On the Journal, as in life, we like to take an annual look back on our accomplishments as we head into a new year. This year we’re reviewing each of our Family of Businesses, starting with The School of Making today. Look for Bldg. 14, The Factory Store + Café, and Alabama Chanin in the coming days. Each of you has been a part of this journey and we’re grateful that you’ve come along with us. We wouldn’t be doing the work we do—designing, making, cooking, dreaming—if it weren’t for you.
It’s been a very busy year for The School of Making. We’ve expanded programming, and projects, and offerings across the entire year. Natalie launched three virtual learning seminars this year through Craftsy and Bluprint: The Swing Skirt: Techniques & Construction, Creative Embellishments and New Embroidery. The beauty of this partnership is that anyone can purchase the packages and follow along at home. We created a School of Making Stitch Along group on Facebook, a creative space intended for the sharing of ideas and a resource for project and pattern questions.
Our patterns and kit options expanded, as well. We developed a pattern collection and released all of our available patterns as paper versions in 2018. We released a Thread + Floss Calculator to help home sewers determine how much product to purchase for each project. The School of Making also expanded its offerings with new products, kits, and programming. This will continue to evolve and expand in 2019.
As we have in the past, we explored collaboration from a maker point-of-view, creating Alabama Chanin-style versions of Fancy Tiger’s Fen Dress and A Verb For Keeping Warm’s Nell Shirt.
We are also proud that The Geometry of Hand-Sewing is now available as an e-book—and we celebrated the ten-year anniversary of our first book, Alabama Stitch Book, which was re-released with a new cover and introduction. It is nearly impossible to believe that it has been ten years since we began our journey into publishing, which was the real inspiration for The School of Making.
We finished out the year with a new design palate for 2019 using a new fabric color, Verdant, new stencils, Abstract and Canopy, and launching preorders for Build a Wardrobe 2019.
The School of Making workshop space expanded in the spring, and we continue to welcome you to our home. Thank you for helping us create this community of makers and doers; here’s to continuing the journey in the coming year.
Look for Bldg. 14’s year in review on the Journal tomorrow.