Once upon a time I had a pattern stash that was manageable. They were kept in a box . Then I met online friends and read reviews of great outfits that I Had To Have. My pile grew and grew, fell over and magically reproduced, bearing multiple offspring.
From that was born a pattern stasher hoarder COLLECTOR.
Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against any of you for tooo long!
For a long time I organized my collection like many of you do. I took the insides out of the pattern envelope and filed the envelopes in a binder. Okay, three binders- but who’s counting?!! The insides went into a freezer bag and were filed in numerical order in the real, authentic, five dollar auction sale pattern filing cabinet find. (It used to be in a Polka Dot store) Do you Canadians remember Polka Dot?
It grew and grew. I was organized enough to purchase patterns, but not organized enough to take them out of the envelope, and file them appropriately. So, once again, piles grew in mysterious places.
Like in the living room. And on the high chair to be perused by PrincessH.
And sometimes in the bathroom!
As well, I never knew what kind of patterns I had. If I wanted a boatneck, vintage dress pattern, I had to leaf through the pattern books, the piles and the myriad of pattern magazines. Then, OF COURSE I would build new piles. This boatneck dress, that boatneck top that could be a dress. You get the picture.
I needed a new system, and here is what I have decided.
1. I want my patterns back in their envelope. I hate not keeping them together.
2. I am photographing the front (and some back) covers of the patterns
3. File them numerically in the pattern cabinet
4. Using Picasa (I may use Flickr but then I need a pro account) I created a Pattern file, and am adding all my patterns and tagging them. For instance this dress 
would be tagged – women, dress, tunic, sleeveless, Butterick, 5485, empire, gathers, mockwrap. That way I can search the pattern set for whatever parameters I choose. I plan on printing the photos out – 4 to a page, and putting them in the binders for a visual as well.
Are you thinking- Well I guess we’ll see her in January?!! Lord I hope it doesn’t take that long. I am leaving most of my vintage patterns alone. They in themselves take up one entire drawer.
Right now I have the patterns all back in envelopes, and photo’s taken of 75% of them.
“and they are all laying in piles on the sewing room floor!!”
I can hear my daughter saying.
And I retort,
“Organized piles! They are all in organized piles! See, the 3000′s are here, the 5000′s are here…where the heck did the 6-9000′s go??”
Bhleh. I’ll get there!
I am loath to start tagging them in Picasa because I am afraid that there is Some Program Out Therethat will organize them better than Picasa. I know that there is MySuff for Ipod, but I haven’t mastered it yet. And I am loath to just have them on my Ipod as I am likely to erase it on accident! I thought that by having it online, I could access it more easily. I was trying to use Excel, then put it on googledocs, but wasn’t pleased with what I came up with.
Are there any suggestions out there as to the best way to catalogue pattern collections?
Talk at you soon!
Connie
ps. MissMuslin, the tagged post is almost done!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I had to comment on this because I too have been wanting to search my patterns by parameters. I want to be able to find all long sleeve knit tops, for example. I’ve been thinking on and off about this for quite awhile and would love to know if someone has created a database, application, or something for just this purpose.
Gee maybe I could make a million dollars, developing a pattern/fabric inventory program! Then think of all the patterns and fabric I could buy!
Crikey.
I am of NO help.
I use the rubbermaid tub totes (carribbean colors) in a highly sophisticated tri system such as DRESSES SKIRTS JACKETS.
Then, when I am inspired to make a particular item, I wait for a rainy/snowy evening, get my post it notes and look through every BWOF and commercial pattern with a bag of mandm’s…….
Very sophisticated! But the colours sound very cheerful!
Sophisticated, eh?
PrincessH is sooooo cute!!! I use the Pattern stash eature on PR… ‘Course I (only) have 68 patterns…
WAY too many, actually… Most of ‘em are very similar…
Soft hug,
Rhonda
She is kinda awesome isn’t she?! You know, I have only 2 patterns in that feature. Maybe I should look more closely at it!
I put the patterns in drawers by type … mens, sleepwear, babies, purses, dresses, sportwear collections etc….but the vintage patterns are in boxes, so is the overflow sleepwear collection, kids clothes and the oversize patterns are stuffed in a bookcase. At one time I thought I’d start an index system — but is just isn’t going to happen, so I regularly visit the Joann pattern sales and buy more patterns. As a fellow pattern collector, I firmly believe that too much organization leads to less collecting….not going to happen here.
Now the fabric stash is another thing — I have an excel sheet worked out to keep track of what I have, where it is stored, content, type, source and what I used it for and the annual log of in and out carries forward to a summary sheet that balances against the on hand total….I have gone over the edge on that one.
Fabric inventory is going to be my next challenge! Sounds like your inventory is more complex than my business inventory!
IF you are a mac user, as it’s mac only—I’m using Bento to track all sorts of stuff—it would hold photos of the patterns and sync to Bento on your iPod Touch/iPhone, and let you add your own tags, etc. I also have a field to add notes on the patterns, Materials Needed, and so forth, links to tutorials—it’s really customizable. You’d want to play with it a bit but it’s designed to be easy for non-techies to set up their own databases (if you wanted to try the demo, I think I could send you my template to show what I do).
I don’t know that it’s the *best* way (I actually started using Bento to track the fabric stash and projects made, I’m not good enough to deal much with patterns yet), but since you mention iPod, the syncing feature is really nice.
You are now officially my best (or is it worst?) enabler! I just put the Bento app on my Ipod and am excited to try it out. Now I need to explain to my non-geek husband exactly why a new Mac is imperative to my pattern inventory program! Thanks!
I know I have several hundred patterns. I currently have them in storage benches except for the Jalies, Hot Patterns and other indies which are on my bookshelf. Like Kathi, I sort them by type. My “vintage” ones I sort by decade. My benches are maxed out so I think I might do another purge…maybe. In any case, I’ve been pretty good about remembering which patterns I have. I’ve only bought one double so far. Unfortunately, in order to remember which patterns I have, I needed to delete other memories from my brain. I figure who needs to remember how to spell when we have spell check now, right?
Agreed! We have to make room for the important things in life…like pattern numbers!
I use the old photocopy-the-envelope-and-store-the-pattern-in-a-drawer method. When my drawer gets full, I do a very painful pattern purge. I wish I could shrink the patterns on to microfiche so I could store 1000′s in a recipe box!
PrincessH is too cute! And her expression is perfect for the task at hand. I am thinking that I would like to reunite my pattern envelopes with the patterns, too. I am interested in following your plan, although you lost me when you integrated it w/ technology. I would also like a better method for keeping assorted SM feet closer to their respective machines and better labeled.
Mysterious places ? You mean it”s NOT usual to have patterns in the bathroom LOL!
Sitting on the couch, I know there are some in the bathroom, and I can actually see some on the coffee table, on the sewing machine, the kitchen table and the table in the sunroom – oh boy, sounds like a to-do item needs to be added to my list as well. My IPod is old so an App won’t work – I’m considering using Access.
The Excel chart for fabric is ‘almost’ working (I think I borrowed that idea from Shannon (Hungry Zombie Couture), a pattern database ‘could’ work – I just have to get my act together to keep them up to date. Good Luck !
OMG! I’ve just done this exact same process! I was putting off scanning all the pics because I thought it would take so long and I like leafing through my pattern covers. But now that it’s on the computer – I LOVE it! Especially because of the tags. They work just fine for me so I don’t have any suggestions for you. I never had them organized at all before so being able to sort by style at the click of a button is really fab. My only problem is that was in too much of a hurry to do the back. I’ve been correcting that this weekend.
I also did made a folder with pictures of my fabric and then tagged it by colors and fabric types. For some reason my stash looks much smaller on the screen. Certainly that must mean I’ve got room for more!
Late followup–did you see this article?
http://www.burdastyle.com/blog/crafting-apps
I’m unwilling to deal with Pattern Pal or Fabric Stash because I want to do the data entry on my laptop, not my phone, but they may work for you.