March 30, 2025

TL;DR Don’t give up when edits get hard. You might save a friend on a deadline.

Once upon a time I did a lot of sewing – professionally and personally. And because I did a fair number of weird projects, there wasn’t always a store bought pattern I could turn to. So I did a lot of pattern drafting too.

Unfortunately pattern paper is one of the few things you cannot get late at night in NYC.

If you know nothing about sewing, all you need to know for this story is: 1) pattern pieces on paper are the same size as the final piece. For example, if you’re sewing a pair of pants you need pattern pieces the length of a leg. 2) Pattern pieces can get large and cumbersome.

You typically buy pattern paper as a wide roll of paper. But you don’t have to use traditional pattern paper. You can use wrapping paper or kraft paper or medical exam table paper or some other options.

All of which I have used, and none of which were available late at night, on a deadline, which is when our story takes place. (As many of the best stories do.)

Fortunately, I did have printer paper and tape. So I started taping pieces of paper together, which I’ve done a number of times and always sucks.

Still more fortunately my roommate was awake, and asked what I was doing.

This particular roommate worked as a lighting designer and had just wrapped a show.

As I explained the dilemma and how pattern paper is ideal but taping together small pieces of paper works in a pinch, and this was indeed a pinch.

They asked if I wanted old lighting plots.

A lighting plot is like a blueprint for the lighting set up in a theater production. And key for this particular story, they were printed just like a blueprint.

I don’t recall the exact size, but any standard blueprint size is larger than 8 ½” x 11” printer paper. So I said an emphatic yes please.

I assumed there would be a small handful and I would mix blueprint sized paper with printer paper and save a little time.

I was very wrong.

My roommate came back with a roll of papers that would put a jumbo roll of wrapping paper to shame.

I must have looked a little surprised by the quantity because they said, sounding very tired, “there were a lot of edits and revisions on this show”.

We had a little back and forth. Are you sure you don’t need these? I’m sure. Do you want to double check them? No. What would you have done with all these otherwise? Stuck them in a corner until I recycled them.*

And eventually I took them, my roommate went to bed, and my project went a lot faster.

I used those papers on many more projects over the years. They were the perfect size for one medium sized pattern piece or a couple of small pieces. And having them on hand meant I rarely ran out of pattern paper in the middle of the night on a deadline again.

Every now and then I think back on that roll of papers – each one representing yet another revision or variation – whenever I want to quit after the third, or fourth (or 10th) round of edits on a piece.

Compared to that jumbo stack of revisions, my project is going great and one more round won’t hurt me.

Moral of the story: keep materials on hand and you won’t run out inconveniently.

And don’t give up on your project, even when the revisions seem like they will never end. (They may save a friend on a deadline.)

*They did eventually all get cut up and recycled. Just with a step in between.

And if you’re curious: one of the weirdest things I ever made was probably sewing a kindergarten chair to an orthopedic back support and covering the whole thing in neon green t-shirts.

Photo by Pickawood on Unsplash