Late March Pattern Haul and Where is Butterick?

I’ve purchased some patterns at the store but my buying has slowed down to a trickle these days. I have gotten a few items off of Etsy and a few things I have thrifted (which is rather surprising I found these) as I’m honing in a little more into what I want to make, and I have been waiting and waiting for Butterick to release a new collection, and with that starts my question for today’s video…. Where is Butterick?

So it looks like Simplicity is about to release another collection of patterns and we are starting to see the changes in the envelopes. Bigger size range with inclusive sizing, finished garment measurements in the back of the envelope (can I get a Alleluia?!!!!), and some fun designs. I will be sure to pick up a few, but this leads me to ask… Where is Butterick? What happened to a Winter or Spring release for Butterick? We usually see two collections a year from them. I will say this, out of the Big four I do love Butterick and Simplicity the most. Mostly because they fit and I have to make the least amount of adjustments to their patterns, but I’m surprised that its almost end of March and we have yet to see another collection from them. The last one being in Fall of 2021 and if you are keeping track, that was 8 months ago when the last one was released back in July 2021 and Spring 2021 was released back in early March 2021.

You start seeing the changes coming your way slowly. Elisalex from By Hand London mentioned in her blog she is no longer offering printed patterns for now as the costs to print patterns is exorbitant and it really eats into her overall profit once all costs are taken into account to release that ONE pattern. Here is a link to her blog and I can understand as a former business owner (I remember I had to pay big amounts to pay just to be able to dump garbage! it drove me nuts paying that bill) and all the costs you have to take into account. OR if the majority of your sales happen thru PDF patterns then perhaps that is the way to go. So it makes sense.

Closet Core Patterns just released new patterns, its called the Chez Moi Collection. The Celine Bralette, The Ananis Undies, the Simone Slip Dress and the Veronik Robe… all are available individually or as a bundle. All are only offered as a PDF format.

I talk about these two indie brands because they have always for the most part released printed and PDF patterns. So is PDF patterns the way to go for indie pattern designers? So it seems, and as the options that catch my eye seem to dwindle down for the Big 4, I have to look at some of the indie pattern companies for new designs or look back into vintage patterns from the Big 4 for a pattern that is perhaps out of print but that I want to make.

I’m not going to lie it also becomes a cost issue, once you start printing more than 40 some pages to put together at home it starts to be cumbersome and it looks like more and more that I will have to send some of these indie patterns out to a pro printer to get them printed in a large scale format printer adding the shipping and you have paid between $20 to $25 for a pattern to get printed including paying for the actual pattern download. Ouch.

So with all that being said… sounds like PDF patterns it is. Not entirely thrilled about it but it is what it is.