And ... we have achieved wiki.

Thanks to sannse (and Jimbo) at Wikia, we now have a brand-new shiny vintage sewing patterns wiki!

I really wanted one place where people could collect information about vintage patterns, and the wiki is, I hope, going to be that place.

What's a wiki? A wiki is a communally-owned, communally-edited website, made up of many smaller articles. (The most famous wiki is Wikipedia.)

Each "article" in our wiki will be about one pattern, and will include, I hope:

-- an image of the front of the pattern envelope
-- links to places where the pattern is discussed
-- links to places where the pattern is for sale
-- a wishlist where you can put your name down as someone interested in buying/trading a particular pattern in a particular size
-- your comments
-- tags or categories that describe the pattern, like "midriff band" or "collar"

The wiki is VERY rough right now, with only a few articles up, but I wanted to throw it open to everyone as soon as possible so that we can grow!

So right now you might be asking yourself, "What can I do to help create this resource?" That's easy! You can start new articles.

1. Go to the wiki.
2. Choose a username and log in!
3. Look at the articles that are there. Have a favorite vintage OUT OF PRINT pattern that's not listed?
4. Create a new article for that pattern. Article titles should be the pattern manufacturer and number, e.g., "Butterick 6015"
5. Upload an image of the pattern. NOTE: a few vintage sellers have agreed to let their pattern images be used: Jen at MOMSPatterns, Rita at Cemetarian, Michelle at OldPatterns.com, Janet at LanetzLiving, and Julie at Sew-Retro.com ... please download the images to your own desktop and then upload them to the wiki. (You have to be logged in at the wiki to upload.)
Otherwise, please only use pattern images you have scanned or photographed yourself, or of patterns you have purchased. Please respect the wishes of other sellers who do not want their images used this way!
6. Include some information about the pattern, especially links to reviews, blog posts, Flickr photos, etc.
7. Have fun!


If you want more information about how to edit, try this link:
how to start editing.

Here's a new model article: Butterick 6015 -- you can click "edit" on this article, copy the text, and paste it into your article as a guideline for your edits. (I'm hoping to make a template that will help with this soon.)

Don't worry about making mistakes! It's a wiki! Whatever gets broken, we can fix! Right now we don't have a lot of rules or "right" ways to do things ... if we need 'em, we'll work 'em up, but I think the Golden Rule works for a lot of situations, including wikis.

One last thing: I don't OWN this wiki. It's not mine, I don't get any money from it nor will I. It's something for the community of people who love vintage patterns to build, share, and have fun with. Everyone should feel encouraged to participate!

And for those of you keeping track, this is the first of the two geeky projects to be announced ...