Blog

Hi everyone,

Whew! It's been a chaotic and stressful year to say the least. I've written and rewritten this post and postponed publishing it for months at this point... There was just too much to catch up on, even before the spring and summer brought so much global upheaval. With any luck this will be the final "big update" post like this, and the rest will be announcements about how we're out of beta and building cool new stuff!

In any case, perfect is the enemy of good (and more importantly, of done), so here we go. A mammoth update on where things are at and what's coming up for Textillia:

(Re)introductions + how things work around here

It's been a long time since we've done a proper update, so let's start with a (re)intro for anyone who's new around here.

Hi everyone -

I've been working on a huge update post that I was hoping to finally put up here this week, but now with the Coronavirus pandemic it doesn't seem like the right time to focus on business matters, while a lot of us are in survival mode and such scary stuff is going on. I'm going to set it aside for now, so we can all just focus on getting through these strange days and supporting each other.

In the meantime, I wanted to offer some way for us to all keep checking in with each other, in the most low key way possible - unscheduled, whenever works for you. In case you missed my post on Instagram, here's how it works - it’s super simple:

Update #2 (June 4, 2020):

While I've been making updates on our Instagram since Saturday when the protests of George Floyd's murder began, I have been remiss not to also do so here front and center. I've turned this anti-racism statement into a running post, and it has a bunch more info on our stance below, so I'm pinning it back onto our homepage.

Black Lives Matter.

We (Textillia's owners) fully and unequivocally denounce the murders and police brutality towards George Floyd, and the countless other Black people that have been killed by police brutality, not only this past week and month, but for years. We support the protests going on in the US, here in Canada, and around the world. The sewing industry is still very white and very averse to "being political", and it is critical that businesses and platforms like ours speak loudly in support of important humanitarian issues, within and beyond our actually very diverse community.

While our current resources are extremely limited and I'm not physically able to be out on the streets protesting, I've been doing my best to amplify the voices of Black sewists and crafters on our Instagram in solidarity, share resources, and encourage other companies to take clear anti-racist stances. And Bruno and I have been discussing other ways we can both keep progressing our understanding of the issues of racism, white supremacy, and police divestment, and make more tangible contributions in the future, both personally/locally and on a wider scale through Textillia.

Sending love and solidarity to everyone hurting, take care of yourselves and each other so we can all keep fighting for justice and equality.

Hello there!

Long time no blog post, hey? We've been mainly working on behind the scenes stuff the last several months, so we haven't really had any news to share on here. But there will be some more news and exciting things afoot in the new year and into the spring, so not to fear!

Holiday hours: of course Textillia is never closed - it will be there for you 24/7 just like always! But we’re actually going to take some proper time off from Textillia admin work for the holidays. (Shocking, I know, I think despite everything this is my first official “vacation” from it since launching the beta site!) Bruno will be off for this coming week and New Years (Dec. 22 - Jan. 1), and because of how my infusion treatment schedule lines up, I’m going to be off a couple extra days on each end, from tomorrow Dec. 20th through to Jan. 4th.

I’ll still have a new set of homepage features up this Friday, but it’ll stay up for two weeks through the holidays, so if you have any special holiday makes, be sure to get them uploaded before I pick the features this Friday!

UPDATE: We've rolled out the upgrade! It was in the works for a long time, and we're very excited to wrap up this phase of development, and move forward again with building out more functionality. You might notice some small new bells and whistles (and also small theme bugs - if you do, please do report those in the forums or through the contact form!), but otherwise it should all look very similar to before, but nothing should be glaringly broken. And now, onward!

Hi everyone, Bruno here!

I wanted to give you all an update on the work I’ve been doing over the last few months, as the big software upgrade is nearly ready to roll out, and we could use your help testing it. I’ll give you a few details on what the upgrade means, and I’ve put together some info on how you can help with this last step of the process.

Hey folks!

I debated whether this warranted an official blog post, but decided it was the best way to reach those who don't follow us on Instagram. I wanted to let you know that I'm going to be taking a little break from posting on Textillia's social media, and further scaling back my presence here - just temporarily, barring any unforeseen events.

It's for a good reason, as *drum roll* I finally got a diagnosis for the mysterious progressive illness that I’ve been so debilitated by the past several years! I’ll spare you the details here, but the condition is autoimmune so it should be treatable. Not curable, as it is a chronic condition after all, but if I respond half decently to the treatment, I should be able to function quite a bit better. Some people respond quickly, others take from several months to a year, so it’s still going to be a long road, but I finally have a diagnosis and treatment plan, and real hope to get at least somewhat better (or at least stop getting worse)!

Hi everyone! You know how we like to be transparent about what we're doing here, so we wanted to share some of what's been going on behind the scenes for those of you who are interested in keeping up on that side of things.

From a trip to my favourite local fabric shop Spool of Thread! (Not an ad, I just love them!)

Bruno spent most of the last quarter of 2017 working on preparations for getting out of beta, and in December he was focused on building out the membership system. This was meant to be the last piece of the puzzle before we could start the countdown clock to the official full site launch (which has been a long time in the making, so very exciting!) Going out of beta and finally having memberships set up was also meant to be a big step in overall progress of Textillia, as we intended to use that initial influx of membership revenue to fund the "big software upgrade" (from the now old Drupal 7 to the current version of the software we use called Drupal, Drupal 8). This should be the last "big" software upgrade we have to do, as after this version, the upgrades are broken up into much more frequent smaller upgrades, instead of one huge ominous one every few years.

We're excited to announce that you can now choose to make your projects and profile publicly visible, making them much easier to share! *cue cheering*

Project visibility options

You might have noticed that there's a new little box at the top of each project page, indicating its visibility status:

At the bottom of the project form (when you edit or add a project) the last field you'll see now is "Who can view this project?" You can choose from:

• Only me
• Textillia members
• Everyone (public)

"Only me" can be useful if you're working on a gift or a swap project that you don't want the recipient to see until they've received it, or really any other projects that you just want to keep private. Just don't forget to set it to "Textillia members" or "Everyone" once you mark it as finished, otherwise nobody else will get to see it!

"Textillia members" is the default we've been using up until now, which means that everyone who's a member can see it once they're logged in.

"Everyone (public)" means that someone who doesn't even have a Textillia account can see it when given the link to the page - so for example, if you share a project you've finished to Facebook, your friends can all see it without needing to log in! When you choose this, it also enables the "Share" links on the page for Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter (they appear below the grey sidebar box on desktop, or at the very bottom of the screen on mobile).

Surprise! We have a fun new bit of functionality for you! 

While most of what Bruno's been building the last couple months has been behind the scenes, we know how much everyone struggled with the fabric reference field on projects, so we wanted to improve that sooner than later. We've taken your feedback and designed a new and improved fabric reference field with a fancy fabric browsing tool that around here we've nicknamed the "fabric picker". 

Here's how it works...

Hey folks! Thought I'd post a little update here for the keeners who want to keep up with what's going on behind the scenes. We have some small announcements about the second half of summer and what we'll be up to, particularly between now and the (so far mythical) milestone of getting out of beta.

To refresh your memory, we were planning for our next steps to be the Big Software Upgrade and completing the subscription system, then starting the full launch 1 month countdown clock. Well...change of plan: it turns out that while Drupal 8 (the software version we'll be upgrading to) is all ready to go for new site builds, it's not completely ready for upgrades. While this is a bummer in some ways, as it'll delay us making a lot of the user interface and search improvements we really need, the silver lining is instead of spending a bunch of time on the upgrade this summer, Bruno's going to work on some other top priority improvements! Oh yeah, did I mention that? No I didn't, cause we were kind of holding out on you just in case something came up! ;)

Exciting news: Bruno just completed a big freelance contract last week, and now (aside from little bits for his one ongoing client) he's blocked out the rest of the summer to work on Textillia! Hurrah! We weren't sure this would be possible initially, but we talked it over and decided it was necessary to get over the hump of getting out of beta. I'll take this as an opportunity to remind everyone that donations are very welcome, we can use all the help we can get while he's taking more time off paid work!

Hi everyone!

We've been doing some major reviewing and planning, and we're ready to tell you all about what's next for Textillia, including all the details about memberships. Spoiler alert: they'll be only $20USD/year! 

We've come so far...

While we started working on it over a year before launching, Textillia has been live since November 2015. That's already almost a year and a half, and in that time we've gathered a lovely small community of sewists and stitchers, and added a ton of content and new functionality to the site. As of yesterday, Textillia contains...

As you might have noticed, we rolled out a whole pile of new functionality the week before last! I'll walk you through it all so you have an idea of what we've added, which falls into six categories:

1. New Quilt fields
2. New Embroidery fields
3. New Garment section for body shape/alterations on projects
4. Thread collections (and overhaul of threads)
5. Quilting fabric precuts
6. Refined form design

Before telling you about all of that, we need to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped hash out the details of what was needed in the forums, and for your patience as we embarked on this a few months back and crammed way too much in so it took longer than expected! Note to self: smaller chunks next time! :)

We kicked off last year with a sewalong and it was so much fun that we decided to do it again! After taking an informal poll over on our Instagram, we got the most votes for making robes this time around - a perfect, fun and easy sew for all levels. Super moderator Ksenia (aka. Owl Laughing) has lived up to her title once again, and has been adding tons of robe patterns to the database in preparation!

Since everyone who responded on Instagram was keen for us to go ahead with the print on demand shirts, we're going for it! Here are some photos of the shirt samples we got, and info below that about the shirts and how to order. Every shirt ordered helps fund development of Textillia.com and also makes you the coolest quilter or sewist around. :)

Use the code FREESHIPc40446 through November 21st for free shipping on all orders over $45 US / $80 International! (Code is valid from now until 11/21/16 extended to Nov. 24 at 11:59pm CST.)

Get your shirts!

Here are some photos of my favourite styles - lots more colors and styles are available over in the shop...

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:

• Rosie Martin from DIY Couture's "No Patterns Needed"
• Fancy Tiger Crafts Adventure Tank
• Helen's Closet Winslow Culottes
• Seamwork Eugene + Harrington
• Melody Miller Trinket Quilt
• Dottie Angel Wrap and Slip Dress
• Seamwork Elmira + Lynn
• Sew Caroline San Francisco Swing Top + Dress
• Giuseppe Ribaudo Flying Geese Patchwork Bag
• A. L. + Lindsey Neill Donut Delight Quilt
• Cashmerette Springfield Top
• Made by Rae Gemma Tank
• Christine Haynes Lottie Hacks
• Events and Workshops
• Best of Blogs + News, and Podcasts!

Hey everyone, hope summer is treating you well! In case you don't follow us on Instagram or missed the post, we'll be a bit less active on the newsletter and blog post front over the summer, while I take a little breather and try to get this pesky arthritis flare to calm down. But fear not, we're not going anywhere! Textillia is still open 24/7 for you to hang out, search the database, and plan and post your projects - plus, Bruno has commenced on the gargantuan task of implementing Groups! He'll be focusing on that for the remainder of the summer, but we'll also try and squeeze in a few smaller bits here and there. Without further ado...

The Books Section!

The first part of Textillia's new Resources section is up: Books! The books section works much like the patterns and fabrics sections. You can help build it by adding books that are missing, and filling in all of the fields as completely as possible so they show up in the right places around the site (like the author's page, the pattern pages, etc.) As usual, just search for the book you're looking for, and if you don't find it, add it!

Big news: Textillia's homepage, and Patterns + Fabrics sections are now and forevermore PUBLIC!!! This means that if you aren't a member yet or you're not logged in, you can see the homepage (minus the featured projects), and search the patterns and fabrics database! Projects, member profiles, commenting, etc. are still members-only, but now everyone can get a good feel for the site before joining. All part of our "get out of beta" preparations!

And in case you missed it, the Textillia blog now has an RSS feed and we're also on Bloglovin' (both links are also at the bottom of the site) - be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on any posts! (You can keep an eye on the updates thread in the forums for more detailed announcements of all the new features on Textillia.)

Now, onto the news...

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!

Textillia badges are here!!!

A quick announcement before we get to the news: Don't miss our fun new badge generator!!! Just click the red "Get my badge" button on the left side of your profile page, and it'll generate the code for you to put on your own blog or website, including a custom link back to your profile. Now everyone will be able to find and friend you on Textillia, and check out your projects! Yay!!!

Now, onto the news...

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!

The Textillia Stash-a-thon kicks off this Saturday! We'll be in full Stash-a-thon party mode all weekend! Bruno and I will be hanging out in case you need help with anything, and I'll also be working on logging my own stash in between helping everyone out. Help us build the database while getting a bunch of your pattern and fabric stash logged - it's also a great excuse to go through your stash and see what's in there!