homebody323

I too use to print everything off. Now as others have suggested, I have computer space designated to this. Sort of a virtual quilt show. One file for quilting ideas to spur my quilting design thoughts when quilting a customer quilt Within that file are files for scrap quilts, medallion quilts, samplers etc. When I get stuck I go to my quilt show, review the pics and sometimes I solve my quilting block. Then there is a file for quilting construction these are quilts I may want to make in the future. I also have years and years of back issues of quilting magazines. I'm working on scanning some of these to my collections so I can toss the magazines or give them away. The pages with pictures of applique anything can be saved twice, once with pattern and once to a file called applique shapes. I use the free program Irfanview to resize the shapes, cut, crop whatever. This program is simple enough for even me. Happy stitchig

carreen

All's I can say is girls when you need that pattern you didn't print, call me!

Jeanne S

I applaud your efforts at conservation! Last year I completed an 8 week Master Recycler course here in Tulsa and it really stepped up my efforts at REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE. However, I must say that as a new quilter, I am still in the collecting stage of acquiring quilt patterns, and still feel the need to keep them in hard copy for future study and reference. I just can't go paperless yet on quilt patterns....... ;0)

MamaLinda

Just filled my 5th double size binder this weekend. Takes me forever to find what I know is there now even with sorting into sections. I'll never use half of them but so many are lovely and I can dream.

roserips

Thank you for saving all of those trees! I have been saving patterns either to my computer or the cloud and it is great to be able to sit down and find what I want with out having to dig through all of that stuff. Also think of the space that you save! Now there is more room for fabric and Nightengale press also sells books that you can download WOW more space saved maybe I can put a few vintage machines there now. Seriously I love the new tools the net provides and my space benefits from less clutter.

BettyGee

Oh do I know what you mean. I have patterns that I want to make, would like to live to be able to make all the patterns I've accumulated. I go to Good Will just to buy notebooks to keep all the printed patterns and tips and techniques. So I'm trying to remember that the patterns online will still be there later.

Marysewfun

Good and true point. :-)

Marysewfun

charsuewilson

I stopped printing stuff out a long time ago, unless it's something I'm going to immediately use as an applique. I will "print" to PDF if I want to save something. I've seen suggestions that you can use EverNote or OneNote instead, and save just the portion of the page that you want (this wasn't on quilting board). I haven't tried that yet.

scrapinmema

I will download the pattern to my computer and print when needed. When I save a pattern will use a description in the name so that I don't have to look through so many patterns.