In the aftermath of completing my dissertation, I have been doing a bit of sewing and consequently I've been thinking a lot lately about free culture licensed sewing and craft patterns. A little over a year ago, we had a discussion about this in #fossandcrafts and were workshoping a phrase that would encompass patterns and tutorials released under creative commons licenses. Kat Walsh (aka mindspillage) supplied the best answer: "Free Soft Wear." I recently ordered a batch of clothing labels with the phrase "Free Soft Wear, Let's make things together" on them to use in my own projects.

As I'm sewing more, I plan to start making and releasing sewing patterns and/or tutorials which will be released under CC-by-SA. I've already got a few that I've got reference images of in-progress projects lined up. Here are a few tutorials to look forward to in the near future:

Since I've got a bad back, I want my purse to be exactly the right size to fit everything I need with no extra space (because I will fill all of the extra space and add weight to my back). I've been making variations of this purse for the last 10-15 years, so this tutorial will give you the benefit of years worth of trial and error!

I've recently developed a skin allergy to synthetic fabrics, so I have been making a lot of my own clothes. You can look forward to tutorials on how to modify cheap cotton "unisex" tee-shirts into more interesting designs. I've also made a simple pattern for simple cotton skirts with pockets! These and more clothing tutorials are on their way.