When drawing out my all-encompassing plans for world domination, a couple of ideas have come to me and I'd love some feedback!- Seeing as the clothes themselves are taking second fiddle to my patterns at the moment I been thinking about moving on to kits. The customer would get the tutorial for a garment and pre-cut pieces of fabric to assemble to make their own version. I get a lot of queries about the fabric I use (and tend to hoard more than I need), so selling kits would enable people to make the things they like rather than buy them, and I could start to make a dent in my undiminishing tower of fabric. Which would let me buy more, hooray!
- I've sold more than fifty patterns now, which is really exciting. But... I'm ever so slightly sad that I haven't seen any of the results. I'd love to see what people make with my patterns (and not just for personal gratification); it's inspiring to see the different fabrics people choose and see how people put their own personal stamp on things. One of my lovely testers used ric-rac on my swing top pattern and it looked great, I never would have thought to do that! Although I joined Flickr awhile ago, I've never properly used it as much as I should. But I've been thinking about starting a Flickr group for people to showcase what they've made from Kitschy Coo patterns. Maybe no one will be interested, but I'd hope that this could be an extra resource for people to get inspiration and support.
I'd love to know what people think about these ideas... especially those Flickr gurus who could give me insight as to whether this is a good idea or not!
I think a flickr group is not only a good idea, but NECESSARY. Have a look at the Oliver + S group for inspiration.
ReplyDeleteIf I were you, I'd also be starting to look at getting your patterns printed to save you the huge amount of work that you're doing to get these out.
I do like the idea of the kit and I'm sure that there will be crafters out there who'll buy them. Personally I wouldn't, because I'm a bit stingy and prefer sourcing fabric myself BUT I really am not representative of the crafting world as a whole.
I just bought a couple of kits from Clothkits so it's very possible I would buy some from you!
ReplyDeleteI'm only just starting to sew so it might be a less scary way of starting a project.
Again, for stingy I would generally prefer to source fabric myself, but if you have bulk-purchased fabric, especially if from the US during better exchange rate days (and it saves individual postage) then it might be not much more expensive to buy a kit!
I just bought a 'clothkit' too, it's a great way for the novice sewer to get started. The really helpful thing is that the pattern is printed on the material so there are no worries about matching the print, which I have struggled with before, so anything you can do to make that easier would be great. My munchkin is a bit little for your clothes at the mo, but I'm really looking forward to her growing a bit.
ReplyDeletekits sound good! I'm a bit concerned about your plan for world domination though, I thought the meerkats were going to take over...
ReplyDeleteI just ordered your combo patterns and can't wait to get to sewing. I would join your Flickr group.
ReplyDeleteKristy
I second the idea tha you should look into getting your patterns printed instead of the crazy amount of work you put into it. I just got your combo set this past week end and I almost don't want to cut it up to make b/c I'm blown away by the obvious amount of effort that went into it. And as soon as procure the requested fabric I will totally show you the results! I should prolly do one up with fabric we dn't care about as much before the fancy stuff comes in.
ReplyDeleteI finally think I found a printer this morning! They normally do architectual drawings and will scan them in for me too so I have a digital copy for future orders. Hooray!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback on the kits, I need to have a look at Clothkits now to see how they work it!
@Vonnie: Thanks so much for the link to Oliver + S Flickr group, and for giving me permission to do something so brazen:)
@Nifty: You're right, I'd put money on the meerkats!
@Kristy and Shellei: I set it up, click the link top right corner! Please join, I feel a bit lonely all by myself...
I bought a clothkits kit for my daughter, but after making it I don't think I'd buy another. They're funky, and cool and really easy to make, but there's not much variation.
ReplyDeleteI would love to make my (age 4) daughter one of your patterns, but I think she's too big:(