Today’s topic is near and dear to my heart. If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you’ll know that I own quite a collection of old doll clothes sewing patterns. Many of them are featured in my Monday sewing lessons, all of which can be found on this page.
Over the years, I’ve gotten better and better at preserving my vintage sewing patterns, and today I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned about storing and preserving very old patterns in six easy steps.
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For the first step, set your iron to medium. Make sure it won’t produce steam. It’s important to keep steam and water away from your vintage pattern pieces, as any form of water will damage them!
Then you’ll need a few things:
- Archival storage sleeves
- A pencil (for writing on patterns, if markings are faded)
- A pen (for keeping notes)
- Archival-quality tape (for repairing ripped areas)
- Letter envelopes
- Scratch paper
When I buy archival storage sleeves, I purchase the ones used by comic book collectors. They’re exactly the right size for an average sewing pattern envelope. There’s even a little extra room in them, to help prevent tearing. But archival sleeves for scrapbooking will usually work as well.
It’s important that you not use regular Scotch tape to repair rips in the pattern tissue. Archival-quality repair tape is more expensive, but it won’t turn brittle over time. It may not perform well under a hot iron though, so always test the brand you’ve got on a bit of regular tissue paper before using a hot iron on it.
I’m archiving and organizing a Barbie pattern, so I will be using regular card or letter envelopes with this project, but if you are working with human clothing patterns, you’ll want to use a parcel envelope. I use envelopes like a storage pocket, inside the archival-safe storage sleeve. We’ll see this later in today’s blog post.
For your letter envelopes, it’s important that they not have the removable strip for sealing them closed. You don’t want to seal these envelopes. You want to leave them open. Furthermore, colored envelopes tend to be more acidic than white ones, so I try to avoid the colored card envelopes.
Acid-free envelopes are super expensive, but they’re also the best choice. With that said, I usually just use ordinary mailing envelopes for my own patterns. I’ve never had any problem with them, and some of my patterns are literally 50 years old!
When you remove the contents of your vintage pattern, be very gentle. If you do happen to tear a pattern piece, this video goes over how to repair pieces.
It’s also possible to find your pattern pieces pinned together by the previous owner, so when you’re removing the pattern pieces, keep your personal safety in mind. Be slow and gentle!
Now and then you’re going to run across the previous owner’s little notes, receipts for fabric purchases, and unfinished projects inside the pattern envelope. I love to find these little hidden treasures!
The “Rainbow Motel” envelope that I found in my vintage McCall’s 6260 pattern for Barbie turned out to be a roadside attraction that still exists in Bozeman, Montana, but has been refurbished and renamed the “RSVP Hotel.”
I left that envelope in my storage sleeve with the rest of the pattern pieces, and I labeled it with a note that says, “This envelope came with the pattern at the time of purchase in 2025. I’m keeping it for only nostalgic purposes.” Little notes like this will be deeply appreciated by the pattern’s next owner.
As you remove each item from the original pattern envelope, place them in piles labeled with sticky notes, for View A, View B, View C, etc. Once you have all of them in piles, press the pattern pieces with a medium temperature, non-steam iron. That way if any tiny pieces are curled up inside another piece, you’ll see them and put them in their right places.
It’s super frustrating to find a tiny sleeve cuff pattern lying on your kitchen floor after you’ve finished organizing your patterns. And if, like me, you organize a bunch of patterns at once, it’s doubly frustrating! So do as I say, not as I do, okay? Press ALL the pattern pieces during step 3!!!
Notice the big chunky pattern piece that’s uncut in the image above? These happen to all be pieces for View F, the swimsuit pattern for McCall’s 6260.
But what if, instead, the swimsuit pattern was on the same sheet of tissue as the kimono-style bathrobe from View D? In that case, I wouldn’t take the time to cut them out entirely from the uncut tissue; instead, I would just make sure View D and View F are separated on their individual uncut chunks. I hope that makes sense.
During Step 4, it’s important to compare the piles of pattern pieces to the ones you see in the instruction sheet, usually in what’s called a “cutting layout” section. I’ve found this to be the easiest way to identify whether or not any pieces are missing.
Of course you can also look at the diagram of all pieces given (which often shows numbers for each separate piece), but antique patterns do not offer this sometimes. The oldest patterns don’t even give you cutting layouts, and in those cases, you may need to read through the instructions to identify each pattern piece.
Once you find what pieces are missing, jot it down on a piece of paper in pen, so you can use this as a reference when using the pattern in the future. In the “step 5” image below, you can see where I’ve noted “Jacket front piece is missing!”
The reason I included a date with the note is because I may one day find another copy of this pattern. Keeping receipts in with your pattern can help you date when the pattern was purchased, so you can add (in this case) a traced version of the missing jacket piece, using a different, more recently purchased version of the pattern.
Please note all the writing on the mailing envelope. I’ve included:
- Which view from the original pattern envelope (i.e. View A)
- What pattern this envelope belongs to (McCall’s 6260)
- A detailed description (“dress with overskirt and panties”)
- A list of all the pattern pieces I’ve placed in the envelope
- Helpful information like “one piece” or “traced version”
Once the envelope has been well labeled, I gently re-fold all the pattern pieces that go in that letter envelope (having already flattened them with my iron), but again, I DO NOT seal the envelope. That way it will be easy to access those patterns next time, and I won’t have to re-write everything on a new envelope.
Finally, I place the original envelope plus the letter envelopes inside my archival storage sleeves, and when I do this, I usually leave the letter envelopes loosely hanging around outside the original pattern envelope. That way, I am less likely to damage the original pattern envelope when I go to use the patterns again, but I still have the original pattern envelope available as a reference tool.
It’s hard to tell, but there’s also a sticker on the back of my archival storage sleeve which tells me what year this pattern was made and/or copyrighted. I keep my vintage Barbie patterns in a big clear tub (literally exactly like the one shown in the graphic), and I keep them in order by their date of publication. I can’t help it. Before I retired, I was a school librarian, so… yeah. That’s a thing! 🤪
Questions: How do you store your sewing patterns? Do you do anything special with yours that I didn’t mention? Add to the conversation by leaving a comment!
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Chelly Wood and the ChellyWood.com website are not affiliated with the pattern company or companies mentioned in this blog post, but Chelly finds inspiration in the doll clothes designed by these pattern companies. To purchase patterns from Simplicity, McCall’s, Butterick, Vogue, or other pattern companies shown and discussed in this blog post, please click on the links provided here. These links below the “Disclaimer” section do not help raise money for this free pattern website; they are only offered to give credit to the company that made these patterns.