Announcing freesewing, an open source platform for made-to-measure sewing patterns

I am proud to announce freesewing core v1.0.0 and the accompanying documentation site that describes the freesewing project in detail.

But I'm also realistic, and understand that you don't have time to plow through pages upon pages of documentation.

So instead, here's a story to give you the essence of freesewing in a nutshell:

The freesewing origin story

Sewing is easy. It really is.

What's hard is getting things to fit properly. That's why you use a sewing pattern. It's a blueprint for whatever it is you are making. A good pattern gives you good fit. Most patterns don't.

That's because — much like clothes in the shop — patterns come in sizes. And sizes are a crude way to put people in boxes. They are made for an imaginary average person, rather than for you.

There is another way, and that is to draft a pattern based on your measurements. These made-to-measure patterns are vastly superior, but they require a lot of work.

I wanted to change that, and that effort evolved into MakeMyPattern.com. I ran that site for a number of years, and it was a remarkable success. Probably helped by the fact that I gave away all patterns for free.

In the world of home sewing, it tends to require a bit of explaining why one would choose to give away their work for free. Things are different in the open source world where the idea of sharing your work with others for the benefit of all is the very thread from which communities are woven.

While I can't magically bring the culture of open source to sewing patterns, I certainly can bring sewing patterns into the open source world. And that's exactly what I'm doing today.

Freesewing.org will offer what Makemypattern.com does today: free sewing patterns drafted to your measurements. But additionally, it will be open to your contributions.

Here's hoping that in the Venn diagram of the somewhat geeky and sewing, it's not just me in the middle.

joost

Shout-outs

Freesewing is a project by Joost De Cock and contributors.

Hat-tip to @jakesgordon and Kevin Lindsey for allowing me to port some of their code.

The early-stage enthusiasm and input of @diggydev, @cabi, @woutervdub, @cloutiy, @straytaoist, @netpraxis, @Stefan1960, @brendare1, @JorisJoppe, @JamJenkins, and @fightingrabbit has been a great boon to this project.

Thanks to @annekecaramin for designing a logo cool enough to put on a Tshirt.

Special thanks to @scorchtorch for being the best at that heart/salad/antlers thing.

Last but not least, this project would not exist without the users, supporters, and donors of makemypattern.com.

Thanks guys!