Frequently Asked Questions


Yes! You are most welcome to sew for yourself, your friends, sell ready garments in your Etsy shop, in your atelier, or even mass produce them. The patterns are absolutely royalty-free.
There are several ways to get our patterns even cheaper. First of all, all registered users are entitled to 10% discount straight away. Secondly, you can buy bundle units and save up to 50%. Thirdly, you could sign up to our Facebook feed and use discount coupons for your next purchase.
No you don't, you can order as a guest. However, registered users get 10% discount, have their custom fit patterns stored in their account, can save size measurements for future use, can suggest new styles, can submit photos for weekly contest and win free patterns, can print out invoices and track order history... But technically no, you don't have to register :)
If you are fine with taping together numerous sheets for the sake of printing at home, choose from one of the PDF formats described below. However many people prefer ordering patterns in Wide PDF format as it comes on one wide and long sheet of paper. You can send this file to the nearest printing house and receive an easy-to-cut pattern at an agreeable cost. PLT format is similar, but is more technical. Most printing houses now work with PDF files. Still most people prefer dealing with a PDF as you can print it out using your regular home printer on regular paper. There are several options you can choose from - A4, A3, Legal, Letter, Tabloid - and it is important to decide which one you prefer before you checkout. If you reside in the USA or Canada, most probably your printer needs Letter format. In other countries, the most common format is A4. A3 is twice as big compared to A4, and Legal is another popular format in the USA and Canada.
We don't do custom orders. However if you love a garment you've seen somewhere, you are most welcome to suggest a new style and your photo will be enrolled in the weekly contest. If it wins, our designers will use it as inspiration for the next pattern to be issued.
The bundle authorizes you to get any 5 Lekala sewing patterns customized to fit your personal measurements in any printing format with (or without) seam allowances. Only registered users can order bundles, because the units are added to your personal account.
Once you've selected your patterns, click the cart button on the top and choose “View cart”. Below the details of the items in the cart you will see a small menu. Choose the section “Use bundle units” and click the green button “Pay by (x) button units and save (x)”. You will now see that there will be discount added to your order, and the total will be decreased accordingly.
You can download instructions at the style's page and see if they are okay for you. They are not as detailed as a master class and don't have photos of the process. For example, we imply our clients to know how to sew in a sleeve or serge a seam. If you have purchased a pattern and have any questions, please send us an e-mail at info@lekala.co and we shall provide extra instructions to help you out.
No. You can use this pattern for personal use, commercial use, you can set up a factory and sew 2 mln dresses and sell them to store chains and on eBay, but you are not entitled to resell a custom sewing pattern and share sewing instructions. Thank you for understanding. P.S. Come on, they are really cheap. Let the people get a made to measure pattern rather than struggling with yards of muslin.
No problem, send us an e-mail at info@lekala.co and we'll reset it for you and resend to the e-mail you used when registering. If you remember the e-mail address you used to register the account, you are also welcome to use the Recovery Password page.
You need any PDF reader to open and print your .pdf pattern - the free Adobe reader would do. If it doesn't help, please contact us and we'll resend the file free of charge.
To submit a photo you need to log in to your personal account and create a project under the pattern you have used. After you have uploaded the photos, you can click the green button under a photo and submit it for the next weekly contest. A photo can take part in the weekly contest just once.
Most likely you are trying to pay from a business account, and unfortunately our PayPal account accepts payments only from personal and premier ones. We apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused. In case you have a personal or premier account, kindly login to your account, browse to the order history and pay for a draft order using your alternative PayPal account. In case you have only business account, kindly send payment directly to PayPal account info@lekala.co and let us know about this by emailing the details of the PayPal transaction and the order number. I shall process it manually in our database then.
This is part of our mission, not the question of their quality. Firstly, each pattern is issued for a certain size, these are not patterns that are graded for some statistically averaged XS,S,M,L,XL. Secondly, since the price is so low, we hope that there's no sense in redistributing Lekala patterns behind our backs. It is easier to get a pattern online specifically for your size and your printing options. Thirdly, we are after promoting the new approach to pattern making and hope to make Lekala affordable to a wide range of individual sewists. We are a small company, we manage to cover our costs, and would like you to enjoy your experience with Lekala as much as possible.
The one that can be edited in Adobe Illustrator is called Wide PDF - you can set the width of the file yourself. There's also DXF vector format, but we recommend checking its compatibility with your software ordering free patterns first.
A pattern preview is free and is intended to let you see the basic outlines of the pattern pieces, check if the pattern can be processed for your measurements and if it turns out okay, and estimate the amount of required fabric. It comes on a grid which is 10 by 10 cm so that you can estimate the pattern blocks re width, length, etc. A pattern preview is marked with capslocked "PREVIEW" word in order history and is always free. In order to get an actual pattern with the same settings, kindly browse to http://www.lekala.co/orders, click the corresponding order item, and then click the green button "Order pattern for this size".
A comparison lets you get preview for two patterns from the portfolio. This is handy if you have already tried one of the patterns but are not sure if the lengths and the ease of another pattern are similar. You will get a 3-page file, with previews of both patterns on the first two pages, and with these previews laid on top of one another on the third page.
At Lekala, the amount of stretchiness is defined as follows: Small stretchiness: 5-10%, Medium stretchiness: 15-25%, High stretchiness: 30-50%
Once your pattern is processed, we save a copy on our server so that you can access it later. Registered users may download the patterns from the Order history on our website. Please go to My orders and select the pattern you want to download. If you ordered as a guest, you may retrieve your pattern using a temporary download link (the order number and your email are required). Please go to the page Download my pattern and enter the email address you used when ordering the pattern and the order number. You may find this number in the payment confirmation sent to you by PayPal or Stripe. In case the system is not able to find your order using this form, it is possible that there was a typo in the email address, or a technical issue. Please email us at info@lekala.co and mention the order number. We shall get back to you within one business day and offer a solution.