Angie's Sewing Reviews

Angie's Review Rating Scale
Warning: I'm difficult to impress and rarely buy anything at retail price!
Run out and buy it now! This is worth every cent and I can't see why anyone who sews/crafts wouldn't want this.
I love it and think it was worth every cent. I can see why some people might find it too complicated, unnecssary, or not worth the expense.
At the right price, this is worth it to me. There might be a better alternative, but this will work just fine for my budget.
There are better alternatives, directions may be inadequate or missing, but it does the job with a little extra effort.
I probably won't return it, but it didn't perform as well as advertised, was poorly made, or just too complicated.
 I am returning it, giving it away, or tossing it. It just doesn't do the job.




This magazine is published for a worldwide audience from Finland. Each magazine includes around 40 stylish-yet-classic infant to youth full-sized patterns. Four children's magazines are published yearly, so that means a year's subscription is the equivelent of 160 patterns! At roughly $56 for a subscription and shipping to a non-European country you pay $0.35 USD per pattern; double the amount if you only sew for boys or girls because they devote about half their designs to each gender.

What I Love:
  • Great value
  • Cute designs for girls and boys! The struggle I have finding patterns for my son make every other complaint worth it.
  • Europe is usually ahead of the style curve, so issues are good in the states for years after they are published.
  • Inspirational fabrics
  • How to page of basic techniques
  • Patterns fit my super-size, monster kids well...(my daughter is off the charts for height and has very broad shoulders!)
  • Patterns are full-size and don't require cutting and pasting a dozen .pdf tiles together
  • Limited ads, usually only one page
  • If I want to purchase a single issue, I can preview all of the designs in that issue at the Ottobre Website, then order individual issues from Wooly Thread or Sewzanne's Fabrics here in the U.S.
What I Dislike:
  • Converting my kids measurements to European sizing (centimeters) to find the best fit
  • They fit all 40 patterns onto 4 pattern sheets
    • Patterns have to be transferred to something else before use
    • All those lines, even with each pattern being a different color, gives me a headache
  • Occasionally they'll have a great outfit, put only one piece is in the the magazine, the other pieces are part of one of their Creative Workshop Patterns or a previous issue I don't own.
Concerns for less experienced sewers:
  • Directions are brief
  • Flipping between the general how-to and pattern instructions could be frustrating 
  • No pictures with the instructions except those that appear in the general how-to section
  • Even flipping between information, I often rely on my experience to assemple pieces rather than the instructions because I know an easier alternative
  • Although they describe the fabrics used on the models, they don't have a list of recommended fabrics for each pattern.
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