community

Hi everyone -

I've been working on a huge update post that I was hoping to finally put up here this week, but now with the Coronavirus pandemic it doesn't seem like the right time to focus on business matters, while a lot of us are in survival mode and such scary stuff is going on. I'm going to set it aside for now, so we can all just focus on getting through these strange days and supporting each other.

In the meantime, I wanted to offer some way for us to all keep checking in with each other, in the most low key way possible - unscheduled, whenever works for you. In case you missed my post on Instagram, here's how it works - it’s super simple:

Update #2 (June 4, 2020):

While I've been making updates on our Instagram since Saturday when the protests of George Floyd's murder began, I have been remiss not to also do so here front and center. I've turned this anti-racism statement into a running post, and it has a bunch more info on our stance below, so I'm pinning it back onto our homepage.

Black Lives Matter.

We (Textillia's owners) fully and unequivocally denounce the murders and police brutality towards George Floyd, and the countless other Black people that have been killed by police brutality, not only this past week and month, but for years. We support the protests going on in the US, here in Canada, and around the world. The sewing industry is still very white and very averse to "being political", and it is critical that businesses and platforms like ours speak loudly in support of important humanitarian issues, within and beyond our actually very diverse community.

While our current resources are extremely limited and I'm not physically able to be out on the streets protesting, I've been doing my best to amplify the voices of Black sewists and crafters on our Instagram in solidarity, share resources, and encourage other companies to take clear anti-racist stances. And Bruno and I have been discussing other ways we can both keep progressing our understanding of the issues of racism, white supremacy, and police divestment, and make more tangible contributions in the future, both personally/locally and on a wider scale through Textillia.

Sending love and solidarity to everyone hurting, take care of yourselves and each other so we can all keep fighting for justice and equality.

It's hard to believe, but as of this past week Textillia has been live for six months! We're so happy with how far things have come, both with adding new functionality to the site and with our growing community. Thanks so much to everyone who's already gotten involved - we're grateful to have each and every one of you here, taking part in our grassroots effort to build the Ravelry of sewing!

We've had such generous offers of help from many of you, but ironically because my chronic illnesses limit my time online so much, it's been difficult to help you help us - I'm happy to say that as we get more established, that is changing! Some lovely volunteers have already stepped up and taken the time to add loads of fabric and patterns to the database. One member in specific, Ksenia aka. Owl.Laughing deserves special thanks, as she has taken it upon herself to add what must by now be hundreds of patterns to the database! Thanks so much Ksenia, for all the time and effort you've contributed!

Now that we've got lots of the basics established, we are ready for you to dive in and help as we work towards our goal to get out of beta before the end of the summer (hopefully sooner!) The biggest missing piece of functionality we want to get in place by then is Groups. Groups will be a core part of the community focused side of Texillia, and will enable us to create a bunch more tools for the business pages as well. We know how important this will be with the increasing challenges of using social media to stay connected with sewing friends and businesses, so this will be a key step in making the sewing community of our dreams!

Ready to help? Here are 5 ways you can get involved...