Sorry guys! I have all notifications turned off, so missed this. Let me see...this may be a long one.
I'm going to start by saying that generally I don't care much for indie pattern houses. There are a few good ones, but there are a lot of REALLY BAD bloggers turned designers with no training or experience who charge extortionate sums for terrible patterns. I personally only use Big 4, Burda or Patrones. I think a lot of people exaggerate how difficult Big 4 instructions are...I learned to sew with them and have never had any issues. Admittedly since the ownership changed they go on sale a lot less, but I have a large stash to get through so I'm okay.
I should also add that I hardly follow any sewing bloggers/influencers. I don't follow any influencers of any kind on Instagram because I'd rather read a blog post. The ones I like are people like Sewing & Slapdashery or Dressmaking Debacles. Their photos aren't professional quality, but they're incredibly honest about what works and what doesn't. That's great.
I've always kind of been on the periphery of online crafting stuff. Here are some fun dramas to look into:
1) THE COLETTE RUE DEBACLE
Colette was a pattern company that specialised in vintage-inspired looks. They were one of the first of the new wave of indies, and for a while their patterns were EVERYWHERE.
The thing is...their patterns didn't work. They were drafted for the founder's body type, and she is extremely short-waisted with very broad shoulders. This was obvious, but Colette would always deny that they were drafted for her. Because the sewing community is such a circle jerk, everyone still posted gushing reviews about these patterns that looked awful without massive adjustments.
So Colette ticked over nicely until their new pattern, Rue, was selected for the Pattern Review Sewing Bee contest. PR, for anyone who doesn't know it, is a horrendously designed website where you can look up patterns, join discussion forums, and enter competitions. It's very American, and there's a lot of "I made the whole family Bible covers for church!" going on, but there are some women there who really, really know their stuff. And these women started complaining very vocally about the pattern.
Colette kept denying that the pattern had been drafted for their founder's body despite the fact that she was literally the only person who had made a version that fit correctly. Finally they admitted they made a mistake...and posted a picture of all the staff enjoying a day-long yoga retreat to show that they were reflecting and growing.
You will be shocked to hear that Colette don't make patterns anymore, and have migrated entirely into the Seamwork brand. Seamwork patterns are designed to be very simple, and they pretty much universally look like
tit due to a lack of shaping etc...the sort of thing that when you say "I made it myself" people think, "Yeah, it shows."
Further reading:
https://allspiceabounds.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/why-colettes-corrections-to-the-rue-pattern-are-too-little-too-late
Friends, I will start this post with a Public Service Announcement: Do not spend money on the Colette Rue Pattern. Even if it was $1 inst...
getmystitchon.blogspot.com
There's a great thread on Pattern Review about this too, but I can't find it now.
2) BY HAND LONDON DEBACLE
By Hand London is a UK-based pattern company run by posh women who mostly make aspirational dress designs. Again, they've been ubiquitous in the online sewing world. In particular, their Anna dress was praised and worn by just about everyone.
And again, the drafting was terrible. This blog goes into superb detail about just what was so bad about it:
Pattern: By Hand London's Anna Dress Fabric: 3 yds double knit/ponte Cost: $22 Two years after its release I finally found an occasi...
www.madebymeg.us
Also check here, epic lolz and dire mishandling of data protection:
www.reddit.com
But the real drama with BHL came when they decided to do a Kickstarter. This was back in 2015 I think, and they wanted to raise money to run a Print On Demand fabric service. They raised the money...and then realised that they had no idea how to continue with the project, so abandoned it. Great!
Around this time they also decided that their paper patterns were better than their PDFs, because the paper patterns were a cherished product of love or some
bull, so they announced that PDFs would no longer be supported. They announced this without warning, so people who had already paid for but not downloaded a PDF from their website were left up
tit creek. Incredibly bad business skills.
Further reading - this is really long, but it gives you the full story of the Kickstarter, the bad patterns, etc:
https://gomiblog.com/forums/crafting-bloggers/by-hand-london-bhl
3) Online sewing culture in general
I hate it.
But it's really interesting psychologically. People have no problem critiquing patterns from the Big 4 or Burda, because they're seen as faceless entities. But all these small indie pattern houses are part of the community, and they just wanna be your friend, so nobody ever criticises them.
It's a
crappy, dishonest way to run a business.
Here are a couple of quick examples of what I'm talking about:
* Tilly & the Buttons released a pattern for a woven dress that was EXACTLY THE SAME FRONT AND BACK WITH NO SHAPING. That's...not how women's bodies work. Here's a review where the reviewer tiptoes around the issue, because of course nobody can ever come out and say "this pattern is
tit":
I wanted to start this blog with a bit of a disclaimer. I’m not trying to pattern bash Bettine, but more explain the difficulties that I face with this pattern and my body. There’s not …
curvysewingcollective.com
As an aside, this reviewer is plus size, but that has nothing to do with the poor fit of the dress. That dress has no accommodation for breasts and hips, regardless of your size!
* Here's a lengthy review of a pattern by Papercut Patterns. After this review came out, the company pulled the coat from sale and later released an updated version:
THIRD EDIT, Oct 31st 2020: Alice from the blog Queen of Darts have used this post to go through the 2.0 version of the pattern. See her con...
www.sewinglikemad.com
Notice at the end she says, "Phew, this post has been hanging over my head for a whole year." That pattern was out there FOR A YEAR, with people sewing it up and influencers saying how great it was, before someone finally had the balls to criticise it.
---
There is so, so much more out there that I could talk about, but I'm gonna stop it here because this post is really long already. I find myself spending less and less time looking at crafting blogs and stuff TBH...there's also this whole weird politicalisation thing going on. Knitting has been even worse - that online culture has become so toxic, and there are new witch hunts every other week. It's a really clear example of how people apply American cultural standards to the entire world: people will attack a designer for only using white models, without realising that the designer lives in the Outer Hebrides or rural Denmark or the middle of Estonia. It's toxic and tiresome, and I'm so over it.
but I came second in the BHL fabric design competition attached to that Kickstarter. It took ages to get my £100 prize (had to chase them) and I never got my commission for the fabric they sold even though they told me it had sold really well (probs a lie tbf but my family bought some so I was owed something!) so I am not a fan of them. Again, their patterns need a lot of adjustments but I did love the Elisalex dress. In 2013 or whenever it was - not now! I also thought I liked the Anna but yes, so many adjustments!
