Happy New Year!
2017 was our first year of releasing sewing patterns to meet your high-end handmade wardrobe needs. We have learned a lot already and we are so grateful for your patience and your support while we keep figuring things out! In this post we are sharing a quick recap of each month main happenings and we will be back next week to talk about our inspiration and plans for 2018!
January
At the beginning of the year we mostly spent our time trying to figure out how to get from a digitized paper pattern to a PDF that would include all the information you needed. We also spent time figuring out our approach to selling sewing patterns and how it would be different/similar to what is currently available in the sewing world. You can read our thoughts in this post: Why we are Just Patterns?
February
We released 3 patterns that month! The Kate Bias Top, the Christy Bias Slipdress and the Stephanie Skirt. We didn't have names initially for your patterns but we then realized that Christy was a lot easier to refer to than 2101.
March
While we worked on preparing the release of the Linda Wrap dress, we saw the first versions of our patterns appearing on blogs and Instagram. Here is the first Christy, made by Beautyfull_Handmade
April
Having three patterns in the wild brings a lot of self-doubt, no matter how much you believe in your product. This is why having a blogger whom we love the work praise our Stephanie Skirt meant so much to us! If you missed it, go check out the blogposts of Leisa at A Challenging Sew!
May
It was all about getting the Linda Wrap Dress ready, as our most involved pattern to date, we absolutely wanted to get it right. It took several sewing sessions to figure out the all the steps that needed to be explained.
June
But our efforts finally paid off and we released the Linda Wrap Dress. We were really happy to see that you loved the design as much as we did. It's truly a big favorite in both our closets!
July
We created a couple of tutorials on how to use our PDF patterns and how to make a "real" spaghetti strap. Many of the tutorials you will find online produce a flat strap. If you wanted a rounded strap that keeps it shape, the secret is to not trim the seam allowances!
August
We were able to share the versions of Kate and Christy sewn by the members of our Pattern Development Group. We are super thankful to this group of talented ladies for dedicated their precious sewing time to helping us make better patterns! This Kate Bias Top was sewn by the lovely Anneloes...
September
We decided to redesign our pattern covers, and provide more information in the information file. For each of our patterns we now include more details on fabric recommendations, picking your size and printing layouts. The first pattern we updated was the Stephanie Skirt but since then we managed to go through all of them!
October
We spent a good part of the month working on compiling the feedback we had received on our Linda Wrap Dress, updating the grading for a truer-to-size fit and creating illustrations for the trickiest part of the pattern. You can review them on Linda's resource page!
November
While most of our time was dedicated to working behind the scenes on our next pattern release (and more one of us, moving overseas!!), we had fun taking part in #sewphotohop on Instagram. It was a great opportunity to connect with others and a reminder of how great the sewing community is!
December
We released our latest pattern to date, the Yasmeen skirt. We loved to see all the different versions sewn by our testers and our customers. It's a dramatic design that can be enhanced with precious fabrics or played down with more casual ones. Having released 5 patterns is a great achievement for us, considering that we have both demanding day jobs and other side projects/life commitments, and we couldn't have done it without your support and encouragement. And for that we want to say THANK YOU!
We look forward to hearing what you thought about this first year of Just Patterns since your feedback is crucial for us to make 2018 an even better year!