What is Textillia?
Textillia is an online community and database for all manner of sewing and fabric enthusiasts!
We welcome everyone who sews:
- quilts
- clothing
- accessories and home decor projects
- embroidery, needlework, and cross stitch
- hand dyed or printed fabric
- textile art using fabric and/or thread
The word "community" gets thrown around a lot these days. When we say community, we're talking about each individual Textillia member whether sewing is your hobby, or your job. You are why this project exists. Our goal is to make this a useful and inspiring space for all sewists - our collective cozy sewing space online. We've intentionally created Textillia in a way that puts this community at the centre and foundation for the long term. Because we're independent, and not financially backed by any companies or funders, the decisions we make are driven solely by what works for us and what best serves this community.
As a member:
- You get your own profile page to show who you are, what you do, and what you make!
- You can use Textillia's "my studio" tools to plan, organize, and document your projects and stash.
- If you run a sewing related business, designing patterns or fabric, running a larger company, teaching workshops, or owning an online or brick or mortar shop, you can set up your business page(s).
- You can talk in the forums about tools and techniques, ask for help, and find other sewists in your hometown or with shared interests.
- You can get to know lots of great crafty people, and stay up to date on what your friends are working on!
Texillia isn't just another online community - it's main purpose is the centralized, crowdsourced database of all things sewing—an extensive and easy to use set of features that enable you to:
- Work together on our community built searchable database of patterns, materials, and resources that are cross-referenced with each other, the projects members use them for, as well as the companies and people that designed and produced them.
- Search a structured index of designers, companies, and shops (both online and brick and mortar), cross referenced with their products, and linked to community members who work at or own them.
Who are you?
We are Ariane and Bruno, a couple living in Vancouver, Canada. Hi!
Ariane was born with an insatiable appetite for art and crafting, and learned basic sewing as a teenager growing up in Saskatchewan. She relocated to Vancouver for university and never left, running a hobby business making organic cotton bags and accessories (pre-Etsy!) on the side, while earning her Masters in Health Geography. After university, she worked in the open source web development world (where she met Bruno!), and did a term as Documentation Co-lead for the Drupal open source software project, which is the software used to build Textillia. After several years as a project and client manager at a couple local web development companies that served mainly non-profits and academic institutions, worsening chronic illness forced her to stop working. It was then that began to spend some time doing art and sewing again to pass time on better days - during this time, she sewed her first garment and fell in love with making her own clothes. After much soul searching and reckoning with the reality it was no longer possible to work regularly, Textillia went from being a fun idea to bounce around with Bruno, to an exciting chance to create a project to work on when able, doing something she loved. Ariane also enjoys watching Star Trek (TNG) and other feel good shows with Bruno, patting strangers' dogs, oohing and ahhing over birds and plants, reading books, drinking tea, and appreciating all the small joys in life. Politically engaged since her teen-aged years, she has also become an avid chronic illness and disability advocate.
Bruno is from Belgium (not so coincidentally, the birthplace of Drupal) and studied journalism before discovering his passion for web development and independent media. After working in web development and at Belgium's biggest indie media website for a decade, he fell in love with this Canadian girl he met at a web development conference (that's Ariane!) and uprooted his life to move to Vancouver shortly thereafter. He did web development work for various local non-profits and academic institutions, and is now the Technical Lead at popular independent online news site, Canada's National Observer. He's been active in the open source web development and independent media communities for many years, and has co-authored a couple books on Drupal and media activism. Outside of work, Bruno enjoys swimming, yoga, gardening, reading, politics, occasionally singing as a tenor in a classical choir, and enjoying the beautiful landscape of Canada's west coast.
Why did you build Textillia?
Because it was long overdue that sewists have a home base online, and nothing like this existed when we started the project! As Ariane began sewing more, she constantly found herself wishing for somewhere to search and add to centralised data about sewing patterns and fabric. We planned to make the project into a self-sustaining business, but have had to shift gears due to Ariane's illness, and we now maintain the project as a hobby.
Who's funding this? Where is the money coming from? Are you backed by a big company or investors?
It's really just us: Bruno and Ariane, the skills we've cultivated over the last 15 years, and a dream that became a plan. We've kept overhead costs as low as possible by building everything we could ourselves little by little, and have covered any additional costs out of our own pocket. How wonderful is the idea of a website where you never have to wonder whether someone is being paid for their so-called "opinions", or whether you're reading content vs. an ad? In this era of influencers and affiliate programs, Textillia is free of clutter and the focus is 100% the site's core content and services. We believe that while it's a bit "old school", it's retro in a good way and a breath of fresh air! No hidden fees or agendas. A clean and modern design, loads of functionality, and this cozy corner of the internet to call our own.
Textillia is really important to us and we want so much for it to continue, despite the challenges we've been handed. If you want to support Textillia's continued existence, we welcome both one-time and recurring monthly donations through our Donorbox page. Your support means everything to us, and helps us keep it up and running. We come from a background of learning, creativity, activism, and open source (aka. community built, free) software, and we truly hope that Textillia can continue to provide a meaningful service to this little community.
Thanks for believing in us and in Textillia!
Bruno and Ariane