Where are all the Pattern Testing Calls?

If you've been one of our fans for very long, you've probably noticed that in the last month we have not put out any of our usual calls on Facebook for pattern testing. Lots of folks have been asking us about pattern testing and what we are doing. I've answered a few emails and posts on Facebook and thought it would be best to address it here on the blog as well for those who might not get to see the other posts.

So what's going on?

We are experiencing some growing pains here and are trying to refine our testing process right now. Nothing is set in stone, but sometimes as a business grows, changes have to be made to better serve all involved. We are trying to get ready for Quilt Market right now, which is a huge undertaking, and trying to release new patterns as well that reflect the change in season, so we are on a very tight schedule.

Unfortunately, when we were doing all the Facebook testing calls and choosing randomly, we ended up getting a lot of poor quality tests and/or lots of uncompleted tests. We had to retest several outfits and extend testing on others which pushed back our pattern release dates and put us behind schedule.

Prior to the open calls, we pulled from our Testers Database, but that also was problematic because  people were not keeping their sizes, contact info, and skill levels, etc up to date and accurate, and because each individual is responsible for maintaining their own information, it was impossible for us to continue using it with all of the errors.

In order to avoid these issues, and to keep on schedule from now until our debut at Quilt Market, we have been testing most sizes in house. It's hard to predict what's going to happen in the future, so I can't really say what you can expect down the road, because we do like to give our fans the opportunity to test for us, and we know you look forward to it too, but right now we are not able to handle the issues that fan testing has been bringing us on top of everything else we are trying to juggle.

We really appreciate your enthusiasm for testing our patterns, and we are so thankful for the fan testers who have done such a great job for us in the past! We're open to suggestions, so if you have one, feel free to email me at robin@createkidscouture.com. Obviously, we do need to continue testing our patterns in all sizes, and as we continue grow as a company and also extend our sizing, we will need to make sure that we create a process that is as efficient as possible.