Playing Dress-Up

Before - Plain, double stacked and glued washers

I suppose everyone who has looked to buy pattern weights has witnessed the absurd costs companies think we should pay for them. The packaging isn't any better than the pricing, when it comes down to it. Seriously, a pack of four weights? Where is the point in that? You'd need how many packages to hold down one large skirt pattern piece? How about a coat back?

If you've shopped for pattern weights, then your next step was probably Pinterest, the mightiest time suck of the internet. Based on my own hours of wasted time, I'd say the washer style pattern weights are probably the most popular. They are certainly the easiest to make. A stop at the hardware store and you've got yourself a stack of weights. What's more, they come in a variety of sizes, which is particularly useful for everything from tiny facing pieces to large coat/skirt pieces. You can leave them plain, paint them with spray paint or nail polish, or wrap them in fabric strips or ribbon.

My preference is ribbon wrapped. I'm not going to share a tutorial, because frankly, there are loads and buckets of them already out. It isn't particularly difficult, all you need is some ribbon, glue, washers and perhaps a good movie on the TV. I like my weights with a little heft so I use a double stack of washers, hot glued together to keep them from shifting about while I'm wrapping. The glue in between isn't required, but I find it easier to work with them stuck together.

After - Pretty!

I took some time today to add a few more to my growing stash. I really like to lay out a full pattern in my living room floor and have found that I kept running short on a couple of the sizes I like to use. We were in our local Atwood's Farm & Ranch store, which runs the washers for $1.99 for a pound. Ten dollars netted me enough washers to make seventeen weights. The seven largest weights accounted for half my cost. After I got them wrapped, I thought they were very nice but lacked something. Honestly, I've felt this way about all my weights, so this wasn't at all surprising. I dug into my ribbon and button stash to come up with a fix.

A bit more hot glue and a little dressing and Voila! Fancy weights. Just because their sole purpose in life is to hold down my patterns while I cut out my fabric doesn't mean they can't be pretty.

The buttons were bought several years ago and intended for a Christmas project. My tree has a snow theme going for it. The colors are some of my favorites, which meant I had a load of ribbon bits in varying teal/aqua color tones. It didn't even occur to me that there might be another underlying theme until Thing 1 came to take a look at my project and proclaimed them Frozen Weights! Ha. Elsa should be so lucky to have pattern weights that look so good!

How about some close up shots at my fancy new lovelies?

 

Do you use pattern weights? Have you ever considered dressing them up a bit?