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Sewing pattern printing / folding (small scale wholesale) ?

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Eli the Bearded

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Aug 7, 2021, 9:35:59 PM8/7/21
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A bit of a long shot, but...

I had been getting work done by Pattern Printing Company (at obvious dot
com), but the owner, Dale, is retiring. Looking for anyone that might have
recommendations. These need to be shipped to California, so Western US
is better, but continential US is acceptable. International orders are
probably not going to work.

The actual printing isn't so hard to find. Reprographics places will
gladly run off a few hundred Arch D or Arch E sized pages, which is a
common order. They'll come in a hefty roll. The local place delivers
them by bicycle, which is ambitious considering the weight and the
hills.

(Arch D: 36 x 24 inches; 61 x 30 cm. Arch E: 36 x 48 inches; 91 x 30 cm)

The specific thing Pattern Printing Company had and I'd love to find
again, but I don't get from general large format print services is
folding. Turn around time was longer, so reprographic services were good
for rush orders, but folded output is a major convience.

My searches online have found places outside of the US, and one place
in Virginia that appears to be a reprographic shop that just knows how
to target the sewing audience (PDF Plotting at obvious dot com) but it's
just rolled paper. I can get that locally. I haven't found anyone else
offering folding. (I'm not sure where I'd find the machinery to buy to
do it myself, or if the costs could be justified for the scale.)

Elijah
------
big week for pattern sales, ~200 shipped out today

John Forkosh

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Aug 8, 2021, 2:40:41 AM8/8/21
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Wow! ~200 in a day! Nancy Zieman had better watch her back!!!
Anyway, can't suggest anything directly answering your question.
But maybe this is a workable alternative: I've used poster.c
https://schrfr.github.io/poster/
https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Poster
https://ctan.org/tex-archive/support/poster
or google poster Eijndhoven for many other sites
with variously-dated versions, all more-or-less equivalent afaict
to resize and tile images, printing large images in 11x17" tile segments
on a tabloid printer. Poster works really great for me and my purposes,
using an old Brother MFC-J6920DW in my case, which cost just $250 back
in 2014. See
https://www.brother-usa.com/11x17-ledger-printers
for their current 11x17" tabloid selection. Heck, they're so cheap
relative to what I'd guess you've been spending, that I'd think
you might as well give it a try: You can never be too rich or too
thin, or have too many tabloid printers.
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j...@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

EllisMorgan

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Aug 8, 2021, 3:30:31 AM8/8/21
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I think you will find that 12 inches is approximately 30cm.
Ellis

Eli the Bearded

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Aug 9, 2021, 5:28:58 PM8/9/21
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In comp.periphs.printers, John Forkosh <for...@panix.com> wrote:
> Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
>> The specific thing Pattern Printing Company had and I'd love to find
>> again, but I don't get from general large format print services is
>> folding. Turn around time was longer, so reprographic services were good
>> for rush orders, but folded output is a major convience.
>
> Wow! ~200 in a day! Nancy Zieman had better watch her back!!!

Her book came out in April. Not nearly Nancy Zieman level yet, but
slowly growing. That 200 was a day with four wholesale orders, the
largest with 80 patterns. Most weeks are not that busy.

> Anyway, can't suggest anything directly answering your question.
> But maybe this is a workable alternative: I've used poster.c

Ah yes. That's a well known "fix" in the pattern industry, but not
a good one for paper pattern sales. There are basically three ways
patterns are sold:

1. Traditional folded paper. (This is what I seek help with.)

2. Downloadable print at home, which uses poster tiling. Several of
the patterns are available that way through Creative Bug, a video
teaching site formerly owned by the same company as Crunchyroll
(known for streaming anime videos) but is now owned by Jo-Ann's
Fabric. This style requires a little bit of technical support
because it is important that the pages are printed at the right
scale. It's also a good idea to arrange the tiling to not have
busy parts of the pattern on a page edge.

3. Downloadable "copyshop" versions. These are full size patterns
that need to be printed on wide format printers, eg, at a copyshop.
There's a lot of noise in search results for searching for pattern
printing about places seeking to get the copyshop business. Small
run printing of plotter style output shipped in a cardboard tube.
We are trying to avoid this because of the risk of someone buying
once and running off a bunch of copies. The envisioned scenario,
and there's reason to believe it is a real risk, is some sewing
instructor printing unpaid-for copies for use in sewing classes.

Eventually we anticipate all the patterns will be available directly
from her shop in downloadable print at home format, but that requires
revisions to all the instruction booklets, too. All of that takes time,
which is harder to come by if you're spending all day folding a roll of
patterns from a reprographics order.

Elijah
------
the patterns for the book were printed overseas with long lead times

John Forkosh

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Aug 10, 2021, 12:25:53 AM8/10/21
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Congratulations on your/her book (not yet, emphasize >yet<, Nancy Zieman
level notwithstanding). Besides poster.c, the only other thought that
crossed my mind was that if your business is generating enough revenue,
and at 200/day (though you say that's uncommon ... >yet<) it sounded
like it might be, invest in a wide-format printer yourself. I guess
the 24" models ain't wide enough for a full-size pattern, and you'd need
a 36" or maybe 48" model. The cheapest of those I recall seeing was
maybe ~$2500, but for my personal purposes it was way more than I wanted
to spend (and required way too much space in my home office).
As for folding, I've gotten some full-size posters in the mail that
were rolled up on cardboard cylinders. So maybe don't fold them at all.
And I'd even guess (emphasize >guess<) customers would prefer patterns
without the folding creases. And if they're ordering several, you could
roll them all at once on the same cardboard cylinder (though maybe not
that entire 80-pattern wholesale order), maybe saving some of the time
you're spending folding them.

Eli the Bearded

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Aug 10, 2021, 3:10:34 PM8/10/21
to
In comp.periphs.printers, John Forkosh <for...@panix.com> wrote:
> Congratulations on your/her book (not yet, emphasize >yet<, Nancy Zieman
> level notwithstanding). Besides poster.c, the only other thought that
> crossed my mind was that if your business is generating enough revenue,
> and at 200/day (though you say that's uncommon ... >yet<) it sounded
> like it might be, invest in a wide-format printer yourself. I guess
> the 24" models ain't wide enough for a full-size pattern, and you'd need
> a 36" or maybe 48" model. The cheapest of those I recall seeing was
> maybe ~$2500, but for my personal purposes it was way more than I wanted
> to spend (and required way too much space in my home office).
> As for folding, I've gotten some full-size posters in the mail that
> were rolled up on cardboard cylinders. So maybe don't fold them at all.

Interesting attempt to make lemonade. This is what 200 patterns shipping
out to four wholesalers looks like now:

https://qaz.wtf/tmp/200-patterns.jpg

Can you imagine 200 cardboard cylinders? Can you imagine the postage
cost? This is a difficult amount to carry the four blocks to the post
office. 200 mailing tubes would be impossible to walk over.

I'd consider buying a folding machine before a printer. Wide format
printing is easy to find as a service.

Elijah
------
has never seen a folding machine for larger than letter size paper

John Forkosh

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Aug 11, 2021, 2:39:15 AM8/11/21
to
Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
> In comp.periphs.printers, John Forkosh <for...@panix.com> wrote:
>> Congratulations on your/her book (not yet, emphasize >yet<, Nancy Zieman
>> level notwithstanding). Besides poster.c, the only other thought that
>> crossed my mind was that if your business is generating enough revenue,
>> and at 200/day (though you say that's uncommon ... >yet<) it sounded
>> like it might be, invest in a wide-format printer yourself. I guess
>> the 24" models ain't wide enough for a full-size pattern, and you'd need
>> a 36" or maybe 48" model. The cheapest of those I recall seeing was
>> maybe ~$2500, but for my personal purposes it was way more than I wanted
>> to spend (and required way too much space in my home office).
>> As for folding, I've gotten some full-size posters in the mail that
>> were rolled up on cardboard cylinders. So maybe don't fold them at all.
>
> Interesting attempt to make lemonade. This is what 200 patterns shipping
> out to four wholesalers looks like now:
> https://qaz.wtf/tmp/200-patterns.jpg

...That's impressive. At least it looks like you're doing a great
home business there. But I now understand why the spin-off series
from "Sewing with Nancy", "Shipping with Nancy", never took off.
P.S. And I never realized that .wtf had become a top-level domain
...That's hilarious.

> Can you imagine 200 cardboard cylinders? Can you imagine the postage
> cost? This is a difficult amount to carry the four blocks to the post
> office. 200 mailing tubes would be impossible to walk over.

My bad. But, like I said, I've actually received full-size posters
in the mail rolled up on those tubes. Seemed worth mentioning.

> I'd consider buying a folding machine before a printer. Wide format
> printing is easy to find as a service.
>
> Elijah
> ------
> has never seen a folding machine for larger than letter size paper

Guess you're back to your original question, trying to locate
a wide-format printing-And-Folding service.
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