Welcome to the 2021 Summer edition of the FreeSewing newsletter.
Here’s what we’ve included for you:

🩲 Pattern releases spring 2021 (1-minute read - by Natalia)
👀 Help Sanne test her new bodice block (1-minute read - by Joost)
😢 Farewell David: Remembering David Page Coffin (2-minute read - by Joost)
🕵️ Behind the seams: An Gargouri (8-minute read - by Eleonore)
🤓 Git good: Let’s walk through a simple FreeSewing contribution together (2-minute read - by Natalia)
⚡ FreeSewing v2.16: This one’s for the developers (1-minute read - by Joost)
🤷 Gender inclusivity (3-minute read - by Karen)

We hope you enjoy it. If not, mash that reply button and tell us what you’d like to read instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

🩲 Pattern releases spring 2021

Here’s a quick recap of the new patterns we released in the second quarter of this year:

The Ursula undies: A highly-customizable underwear pattern with plenty of options to achieve different styles. This is my first pattern design. My hope is that Ursula will help you customize undies with the perfect look and fit for your own body. Interested in making a test pair and helping to refine the pattern? I’d love to chat with you over in the FreeSewing Discord.
The Charlie Chinos trousers: Joost designed a new trouser pattern that will adapt better to differently shaped bodies. Charlie has 31 options that allow you to configure your trousers so you get them just as you like.

Click through either of the links for the blog posts announcing these patterns.

👀 Help Sanne test her new bodice block

Sanne is working on a bodice block that is based on her own drafting experience and the techniques she learned. She’s hoping to get some feedback from a couple of more testers, particularly people with larger cup sizes.

If you’d like to help out, you can generate your own version of the block online.

😢 Farewell David: Remembering David Page Coffin

In early May, I received news of the passing of David Page Coffin. David was editor of Threads Magazine back when animals could talk, and his books on making trousers and shirts adorns my bookshelves, as I’m sure they do many others. David was also a friend of FreeSewing, and he reached out to me a couple of years ago to discuss plans he had for a new book. He wanted to make another book about shirts. Not so much about the basic grunt work of making a shirt that fits. But more about all the little style variations and creative embellishments one could add to a shirt to make it into something really special.

Still, he also felt that somebody who would pick up a book about making shirts would also expect to, you know, make a shirt from it. So he was wondering whether he could point them to FreeSewing’s Simon pattern instead of having to dedicate a section of the book to the basics.

I really enjoyed talking to David at length about what he was working on, and his tacit endorsement felt like a big deal from someone who would have no trouble getting his foot in the door of a household-brand pattern company.

Like so many other ideas and good intentions, this one too ended up in the time-deprived maybe one day pile.

Still, for a brief moment I was allowed to bask in the David’s enthusiasm. It is a conversation I will continue to cherish. And also one that made one thing painfully clear to me: He will be sorely missed.

🕵️ Behind the seams: An Gargouri

When we were discussing what kind of content we would like to create for the very newsletter you’re reading now, An didn’t have to think long. She wanted to interview as many contributors as she could, and share what she found out with you. Why? “I’m just a curious person”, she says. Which made us curious about her.

How did you learn about FreeSewing?

I only started sewing last year, so I’m still very much a beginner. I started out with face masks and when those worked out okay, I got excited and started on the most complicated dress pattern I could find. Needless to say, that didn’t turn out great. So I backtracked and started looking for sewing patterns with accompanying instruction videos. I mean, those are basically free sewing lessons. Awesome, right?

That’s how I found the pattern for the Bruce boxer briefs with Joost’s video instructions. And honestly, once you understand how FreeSewing works, how could you not get hooked? I started entering measurements and watching the magic happen. I was so impressed that all of this was available for free, that I became a Patron. Joost sent me an e-mail with a link to FreeSewing’s Discord — an online platform for community building — and that’s where I found out about the contributor calls. Being a curious person, the rest is history!

How did you become a contributor?

That happened sort of by accident. Like I said, I’m curious. I wanted to know all about FreeSewing’s contributor team, so these interviews were a great way to ask all my nosy questions. Maybe I got a bit carried away. That first interview with Wouter took so much time! But I’m also not one to quit when I’ve started something, so you’ll see more of these interviews in the next editions of the newsletter. By the way, if anyone would like to be interviewed, I’m here and I can’t wait to hear everything you have to say!

What do you enjoy the most about your interviews with contributors?

I especially love people’s answers to the question what they would take with them to an uninhabited island. But I’m not giving anything away. You’ll have to wait to read the interviews yourself.

What would YOU take with you to an uninhabited island?

Why didn’t I see this question coming?! I would take one of the books that I never get around to reading. Let’s see … ‘Making History’ by Stephen Fry. Or wait, is there food on this island? I’m not going to fish or anything, and I don’t think I’d be good at starting a fire. Maybe I should just take some canned food. And I’ll need my meds.

And if you could take one person?

That’s easy. I’d take my husband, Bart. That would solve all my problems, anyway. Bart will fish and hunt and light a fire. He can do anything.

Are you a sewist? A coder? Both? Neither?

Right now, I’m mostly a sewist. I did try to learn coding 15 years ago. That’s actually how I met my husband. And then, well, other priorities took over. I can feel the itch to pick it up again now. FreeSewing has me excited about pattern drafting and coding. I’d love to find out what I can do if I set my mind to it.

What are you working on right now?

I’m proud to say I’ve just started using patterns without videos again and feeling good about it! I just made a muslin for a pretty blouse with a cut-out and little buttons, and it’s looking good. I’m going to have a go at it in my fashion fabric. You know, I’m a princess at heart. I love girly dresses and blouses, especially those vintage styles with cinched waists. Those aren’t the best silhouettes for me, though. That’s why I want to learn how to draft my own patterns. I love the idea of turning 2D pieces into a 3D garment and making it fit my body. I think that’s a really cool thing about sewing, by the way. The pattern pieces can look like such a puzzle, but once you start putting it together, it suddenly turns into a garment.

Anything you dislike about sewing?

Honestly? I dislike most of the process other than actually sewing the pieces together. I also really hate cutting patterns out of fabric. That’s where Bart comes in, usually. I tend to buy less fabric than I’ll actually need, but Bart is so good at pattern tetris that he can make almost anything fit onto the fabric.

Any advice for fellow sewists?

Just keep going. It can be so frustrating when things don’t work out the way you’d envisioned. But you just have to wait for things to ‘click’. And they will, eventually. I think, Haha! I’m still a beginner myself!

Do you sew more for yourself or for others?

Bart dislikes new things, so if I make him anything, he’ll wait five years before he decides to wear it. And our son Luc has more clothes than he can wear already. He doesn’t need any more. So I sew for me. I’m the only one who’s actually grateful for handmade clothes!

What do you do outside of FreeSewing?

Professionally, I’m a management assistant, although I’m not working at the moment. I’m really proud that I got my bachelor’s degree, even though people said I couldn’t do it. Clearly I could, and I’m so glad that I pushed through! I’m not sure where I’m headed right now in my career, but I’m taking this time to organize our home. Nothing Marie Kondo-style, mind you. I’d be terrible at that. I love having stuff around. But it sure would be nice if all that stuff was a bit more organized.

What else do we need to know about you?

I can be a bit of a bull in a china shop. Forgive me! I’m impulsive, I’m honest and sometimes I should think twice before I say something. But it all comes from a good place!

🤓 Git(Hub) Good: Let’s walk through a simple FreeSewing contribution together

You — yes, you — can contribute to FreeSewing. On the way, you can learn a little bit about GitHub. Don’t panic. You’ll love it.

I think the easiest way to get your feet wet is cruising around the documentation at FreeSewing.org or FreeSewing.dev. Occasionally you’ll find a typo or a broken link, or just an opportunity to phrase something more clearly.

On FreeSewing.dev, you can click on For Editors for a friendly reference guide. At time of writing, I did that and tried clicking the Common tasks for editors link at the bottom. It took me to a Page not found message with a sad robot. Yippee!! Let’s fix it.

First, let’s find the correct link. I know I’m looking for a page called Common tasks for editors, so I click the magnifying glass icon, put “Common tasks for editors” in the search bar and get this: https://freesewing.dev/editors/howtos. Looks good.

Then, let’s go back to the For editors page. Click the pencil icon next to the page title.

Hey, now we’re in GitHub. Let’s create an account.

After creating our account, we’ll fork the FreeSewing markdown repository, or repo. The repo contains a bunch of FreeSewing’s files and the history of changes to those files.

At this point, we’re editing the For editors file. We’ll swap out the old link with the new link we identified, and then propose changes. Let’s give the proposal a nice title and description.

Time to submit a pull request! Now we’re cooking with fire. A pull request, or PR, is a way to tell FreeSewing that we are proposing a change. In this case we’re saying: “Hi, I found a broken link and I fixed it”.

Finally, someone at FreeSewing will review the PR and say: “Cool, this looks great, so I’ll accept the change; I’ll merge it”. That will send you, the author, a brief email, it’ll be updated in GitHub, and when Joost next deploys the site, typically within a week or so, you’ll see your contributions live on FreeSewing.org or FreeSewing.dev. Crushed it.

⚡ FreeSewing v2.16: This one’s for the developers

We rolled out FreeSewing 2.16 in May, and a minor version bump typically means a new pattern. Not this time though, because we’ve been working hard on updating our development environment to React 17, CRA 4, and Webpack 5.

That’s great news for (aspiring) developers and pattern designers, as React’s new FAST_REFRESH makes everything just so much better.

There’s a lot of work that went into this release, but I also know it’s all kinda technical and under-the-hood stuff. So rather than ramble on about it here, I will just point you to the blog post on the matter.

🤷 Gender Inclusivity

A month or two back, some FreeSewing users asked a really great question on the Discord. What is the goal of having a “womenswear” and “menswear” tag on FreeSewing patterns, and is it really necessary? While some of our users found the tags helpful for sorting, others felt alienated by the terminology, or didn’t feel like either term represented them. We thought we could do better, so we’ve made a few changes.

Tags are gone! 🎉

Instead, we now have departments. For the moment, these departments include Accessories, Bottoms, Tops, Coats & Jackets, Underwear, and Swimwear. The departments are listed at the top of the Designs page, along with difficulty ratings and types of patterns (pattern or block). If you are looking for something in particular, you can use the departments to filter patterns, then decide what’s right for you!

Why is this an improvement? 🤔

The old categories on FreeSewing’s Designs page, including menswear and womenswear, were developed based on the types of categories you might find at a clothing shop. However, we’re not a clothing shop. And that’s kind of the point. FreeSewing patterns are made-to-measure because they’re meant for everyone. We think these new departments are a better representation of that.

These categories were also not visible on the Designs page - you had to do a little more work to filter patterns. As we add more patterns to FreeSewing, it made sense to add some filters, so you can more easily find just what you’re looking for.

Thanks to the users who started this discussion and helped make FreeSewing a little better! ♥

2021 Summer edition

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