Enlarging Patterns from Books

There are a lot of cute sewing books out there, but most of them require that you blow them up more than 200%.  I have yet to find a good way to do this.  What have you ladies done that has worked?

My first suggestion is to go to Kinko's or a large office place and they can enlarge for you...can get expensive though. 
I have an apron book and I used Rapid Resizer (online for a free trial)  http://rapidresizer.com/   But I haven't made the patterns yet to see if they are correct although they do look correct...will check back in when I make some.

You can also go to a blueprint shop. My architect husband said it would be a lot cheaper than what I paid at Kinko's...I haven't tried it out yet.

I downloaded rapid resizer after reading this post and all I have to say is it rocks!

Easy to download. Easy to use. The only gripe I have is that it asks in inches how tall or wide you want the finished product - my pattern tells me in percentages. But - it was easy to figure out.

I blogged about it here: http://life-is-a-musical.blogspot.com/2008/10/hot-drinks-for-hot-mamas-apron.html

And here is the apron I made with it: 

I scan it and resize it in a graphics program.
Failing that I often use a bit of maths and a grid overlay, just like in high school graphics class.

Oohh, the rapid resizer program looks awesome!  Thank you! 

Beth- that apron was actually one of the patterns I was thinking of when posting this topic!  It looks great!  I love the aprons in that book but they are sooo huge!

Hi Meg.

I scanned in this pattern and one other one from the book - then I had to give the book back to the library. But, I will definitely be purchasing a copy now that I have the rapid resizer program. I think the patterns in this book are great starting points. I don't always want to take apart something to create a pattern so this is a great thing to play with and take a pattern and make it 'my own'.

Have fun, Beth

I've always used a the very low-tech and inexpensive method of setting a standard copy machine to enlarge by the appropriate amount and then making several standard-sized copies of the englarged pattern piece (e.g. an enlargement of each corner or each half).  You have to then piece the pages together, but it's quick and easy.  I usually line the pieces up by matching the words on the pattern piece.