We’re always looking for better ways to organise and present the sewing patterns in our database, and we were starting to feel like we could do a lot better when it comes to publications.

This time last year, we made it so the patterns from books and magazines were connected and filterable. This was a massive improvement (!) but some things were still lacking.

First off, there was no way to add all the patterns from a publication at once, so you had to had to stash each pattern individually. Some people were having problems finding the books or magazines they were looking for, because they had been published under different titles. Additionally, there was no way to visually browse all publications.

So we decided to rework it from the ground up – create a dedicated space for publications and polish up the existing books and magazines with covers, publication dates, and alternative titles. Together with the moderators, we have been working on this for weeks, tracking down obscure magazine cover and discussing ways we can make everything tidy and organised. The new publication section is a work in progress, but it just keeps getting better and better. 

To more easily maintain the integrity of the data, only moderators and admins can manage publication info and cover images. If you have access to a publication with missing or wrong information, please tag @mods or @team to supply us with images and/or information!

If you're on a pattern page and click on the publication or issue title, we used to send you to the pattern database, but now we send you to the publication section instead. You can still use the publication filters in the database like normal.

You can read more about publications and where to find them in the guide.

Plus members can now manage their own digital bookshelf! Add a book or magazine issue to your bookshelf to stash all patterns at once. And as a bonus: if any patterns are added to that publication in the future, they will auto-stash. Read more about the bookshelf in the guide or try it out for yourself by going to the Bookshelf.