Thinking about organizing sewing patterns

Posted on May 5th, 2009 by Sacha Chua

My stash of patterns keeps growing.

Tops

Vogue V8322 (princess-seamed shirts with snaps)
Butterick 3030 (raglan-sleeved and dolman-sleeved shirts shirts)
Butterick B4815 (vest) – made this, then realized I don’t particularly like wearing vests =)
Butterick B4659 (princess-seamed shirt with wide collar) – made this, not happy with the collar
Butterick 6085 (shirts)
Vogue V2218 (princess-seamed blouses and skirt)

Bottoms

Simplicity S2906 (full and slim skirts) – have three skirts using this pattern already ;)
Vogue V7881 (instructions for slacks) – working on this, made muslin

Dresses

Vogue V8020 (princess-seamed dresses with full skirts)
Simplicity 4097 (wardrober with top, jumper, slacks, and collarless blazer) – made the jumper and the blazer: first time to line an outfit, yay, but the cut is too casual
Butterick 5746 (dress fitting shell) – made this and learned more about how I need to alter patterns (eliminate top darts, trim bottom darts ;) )
Butterick B5277 (dress with asymmetric collar)

Sleepwear

Simplicity 3548 (pajama set) – made this with an awesome kitty-printed flannel fabric!
Vogue V7837 (nightwear)

Outerwear and sportswear

Vogue V8343 (wardrober with asymmetric jacket, skirt, slacks, dress, and top) – made the jacket, liked it
Butterick B4610 (blazers with notched collars)
McCall’s M4598 (blazers)
McCall’s M5764 (capelet)
McCall’s M5668 (princess-seamed blazer with roll collar)
Vogue V1020 (knit wardrober)

I’d love to have the yardage and notions information on my iPod when I’m at the fabric store, and to have a taggable, browsable, very visual way to navigate through my patterns. I usually take all the envelopes when I go shopping, leaving the pattern tissue and instructions at home, but this results in quite a bit of shuffling around as I try to match fabrics with patterns. And it would be nice to have the patterns on my computer as inspiration instead of just sticking up one or two using magnets on my board…

Oooh, and a way to organize online fabric swatches would be nice, too.

PatternReview has a Pattern Stash and Wishlist. It’s one of their for-pay features, but it doesn’t support the kind of tagging and categorization I want, and I’d like the thumbnails to be a lot bigger, too. Maybe make styleboards using Kaboodle, so I can plan my spring/summer and fall/winter projects? That might be interesting…

Otherwise, tempted to either put static images together in Inkscape or Scribus, or build a pattern and fabric organizing system using Drupal… <laugh>

More posts about: sewing // 4 Comments »

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/6212

http://twitter.com/cherisa Cherisa B

Sacha, have you tried open source sewing? Take a look at Burda Style http://www.burdastyle.com/, for instance. There are a lot of creative people contributing cool patterns to online sewing communities out there.
Lynn

Hi,
I just came across your post, just after I decided to try Bento 2 on both my computer and on my iPhone to catalog my patterns. It’s a database program that is available at the apps store. I had to figure out what info I wanted to include for the patterns (Pattern Company, Pattern Name/Number, Picture of the pattern sleeve, yardage, and notions, etc.) It’s great! I’m still figuring it out myself, but I’ll bet you’d love it too!
Lynn
http://Facebook Nancy

How long ago did you make this?

Do you remember how you got the back neck facing to fit onto the back lining? My facing is almost 3″ too big between the notches when I have the pleat sewn in. Did you sew the pleat, stopping short of the seam line of the facing and lining?
http://sachachua.com Sacha Chua

Nancy: Which pattern?

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