End of the Year Update

This time of year is always nuts. My business is super slow and my daughter’s schedule is super busy, plus trying to figure out what to get my loved ones for Christmas is just a nightmare. For a small business like mine, Christmas time is the slowest time of the year, but it is also my busiest time of year, with preparations for January and beyond.

Here is a fun photo of my daughter while I digress a moment.

December is a cacophony of projects for myself. I had originally planned to release my new sports bra pattern a few weeks ago, but decided that December is the worst time to release anything unless it has something to do with gifting.

Sewing patterns are usually a personal project and not a giftable, so January is a much better time to release a pattern. And that is exactly what I’m doing. I currently have an amazing group of ladies testing out my new pattern in sizes across the spectrum.

The samples look great and I’m really glad I took my time to get this one released. I have completely rewritten my instructions and reformatted my pattern downloads so the sizes can be turned off with layers in Adobe Reader. I am not sure if this is inherent to Illustrator, or if it was an extension I downloaded to do it. I honestly can’t remember. I just tried looking for the extension and couldn’t find it, so the extension I’m thinking of mine not be this one.

Anyway, back to my year end summary.

Amongst my many projects, I have also been working on putting together a website for online courses. The first course I have written is for the software PolyPattern. It is my way of offering a better support system for the software.

The second course will be related to the pattern book I released a few months ago, followed by the third course on grading. The website is in need of a few more revisions, but I’ll announce it in early January.

Let’s see, what else is on the docket for the new year. Once the course website is rolled out, we will then be rolling out our website and blog redesign. As if I didn’t have anything to do already.

I hope to start working on revising my California Dreaming pattern late January/early February. I will be renaming it, but don’t worry, if you bought this one already, you will get the revisions too.

In early March, we will be rolling out (for beta testing) our inventory management software. My husband has been working on this full time for the past year, but I have been working on some version of it for about 4 years now. It’s the only way I’ve been able to keep from overselling with all my online marketplaces. I will be so glad when this is ready to go. If you are interested in possibly testing it, check out the website and sign up for the newsletter on there. www.EpitomeInventory.com.

So, that is the plan for early next year. Do you think I can get it done? I hope so.

Now for the wrap up and thank you portion of this post.

As a little news round up for this year, I am grateful that my new pattern drafting book has been received positively. I have at least one school picking it up for the Spring semester in 2019, but I hope more will be too.

I would love to thank my husband for all his support of my business venture and his partnership in raising our wonderful family. As some of you may have picked up from posts here or there, we added a 4th member to our family this last year.

No, I did not have another baby. If so, that would have been very awkward since she is 20 years old. Early this past year, we welcomed Hanna into our family full time. We may not be her biological parents, but we call her daughter and will forever be a part of our family. I wish we could have taken her in 5 years ago when she came into our lives, but life has to itself play out.

While I wished we could have been her foster parents when she needed one most, we are glad to have her in our lives now. I wish everyone a merry Christmas and a wonderful new year. I’ll see you back here in a few weeks when the new Laurel Sports Bra pattern is released.