Featured Team Member - Catherine Rogan!

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I have been sewing for as long as I can remember.  When I was 17 I started to volunteer at an Oxfam charity shop making clothes from donated fabric and reworking (the word “upcycling” hadn’t been invented) donated clothes.  I was working with two fashion students who recommended me a pattern drafting book.  I designed and made my own clothes for a while, but when I went to university it was to study Law, not fashion.

In 2010 my best friend got married and she had asked me to make her wedding dress.  People naturally assumed that if I was making a wedding dress I must sew professionally so I thought “Why not?”.

Apart from creating things, what do you do? As well as sewing I knit and crochet.  I draw and paint a little, and play the ukulele (which I think is a bit of an Etsy user cliché – but my son got me into it!). 

What would be the title of your memoir?

“Go Get Some Tigers”.  My son (when he was about 4) misheard my partner telling me to “Go get ‘em, tiger” and said “Yes, mummy, go get some tigers”!  It’s what I think to myself when I want to reach for something but also want to make myself smile!

Where does your inspiration come from?
I am very interested in traditional techniques like smocking and embroidery.  I love historical fashion and corset making, but on the other hand I also love post-punk and industrial design!  I guess all these influences mix up in my head and something comes out that’s not a literal interpretation of any of the above.  Although now I think about it “post-punk regency” should definitely be a thing!

What does handmade mean to you?

It means not mass-produced.  While I design and make everything myself, I don’t have a problem with designer-maker teams, I do have a problem with cheap factory made dresses being sold as handmade!  Handmade means a limited run, every item will be to some extent unique and most of all the maker has time to put care into the item in a way that someone who has to sew the same seam 500 times a day just doesn’t.

I love my sewing machine and my serger, there’s no way I could make an affordable garment completely by hand, but hand sewing finishing touches really gives a quality look and feel

When did you know you were an artist/maker?
Always.  I remember being very young and making little outfits for my sister’s Sylvanian Families figures.  They were the best dressed mole family ever!

How would you describe your creative process?
The design process can begin pretty much anywhere.  I carry a notebook and a pencil with me at all times so if an idea comes to me I can sketch right away.  Then pattern drafting and sewing all happens on my dining table, I’m afraid I don’t have a dedicated sewing room!

I have a dress form that lives in the corner of our living/dining room.   A lot of the design process is staring at that figuring how to make the dress work exactly how I want it.

What handmade possession do you most cherish?
I have a granny square blanket that my Grandma made for when I was born.  My son came home from the hospital in it.  She died last year, she left me her crochet hooks, knitting needles and tatting shuttles.  She loved needlecraft and art.  Looking at old pictures of her from the War she was very stylish despite rationing.

How do you get out of your creative ruts?
I have to do something else for a while.  Nothing pushes you into more of a rut like sitting there trying to force inspiration

Where would you like to be in ten years?
I would love design and sewing to be my main source of income.  I would love a little bricks and mortar store, with a room at the back for craft classes.  The challenge is to grow the business while keeping what I love about it, the individualism and the attention to detail.

 

 
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 If you would like to be featured as well... send me an email at dressmakersofetsy@gmail.com! 


We would love to feature all of our team members!

The Power of Triberr!

I am constantly trying to find special little things that will help us cross promote and increase our customer base! 

When I started my own blog I wanted to only blog about sewing, but I found myself talking more and more about all the random things that happened to me and things that I thought needed to be said. Therefore as time has gone on I have blogged about a variety of things, and developed online friends that are also bloggers. 

I began to follow these bloggers on Twitter and make more and more contact. I began to notice that every day I would see tweets that gave the name of some blog post, the link to the post and then said "via @twittername". I thought these guys have some sort of financial agreement to do this for each other as a way to cross promote and increase viewership to their individual blogs. 

I finally asked one of them what was the deal, and discovered they are not paying each other it is a website called Triberr that once you join the site you join "tribes". The tribes consist of people with like minded things, or not in some cases. 

When you join you upload the RSS feed URL for your blog, your Twitter information, and your Facebook information. Then you join the tribes you want to join! 

Each morning I log into Tribber and click the "Approve" button for all of my tribe mates blog posts that have uploaded since the day before. I look to see if there are some posts I have already promoted that I would like to promote again and click to send those again. 

Then through out the day on a time schedule I give it, Triberr automatically tweets the promotional tweets of my tribemates. So I am active on twitter a lot that it isn't actually me, and all my tribe mates are promoting my blog as well! 

It's like multi-level marketing for bloggers and tweeters! Don't worry we won't kick you out if you don't promote the "family". 

I have set up a Tribe on Triberr for Sweety Darlin's Dressmakers Tribe, and we have two members besides myself at this time. I would love to add more members so that we can start to cross promote daily! 

It did take me about an hour of fiddling to get things set up the way I liked it, but that was also because I had to research how to find the RSS code for my blog. Now it is a minute each morning and done! 

I have seen increased traffic, not necessarily increased sales, but that is because I haven't been talking about my sewing much lately! Some of the things I have been working on my clients have asked me to keep under wraps until the item makes it's debut. I can live with that. 

Look it up and check it out! 

Facebook Promoted Posts

Some of you may have noticed my facebook status updates and tweets about how there was rumors that facebook would start charging for business to have fan pages etc.

I did some research and have been able to figure out the following information. Keep in mind folks that the internet is a big array of information and if you look long enough you will find information that fits what you want it to say. I have tried to weed through all of it in order to attempt to find the truth.

If you go to your company page and post a status update you may find this new little blue word... "Promote" This is kind of like a facebook ad that gets forced into the feed of the people who "like" your page.

Here is the specifics, when you like the page of a business all of there status updates show in your feed. You can choose to hide those, or unlike the page, or just ignore your information. We all know that we ignore junk that shows up in our feeds. Plus with the new timeline and different ways to view your feed you may not see the status updates of the pages you have "Liked".

So if you choose to promote your status update you will have to pay a fee, and facebook will make sure that your promoted posts are not ignored. It will even make sure that if one of your watchers likes your post that the post may also show up in their friends feeds so that they can like your page too!

The fee is based on a variety of things frequency, etc, etc, etc, but you will pay a fee.

However you can always just keep doing what you are doing, without a fee, and hope that enough of the people that like your page keep watching for your updates.

Promote Promote Promote

I haven't gotten all polished at this blogging game, but I have been trying to learn the ropes in promotion! I know a lot of you have blogs and one of the hardest things is getting traffic and followers. Well in my circles I have found a whole ton of people that kept tweeting about blog posts from other people and I couldn't figure out what they were doing.

I finally got the scoop! TWIBERR!!! It takes a little work to set up and I had to ask for directions to get it correct. However once you join a "tribe" you can approve new blog posts from other tribe members. THEN automatically the app tweets the blog title with a link to the post and your twitter name to all their followers. This can happen up to 5+ times a day from different people. It is like multilevel marketing for your tweets and blogs.

No matter how we generate traffic once it is generated then we can eventually make sales and get things moving.

I have joined and in the first day I saw an increase in traffic. Now it wasn't massive, but it was  an increase of maybe 15%. I also had three additional followers in the first day. Eventually all that extra traffic will increase more and more and more!

From what I can tell anyone can join Triberr, but you need to join a "tribe". I have a tribe that I have started, but haven't started adding members YET! It is called (shockingly) Sweety Darlin's Tribe! I know I just keep using that name everywhere, but to create a brand you gotta get a little name crazy!

If you would like to join, be invited, or try out this tool. Let me know! send an email to dressmakersofetsy@gmail.com!

I will send you an invitation and we can start to promote each other!

Vintage Sewing Technique

I wanted to share a very cool vintage sewing technique I learned a few years back. I do a lot of historical attire and in that I have learned some techniques that are very interesting.

This particular technique creates a rouched/scalloped edge. You start with  the following design, and cut it out of a piece of cardboard. Now I made about three sections and taped them all together because none of my boxes were large enough, but it needs to be out of a heavier weight material.

You place your fabric over the scallop pattern as shown in this sketch.

Then with upholstery grade thread you hand stitch as evenly as possible with approximately 1/8" stitches along the scalloped pattern, as shown by the dashed line.

Once you have completed the full length edge of the area you want to receive this treatment you pull the stitch similar to the way you would pull a basting stitch to gather an edge.

Once you get the stitches pulled to the length and layout you like, You will want to stitch the scalloped edge to the fabric you want to place it on. You can do this treatment to the top edge of a skirt ruffle or make the scallops both directions for a fancy wider trim.

Here is a dress that has this detail at the sleeve and at the top edge of the jacket skirt.


















I thought this was a great technique that gave a very unique finish to edges. I haven't used it on any of my personal designs, but that is only because I have had so many other things on the table.

If any of you have cool techniques like this we would love to share them. Our team email is dressmakersofetsy@gmail.com.

The Guise of Infringement

I don't know if you are aware, but Etsy has been "cracking down" on anything they deem copyright infringement. However I have had a few of my Etsy friends suffer from this so called crack down, and in my opinion it has been without merit. Of course in none of the situations have my friends been allowed to know the full story so neither do I.

Here is one instance. My friend worked with another seller to purchase a pattern. She explained the pattern would be used to create the item for a special event and then sold for charity. The pattern maker agreed, in writing, to this arrangement. The item was created, used for the event, and then put on Etsy to sell. The pattern maker was noted in the listing and links were included to the pattern for others to buy. The pattern maker turned in the listing to Etsy as infringement. My friend gave the documentation with the pattern makers approval to Etsy and was told that it didn't matter if she approved the use she was retracting it now. Therefore even a written contract was not valid.

In this instance because the specific item was one she had worked with another store, she was able to research the issue and attempt to defend herself, however fruitless it was.

Another Etsy friend created a design one night while we were brainstorming and having dinner and drinks. She went home and the next day made the garment with some fabric she had lying about. It was lovely! She posted it on Etsy and about a week later she received an email that the item had been removed due to infringement. Another Etsy store had turned her in saying it was their design. The worst part is she has no idea who it was that complained as Etsy will not divulge the accuser. However the item was removed and Etsy threatened my friend with shutting down her store because "so many complaints" had been received. Again she had no idea of the accusers, quantity of complains, or nature of complaints.

When a criminal commits a crime he is legally allowed to face his accuser, but we can have things removed without any form of retribution, discussion, or even the ability to prove our validity.

I tell these stories because we all have clothing that is similar. Meaning a neckline might look the same, or they may both have swing skirts, however all of us design our items from a wide variety of influences. There are bad stores out there, and when they are discovered then action is taken. Heck even Etsy got fooled, they had a featured seller that was having all her items made in Indonesia and shipped over, and a huge back and forth started over that one that still isn't sorted out.

We need to all be cautious in how we watermark our photos, make notations about copyrights, and a large variety of other things to protect our items. I have been working towards this goal, but it is a hard thing to do while working full time, creating, sewing, blogging, and everything else that has to happen.

Let us all work together to protect the things that are ours, but also understand that it is not entirely unheard of that another person we have never met might actually create something similar to our item without ever having seen it. I am sure this has happened to a lot of us, but we can also see it on the runways where designers create things that are similar even years later.

I just want us all to work together to build each other up and not create tension by using terminology that causes people to bristle.

Pattern Review: Simplicity 3833

As dressmakers we all have patterns, some we bought, some we made, some we have modified to be something else. We all know about the copyright infringement issues with store bought patterns used for item that are sold. I have made changes to this pattern, but will not divulge those changes as this is merely a pattern review. 

Today I wanted to write about one that I bought and made into to a dinner dress. I loved the simple lines of the dress but figured some nicer fabrics would make it a perfect spring/summer dinner/date dress. 

Simplicity 3833 Retro Pattern

The top of the dress is a dull blue grey satin with just enough body to fit smoothly over the bust. The bottom was gold and blue lightweight taffeta with gold scrolled embroidery. The blue colors in both fabrics were a perfect match so it tied together really well. Plus the finish of both fabrics had the same sheen. 

Completed Garment

There are darted seams at the bust for shaping that also give the front a scoop shape below the bust. It also has a tie in the back that I elected to simply have a pretty pearl and gold button for attachment. The dress fits slightly loosely, but provides a very feminine shape. 

Back tie and Button

I know that there is a large percentage of dressmakers that turn their noses up to using store bought patterns, but a large percentage of them learned to sew from people that used store bought patterns. I am of the school of though that there are so many idea out there that a store bought pattern is a great learning tool. I have patterns I have created myself, and I have store bought patterns. To me they are all tools to be used for my passion.

Of course my own made patterns are ones I have created for historical pieces and tend to fall back on store patterns for daily wear items.

What are your go to tools in the way of patterns? Custom made, store bought, or a combination of both?