I'm sure there are those among you who are tax law experts, right? I'm equally sure that like many people you'd rather tax just went and jumped in the lake!

About a month ago I got the heads up on the new EU VAT rules. A great blog post about them is here: The Banana Analogy.

I'll be honest I went through a wide range of emotions. Disbelief, anger, resentment (yup, still feeling that one even now!) and frustration. I came to that sinking realisation that this wasn't going to go away and really someone needed to do something. No one was doing something, so I did the something.

Two weeks later Dusband and I had set up Patterns to print and my ever faithful sister elf started loading digital sewing patterns. I started with myself and a few other designers who had all come to the same realisation about the tax situation.

I'm hoping that a few more designers will also come on board, not just so that I can help them with their EU VAT issues, but so that the site can be a sort of....well, a mini one stop shop (to coin a tax man phrase!).


The illustrations you see on the front page were done by the incredibly talented (and super fast) Lena from Snazzy Turtle Designs. I contacted her one Friday and asked her to work her designer magic, by the Monday she had finished them and they were perfect for the site. Despite my kind of flimsy brief to her!


There are of course plenty of bag patterns, including my free Super slouchy Sling Bag pattern.


There's fabulous clothing patterns from Imagine Gnats (although I'm really hoping to snag a few more clothing designers, I'm a big fan of indie patterns!)


There's also plenty of quilting patterns including paper pieced patterns.

If you know of any other indie designers, please do send them our way, we'll handle all of the EU VAT for them as we're a marketplace rather than a platform. If that makes sense?