So the patterns arrived. Unfortunately I always forget about import charges – a whopping £11 on goods worth only £15.30. Actually most of it is Royal Mail’s handling charges.
The guy at the post office told me I had just missed the threshold for free import by 30p. Turns out that on goods worth less than £15 there is no charge. So one less pattern and I would have saved some money. Bummer.
In the end these patterns worked out to be £6.04 per pattern. How I wish I still live in the States sometimes.
So what do rest of you UK folks do? Where do you get dirt cheap Big 4 patterns from? Or do you stick to Burda magazines for affordable patterns?
Thankfully us Aussies don’t get slugged with import charges unless the total is MUCH higher (can’t remember what it is but I think it’s around $1000). Recently I noticed a jump in postage costs from sp.com & vogue so I’ve actually bought a few downloadable patterns lately to avoid that (of course then there’s the tedium of printing them and sticking them together to deal with).
I’ve yet to try the downloadable patterns. I’ve got a few downloaded, but the printing and taping seem a bit of a hassle, so never got around to them. Shame the US big 4 pattern companies don’t offer downloadable patterns like Burda.
The printing and taping is a hassle. The Big 4 do offer downloadable patterns at sewingpatterns.com – that’s where I’ve bought some when they’ve been on sale (usually not as cheap as the paper ones but when you take the shipping into account, they’re cheaper).