Resizing a plush sewing pattern

Let’s say you have a sewing pattern for a stuffed animal, but the critter comes out bigger than you want it. Or, maybe you want to sew it larger than what the pattern allows. I have a solution for you.

A long time ago I purchased a sewing pattern for stuffed animals, McCalls 610/3999. While this pattern is no longer available, the principles still apply.

First, if your pattern does NOT have the seam lines printed on the pieces, stop and do that now. If yours does, just skip this step.

One by one take each pattern piece to your printer/scanner. Place the pattern piece face down on the bed and covere it with a white piece of paper. The paper is needed to help the printer/scanner tell where the image is.

Next, I print the image at 75%. But don’t stop there. The original seam allowance was 1/4 inch. When printed at 75% the seam allowance becomes 3/8 inch. I think that seam allowance to be too small for a critter that will get a lot of abuse, er, I mean “love”.

Take a ruler that has 1/4 inch markings, and a pen or pencil. Mark a new seam allowance 1/4 inch out from the original seam line. My sample's new seam allowance is in purple.

Use your paper scissors to cut the piece out of the paper. Voila! You have a 75% reduction in size.

If you plan on using the smaller size a number of times, you will want to take another step. Scan the reduced pattern pieces into your computer in a PDF file. That should print them out later at the correct size.