages – and it’s easy!

Here’s how to do it. . .

Step 1

Print out both parts of the pattern. Make sure you’re printing at 100%!

This shows two halves of a new Dress Up Bunch shirt pattern. It’s a one piece pattern (no separate front, back, sleeves, etc.) so that makes it just a little bit too big to fit on a single sheet.

There’s also a pattern piece for the bib to a set of overalls. You can ignore that bit. 🙂

Step 2

Cut off the blank edge of one of the pieces.

Printers don’t print all the way to the edge of the paper, so you’re always going to have a blank strip at the edge of your pattern pieces. Just cut your pattern piece a bit so that the edges of the piece go right up to the cut edge of the piece of paper. In this case, you can cut anywhere between the line between the two hearts and the edge of the paper. I like to leave as much pattern as possible in there because it gives me more lines to match up, which keeps things accurate.

Step 3

Overlap the two pieces.

I like to do this step in a window so I can really see the lines on both pieces of paper.

Line up as many points as possible – the line, the two hearts, and the edges of the pattern. Now you can see why you cut away that strip of blank paper – it would have broken up the continuous outline of the pattern piece.

Once you get everything lined up perfectly, tape the pieces together.

Step 4

Cut out the pattern piece.

Two pattern pages have become one pattern piece. Easy peasy!

Happy sewing!

Best,
Wendi