Well, not plastic but electronic, maybe??? I keep going back and forth between trying to be paperless with my patterns and still printing them out. This has been coming up as I’ve been (slowly) working through my WIPs. Some of them have patterns stuck in the bag and others don’t so I have to figure out where I downloaded them. It’s also a question that comes up for designers when they are formatting their patterns. I thought I would together a list of the pros and cons of each.
Paper patterns
Pros:
- Easy to write on and take notes
- Stick in project bag so always together
- No worries about battery use
- New books 🙂
Cons:
- Risk of loss is high
- Not environmently friendly
- Unable to access any links included with pattern
- Can be bulky if there are numerous pages and charts
- Printing issues (running out of ink and/or paper, etc)
Electronic copies
Pros:
- Save paper/ink (and the forests)
- Clickable links to useful tutorials
Cons:
- Remembering which device it’s on (maybe that’s just me!)
- Remembering where on the device it’s stored
- Battery issues
- Limited to screen size
- Can only look at one page at a time
For me, I usually end up just printing the pages I need and sticking it in my project bag. I find that works best for me. When I lined up my 17 WIPs to finish I made sure a copy of the pattern was in each bag so I was ready to go! So paper or electronic for you???