8 Glorious Years of Blogging

The Craft of Clothes blog has just clicked over 8 years. 375 posts, 666,379 views, 316,690 visitors and 2300 comments.

My very first blog post had 6 visitors! I knew them all. They were: my mum, brother, best friend from high school, her mother, the website man and a family friend who I mentioned it to!

At the start I didn’t predict how much I’d enjoy writing a blog – I wondered if I’d run out of things to write about, but reasoned I could just take one photo and write a paragraph about it, if that ever happened (it hasn’t).

I also wondered if I’d be capable of writing content each week, but keeping a (personal) daily diary appears to have toned my “writing muscle”.

I’ve heard some people can bang out a blog post in half an hour (and apparently the average is 4 hours), but it takes me about a day, or longer if it involves sewing something. I like to post weekly, usually on Mondays. The blog goes on holidays for 6-ish weeks over Christmas/January, and I admit I feel happy to have a break and return recharged.

Occasionally I look at this website’s analytics. It never shows specifically who’s visited (for privacy reasons) but it does show the country. At the start, 8 years ago, most visitors were Aussies. Then it changed to roughly 50:50 Aussie:USA, with a minor sprinkling of other countries. The pandemic properly introduced UK readers (via this free low-waste scrubs pattern) and now there’s a significant number of Canadians too.

Early on, most visitors came via Pinterest (I think due to this free wrap skirt pattern), but they didn’t really hang around. During the pandemic, Pinterest visitors disappeared completely to be replaced by Google search visitors looking for things to sew.

Here are the top 8 ranking posts. Unsurprisingly, free patterns make up the top 3. Interestingly, Considering zero waste patterns (for many years at #2) has dropped off the top 10.

1. Free pattern: scrubs

I made this pattern in one frenzied week in April 2020.

After putting it on a scrubs facebook site, it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to going viral – I thought I’d broken the internet! But, on phoning the website man in a panic, I’d merely exceeded this site’s limit. He laughed, and fixed it.

2. Free pattern: wraparound skirt

Only two months into blogging, I did this skirt pattern (so it’s had a few years to amass views). Last year I unpicked the waistband and turned it into a dress, using some spare fabric.

3. Free pattern: dress-ups cape

Another one from the first year of blogging. We still have the two capes from this post – they were last worn for a King Charles coronation-themed Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea cancer fundraiser.

4. Zero Waste Resources page

A page rather than a post – this page lists resources for zero waste patternmaking (mainly my own but some others too) and every zero waste pattern I’ve published.

5. The Secret Science of Invisible Mending

A post on how I invisibly mended a hole in a jacket sleeve. Six years on, I’m no longer sure if the jacket still fits.

6. Zero Waste Wrap skirt

A zero waste version of the #1 ranked wrap skirt pattern. I think this skirt is in the zero waste archive – haven’t worn it in ages but I should get it out again.

7. Making a zero waste pattern

Posted 96 days before Zero Waste Sewing was published, I show-and-tell how I go about making a zero waste pattern.

8. Making Holly McQuillan’s zero waste spiral trousers

These turned out great! It’s a very unusual pattern, and a great example of the kind of creative patternmaking that zero waste can bring about.

This taupe pair and the navy blue pair have been worn LOTS by me and my teen.

I know some of you have been readers of this blog since early days. Many thanks indeed for reading, commenting, subscribing, and following along this sewing and zero waste journey.

Cheers! Liz x