Blog

Before we get started, we wanted to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who's been responding to our call for help! We really felt the love last week, seeing more people posting on Textillia and also a ton more people joining - hello and welcome to all the new members! 

News from the Sewiverse is all our latest news and finds: indie pattern launches, podcast episodes, interesting articles, and all the goings on in the sewing universe! In this edition:

• Blueprints for Sewing Geodesic
• Closet Case Patterns Morgan Boyfriend Jeans
• Carolyn Friedlander x RK Essex Linen = Euclid
• Made by Rae is on Creativebug, Sewing for Little Ones!
• Cashmerette Concord T-Shirt
• Megan Nielsen Sudley Blouse
• Art Gallery Fabrics The Denim Studio
• Cotton + Steel "Checkers" Out This Summer 
• Robert Kaufman Greenwich
• Tessuti Audrey Shirt
• Lizzy House Whisper Palette
• Events and Workshops
• Best of Blogs + News, and Podcasts!

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...

My mending pile is threatening to overtake my sewing table. It's OUT OF CONTROL! I found myself wondering if it's just me, and posted on Instagram... It turns out I'm not alone.

It's time. Let us climb mending mountain together! Let's make this coming month a group project: Mendful March.

Decluttering, getting rid of old unused possessions, and being more mindful about our consumption habits (including when it comes to sewing - see Felicia from The Craft Sessions' "Stash Less" series) has been a popular theme this past year. I'm pretty sure it was Katrina Rodabaugh's blog where I first came across the term "mendfulness". As Katrina put it, it's about "...the intersection of mending, making, and reclaiming".

The Queue is here!!!

One of the features we knew we wanted to add soon when we launched was the Queue, and we were so excited to roll it out last week! If you're familiar with the queue functionality on Ravelry, this is similar but with some important differences, most notably that your queue will display both patterns you've queued and any "active" projects you're working on. Essentially anything you're planning to work on or currently working on will show up - it behaves as a complete to-do list, as we know it's common to work on multiple projects at once and struggle with staying organized!

A bunch of brave sewists joined together to start off 2016 with a really fun sew-along! It was really more of a "group sew" since we were all making slightly different self-drafted patterns while following Cal Patch's Creativebug "Pattern Drafting with Knits" class. We made it a casual work-at-your-own-speed sew-along, as some people made their first self drafted garment ever, while others cranked out multiples tweaking their patterns more quickly...there was a LOT of experimenting going on, and it was refreshing to be in "learning" mode more than "production" mode for a change. Having such an enthusiastic and supportive group made tackling a slightly intimidating topic a joy, so thanks again to everyone who joined in, and to Cal who checked in regularly to provide encouragement and help when we had more challenging questions!

We're always glad when people ask us how to do things they don't understand, and give us feedback about where they're getting stuck using the site. It helps us learn what is less user-friendly, and what we might need to change in the future, and that's useful information! (If you have a question or some feedback, don't hesitate to post about it in the forums!) 

One of the questions that keeps coming up is how to stash fabrics and add to Textillia's fabric database.

How does the fabric database work?

The fabric (and fabric collections) database is a subset of the "Materials" section of Textillia, which currently contains fabrics, fabric collections, and thread, and will likely someday contain other things like notions and other tools. The fabrics that are already in Textillia's database have been added either by me or by other site members. Anyone can add fabric, fabric collections, thread, and patterns to the main database - we think of these as the "community managed" content types. It might be a surprise that anyone can add and edit these kinds of content, but the reality is that if I tried to add all known fabrics to the database myself, it would take my entire lifetime and then some! We can build it a LOT faster working together.

News from the Sewiverse is all our latest news and finds: indie pattern launches, podcast episodes, interesting articles, and all the goings on in the sewing universe! In this edition:

• Creativebug Block of the Month series with Heather Jones, Anna Maria Horner, and Carolyn Friedlander
• Colette's Phoebe Sew-along starts today!
• East Coast and West Coast (and Australia!) sewing retreats and workshops galore!
• Make new sewing friends with Whipstitch's 2016 Sewing Buddy Project
• Textillia Reads Goodreads Group
• Highlights from the sewing blogs...

Creativebug Block of the Month

As if Creativebug had somehow heard me when I declared one of my sewing resolutions for 2016 would be to make my first quilt, they're doing a Block of the Month series all through 2016! Modern quilters and fabric designers Heather Jones, Anna Maria Horner, and Carolyn Friedlander start each month off by teaching you how to sew a different quilt block. All the info and the first block are on their Block of the Month page.

Hi everyone!

The latest new functionality includes:

• Newsletter signups during registration
• Lots of new "Add" content buttons
• Pattern stashing!
• Forum images
• Server move complete

Before we get started, we have a really quick survey for all Textillia members, especially those of you who have sewing related businesses. One of our most important goals is to support indie sewing businesses, so we would love to hear your thoughts on how we can support you best, while also making Textillia awesome and sustainable. Click here for the survey!

Thanks for taking a few minutes to fill that out! Now, here's the latest installment of new functionality we've added before the holidays arrive...

It's official: starting at the beginning of January, we're going to be doing a sew-along with Cal Patch's Creativebug class: Pattern Drafting with Knits!

I did Cal's original Pattern Drafting (for wovens) class when if first came out, and have been itching to do the follow up for knits - but I got just a little distracted with life and launching Textillia! The time has come, and what would be more fun than doing this with a bunch of you? This plan was hatched in the Cal Patch Fan Club forum, which is where we'll also be chatting and checking in when the sew-along starts. If you want to join in on the pre-sew-along excitement or ask questions, feel free to post on the original thread (or start your own!)

It's time for another big update of new functionality we've added to Textillia over the last week and a bit - Bruno has been busy! But first...

A quick PSA: We've been having some issues with our website hosting provider (says every new website ever), so we're preparing to move to a new one before Bruno heads to visit his friends and family in Belgium for the holidays. This will mean a little service outage when we have to take the site offline briefly, so stay tuned as we'll be sure to announce when the planned downtime will be!

Friending + friend updates on your studio page

Friending is here! You can now friend your friends! (Friend is a verb now, right?) Just look for the red "+ Add friend" button on their Member profile page.

Hi everyone!

Thanks for an amazing first week! More than 600 700 (we passed 700 overnight!) of you already signed up and we have been totally blown away by your support and are so excited to see you all using the site and making yourselves at home. Bruno has been busy this week, adding new functionality and fixing a few things here and there. Here's a quick overview of what's new on the site for anyone who's not subscribed to the newsletter... (If you're not, sign up at the bottom of the page!) 

My studio

Your "My Studio" pages have come to life and will show more kinds of messages as time goes on! Now when someone favorites your business page, or favorites or comments on one of your projects, you'll see a message there letting you know. Check there regularly to see who's interacting with you, and be sure to show some love to others by clicking the heart icon or leaving a comment when you find projects or businesses you like too!

We've finally launched!!! Welcome to Textillia, the sewing community's very own cozy corner of the internet - we're so excited to have you all here! As most of you know, we've decided to launch early in a Beta period - that means there are a few rough edges! We decided to do this for many reasons, and one of them is that it'll let us see how you use the website and adapt to that as we continue to build it, make improvements, and add new features.

Before you get started, here are some quick pointers and tips to help get you settled in...