THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF WORKING REMOTELY IN THE SEWING INDUSTRY

Once upon a time, In the Folds was a business of one - it was just little old me working away at my computer doing all the things.

I remember complaining to my partner at one stage that a pattern release day felt so anticlimactic as I had no one to celebrate with or anyone who really understood how much work went into it. I also had no one pushing or helping me along and it meant that pattern releases were few and far between. I remember doing some freelance work in a cutting room around this time and one of the patternmakers asked me how many patterns I was releasing a week. To which I replied, “I’d be lucky to release one a year at the rate I’m going!”

Things have drastically changed since those early days and I wanted to talk about that in our Behind the Scenes email this week. 

Somewhere around 2018 (the business started in 2015), I realised I needed help. It wasn’t sustainable to do it all myself and I knew it also wasn’t the best use of my time. I needed to stick to the bits I did well (designing and creating thoughtful and engaging sewing patterns) and find people to do the other bits. 

Finding the right talent for the job

I started by finding someone to grade the patterns. Up until this point I was doing it manually and it was very slow. I trialled working with a few local patternmakers, but for different reasons it never worked out. There were issues with the workflow, or issues with the patterns themselves when they were converted to digital files.

Feeling like it was going to be impossible to find someone who would work on my patterns with the same level of love and care that I did, I started trawling through a freelancing website. And there she was! The perfect fit. A patternmaker with technical illustration skills and a very keen eye for detail. Just what I needed. She may be based in Europe, but this didn’t turn me off since I’d already tried the local route and knew I needed a different approach. With clear briefs of exactly what I needed along with lots of examples, we were on our way… and we’ve been working together ever since, without ever meeting face to face or getting on Zoom!

In 2020, when I was ready to make my first official hire, I decided I needed to find someone local who could work in the studio with me to cut and sew samples and bounce ideas off. And it worked like a dream! But when the whole world shut down due to the pandemic and we were forced to work remotely. I suddenly had to clean up our operations and processes so that it could be done anywhere. And although being in lockdown was a miserable time and a miserable way to work, the silver lining was that I got my business into a state that meant we (me and my assistant at the time, Alys) could work remotely, but also that we were set up enough that we could take on remote workers for future roles or parts of the process we wanted to contract out, like grading and illustrations.

The success of these early hires and our initial jump into working remotely opened my mind to the idea of looking for talent on a much broader scale. What I do, making sewing patterns for home sewists, is quite a niche, which means the skills I need in my team are quite specific. This means that when I hired for our next two positions - a Communications assistant (2022) and a Content Creator (2023), I opened up the positions to anyone from anywhere. 

Although there would be perks to hiring someone from Sydney (more about that later), I knew I could miss out on finding the best person for the role if I was to set my sights too close to home. This led me to hiring our Communications Assistant, Xanthe (based in QLD) and our most recent hire, Leanne, for Content Creation (based in Victoria). 

Now I also work with an Editor based in Canada, a Fit Model for our extended range based in the US and a Patternmaker for the extended range in the US. And Alys, has recently come back on to help with project work… all the way from the UK!

All these things that we set up meant that the business was already designed to be quite flexible when I had my first child at the end of 2022. As a first time mum I had no idea how grateful I’d be for the flexibility as I learned about the reality of juggling a small business with a small child! I can now work from home the majority of the time, and although I do like the change of scenery of my studio, I manage to get more done when I’m at home. I don’t have to worry about getting my daughter to daycare, getting myself ready for work, packing lunch etc. I can just jump straight on the computer and deal with the rest as the day goes on. 

The downsides of remote working

Okay, so this has all sounded quite hunky dory, right? Well it is, most of the time. 

With the help of great project management software (we use Asana), cloud storage (Dropbox) and great collaborative tools such as Google Docs and Zoom, things normally go off without a hitch. Until they don’t!

One of the major downsides of remote working is that there are too many ways to communicate. Although we try to keep in touch in Asana as much as possible, sometimes we end up on different platforms. We might be texting because the matter is urgent, or we’re on the run with our kids and then the conversation moves there. I am often guilty of this because our jobs aren’t at the computer 100% of the time. Leanne is often at her sewing machine or cutting table making content and I’m often patternmaking, so sometimes it’s just easier to pick up the phone and send a text. 

This was brought to light recently when in a long text thread I sent a file to Leanne that she was waiting on. I thought she had what she needed, but she didn’t realise she had it and then she spent a week asking me politely in Asana for the file… while I worked on patterns and forgot to check Asana! It was a good lesson in the importance of keeping everything on the one platform as much as possible, but also a reminder for me to check in with my Asana messages every day. 

I love leaving my team to do their work whenever they can (as long as the job gets done), but I guess due to the nature of remote work sometimes it means I can be a bit too lax! Rather than checking in to see who needs help or support, sometimes I’m just too busy getting on with my own work, assuming everyone is okay. Remote work also means you don’t see each other in passing or knock on each other’s door if you need anything, so messages and responses might not come through exactly when you need what you’re waiting on. It also means you might not see someone struggling or falling behind. It’s not unheard of for me to open my inbox on a day I’m waiting for a piece of work to be handed to me and see an email from one of our contractors requesting more time… because life comes up sometimes, right?

When the clocks change it gets tricky

Being in three different states, with eight(!!) kids between us, I feel lucky that our three team members manage to catch up for a check-in meeting most weeks. Not only is it a great opportunity to chat about work, but it’s also nice to just catch up about life. When you’re working remotely these small pockets of interaction help a lot! But when the clocks recently changed here in NSW, I realised it meant that it’s now one time for me and Leanne, but a different time for Xanthe in Queensland. Thankfully it's only an hour difference so we manage to make it work.

The time difference with the UK (where Alys is based) is much harder. We were managing a meeting once a week when she would kindly get up at 7.30am and I could talk to her at my 4.30pm before my toddler got home from daycare. Now with the time difference it would mean an impossibly early start for Alys, or me trying to have a meeting with an almost 2 year old clawing at me. So, until the clocks change in the UK in a couple of weeks, we’ll make it work when we can… which for this week means 10pm on a Tuesday my time!

Problems can be hard to solve remotely 

One thing that’s really tricky about working remotely is you can’t be right there to help fix a problem or figure something out. Xanthe and I have quite comical conversations fairly regularly when we’re in the backend of our email marketing platform trying to figure something out together (but apart) and going around and around in circles - often confusing each other more. Sometimes it takes going away and giving it some time or giving it a go independently and then getting back on the phone. If we were in an office we could just sit down together and work it out with it all there in front of us. 

Certain things are really easy to work on collaboratively. Indesign files (how our pattern instructions are made) can be packaged and shared so that Alys and I can work on the same file without losing any of the images or any of the work each of us has done. We can work on emails and content ideas very easily by sharing Google Docs where we can each leave comments with our thoughts. In Asana, we can plan out our days and communicate with the team what we’re working on and when things are complete. We can share digital patterns with our graders over Dropbox and get editing feedback with Adobe Acrobat. 

But when it comes to helping each other with issues that arise when making garments, it’s really difficult. Recently, Leanne discovered an issue with some of the steps in our Sewing linings document as she sewed up a lined Ormond coat. She sent me a photo and I thought I knew what the issue was. I updated the instructions and sent them back to her. Then she followed a couple more steps and got stuck again. She sent me photos, an explanation of what was happening and even videos. I still couldn’t work out what was causing the problem. I had a half scale sample that I unpicked trying to work out what had happened. I had a patternmaker friend look over the photos and videos to see if she could figure it out. We got on FaceTime and I asked Leanne to show me her patterns and how things lined up. Yet, I still couldn’t find the issue. All I wanted was to teleport into her studio so I could pick up the sample and work out what the problem was. The only option I had was to sew up a sample myself and work out the problem, which was time consuming and frustrating. It meant Leanne was at a standstill while I worked it out, but it also meant the work I’d planned for that day had to go on the backburner. 

I think the biggest lesson I have learned from working with and growing a remote team is to remain flexible. The biggest pro of remote work is that you can do it around your other commitments, but it can also be the biggest downside. Kids get sick, files get lost, plans change and tasks get misinterpreted. So, we strive to learn from our mistakes and keep the lines of communication open. This means we can continue working with people who are great at what they do so we can create content and resources for our community! 

We’re always trying to give our community a realistic perspective on the sewing industry, and what goes on behind the curtains. If you’ve got any questions, please leave a comment and we’ll try to answer them!

Happy sewing,

Emily

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