Who Survives and Who Thrives

 My college sweetheart's mother, quite the battleaxe, went to college with Fred Rogers. He was always the guy you saw on television, and "the nicest @#^$ I ever met". Thanks Sally for the salty quote!

One good thing I took from recent online seminars: the Internet is a neighborhood. The people in your neighborhood, your peers, are your neighbors and you should be....neighborly.

So the online version of shopping locally is what? 

I look to the independent pattern makers when I am shopping for a pattern.

I look for the indies first, because I assume there will be good new ideas there. Since I'm largely drafting my own stuff now, I am looking for inspiration or a kick in the pants. It's no different to me than paging through the big Two companies catalogs with their endless repetitions. 

Hey, they do have good and interesting stuff now and then. And they have a wider audience to appeal to than me.

Targeting your audience as a company is a good way to get repeat business. Lots of folks aim at the the newbie sewist, combining a sewing lesson with a pattern.  Others have a design niche (pockets! trending styles! Princess Kate! Remember when Style Arc was all over her?) This is all good news.

There are always new businesses coming up and older ones fading away (either age, death or real life intervening with business). 

https://thestitchery.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/lafred-patterns/

I miss LaFred terribly. But the patterns are still there.

https://sewingpatterns.com/collections/la-fred

And look who else is there!

https://sewingpatterns.com/collections/park-bench

This is still one of the greatest dress patterns ever. Loes Hinse made several of the best patterns ever. the pull on pants were genius - the secret is you don't pull your pants on straight up, so you can cut the waistband down a couple inches by putting two darts in the back to soak up some of the excess you need for the elastic casing. Less extra bulk around your waist is better.

In the case of the Barcelona dress, the bodice is cut on the bias, the sleeves ongrain, the 3/4 round skirt on bias so that the front seam is a chevron.

I've been reading A History of the Paper Pattern Industry, and you would not have known that the one that survived would be Butterick from the companies over the years (and even that is just a nameplate since 2001). And when the PDF format turns into something more practical for the home sewer (and when we find a better term than that, cause I am not sewing a home)....

I have a tight deadline on those grey hems. More later.