👋 As I settled into a new life in Philadelphia in January of 2024, I was JAZZED to start running Charlie Darwin full time -- yep, until now, I always worked other jobs/schooling alongside the biz! Going all in?? That was the dream 🙌! But damn it... that required some serious personal growth....
I was already seasoned at self-discipline, but having my entire income be reliant on Charlie Darwin revenue in 2024 was very daunting, and TBH I think it caused me a couple of months of DEEP juicy anxiety 😂... lol I lived in a state of panic for a while there. But hey, how can you grow without some worthy challenges?
This year, I learned a LOT about leveling up my biz (through dumpster-fire failures AND through massive wins!)
I just spent a hefty chunk of time reflecting on it, and I want to share with you what ✅ worked and what ❌ flopped for my handmade clothing business in 2024!
✨ First, let's talk about the overall intentions that I set, and how well I stuck to them. Then I'll go on to reflect on each of the big projects individually...
🎯THE INTENTIONS PART:
In January, I had declared that my 2024 word of the year was "ROOTING". I had just quit my PhD program, moved to Philadelphia with my partner Cam, and I had these super romantic ideas about how I was going to really root into my new local community, buy a house here, make 100s of friends, and explore new deeper connections within my business. 🌈🌈
oooooh, ahhhhh.
Well, the local rooting didn't go exactly as planned. In reality-- we had to back out of buying a house last minute because it had massive termite damage🪳... and I barely made just 2ish new friends (hey, you know it's just hard to do!)... and I had the worst year of my chronic nightmare disorder to date 😈, which was kind of traumatic.
BUT even while life threw me some lemons... I dug harder into so many elements of my biz (and really learned a lot about my body/health/personality, so that's a plus)! And I'm glad I had my creative little playground of Charlie Darwin to experiment in :)
👖Products: I did just a Spring Collection for garments, and opted out of launching a Fall Collection, since it hadn't performed well in the past couple of years. In turn, I leaned harder into selling more sewing patterns of my designs and published FIVE newbies!
I originally thought I could put out one per month, but quickly realized that there is way too much labor and planning required to go at that speed.
📢 Marketing: I commited again to using only one media platform - and that is Youtube! I think I laid down some good roots for establishing my presence there this year (more on this in the "projects" section below). My personal favorite video that I published all year was this one where I show you all my very first garments I ever sewed!! These garments are CRAZY BAD. AND IT'S AMAZING. It was so fun to film and to talk about what it means to "start ugly".
Throughout the year, I also honed my voice in my weekly email newsletter, and I consistently got such rewarding feedback from my subscribers. 😎
👋 Systems: In 2024 I did some major rooting into the business through some mindful investments! For example, I invested into better video creation tools (camera, microphone, computer monitor, and computer chair), business coaching (more on that below), and outsourcing my indigo dyeing. Like almost every investment that I drag my heels on for way too long, these all significantly improved my relationship to my biz (and I wish I did them sooner-- I'm just such an indecisive Frugal Frida).
🪡THE PROJECTS PART:
Now I'll talk more specifically about the bigger projects I took on this year, and share which ones worked, and which ones flopped!
Setting up a new sewing & dyeing studio in Philly
The sewing room... ✅ WORKED!
Although it's very tight, I think I did pretty well at downsizing into my new sewing room, and love that it has more natural light, and that I was able to make all my youtube videos with a clean, cute backdrop wall.
The dyeing room... ❌ FLOPPED
I tried really hard to make my basement a nice, cute, calming space for doing my natural dyeing... but DAMN sometimes the turd just can't even be polished. Throughout the year, I pretty much gave up on it and just try to get in and out as quickly as possible 😂. And I outsourced the dyeing of my most popular dye color... indigo. Someday I'll get the dye studio I crave, but that's not going to be in this appartment!
First four sewing patterns:
✅ WORKED WELL ENOUGH!
I'm lumping the launches of the first 4 patterns of the year together, even though they launched at different times, because they all share a similar rating. The 5th pattern, LADYBIRD, is in a league of it's own, and I'll talk more on that later.
THE POCKET sewing pattern
SWALLOWTAIL sewing pattern
GYPSY MOTH sewing pattern
SALTWATER SET sewing pattern
Holy crap-- I got so much better at making sewing patterns throughout the year (I had only published one prior to 2024). Each and every pattern got prettier, more clear, better tested than the last! I sold all 4 of these patterns as PDF only, and I'd say they were generally well recieved.
Of these 4, the GYPSY MOTH pattern had the lowest sales (launched in July) which sucked because it also gave me the most headaches to digitize into a pattern. The SWALLOWTAIL pants pattern had the highest sales (launched in feb/march), which I attribute to the time of year, the design versatility, and that wide-leg pants are really on trend.
Spring Collection 2024
The sales... ❌ FLOPPED
The photography and design... ✅ WORKED!
I introduced the MANTIS maxi dress, the SANCTUARY jumpsuit, and the LUNA top as made-to-measure garments.
These garments were not my best-selling garments, even though I personally think that they were my most mindfully designed, best photographed, and best sewn of anything I've made thus far (hair flip, eye roll)💁♀️. But I'm used to my newer designs taking months (to even years) to gain traction, so I'll stand by them until they get their limelight!
And the SANCTUARY jumpsuit is my most requested next pattern to digitize for my DIYers! So I know that the peeps like the goods-- which makes me think its high price point as a made-to-measure garment is what is holding it back from full greatness.
This spring collection was the first to feature a new natural dye color, Dark Chestnut GREY.
I also caved in and started offering true black (commercially dyed, but AZO-free!) And these are my two personal fave colors to wear.
And I returned to having my boyfriend take my photos for this collection. If you've been following along for a while... you know that used to kind of stress me out and I switched to my sister for 2023. BUT I'm happy to report that my boyfriend and I's communication methods during the shoot have VASTLY improved 😂, and we honestly had a great time this year! We used the shoot as an opportunity to check out a local historic landmark: Valley Forge!
See the full behind-the-scenes of our photoshoot, here! ⬇️
Charlie Darwin just existing in the summer
✅ WORKED
Idk what was in the air-- if it was my consistency on YouTube, if Taylor Swift promoted linen clothing somewhere, or what-- but I had relatively great garment sales from May-July. Even while I'm trying to grow the pattern side of my business, I LOVE sewing garments, so this was a deeply fulfilling season for me to feel seen and get even more polished as a seamstress!
Investing in Business Coaching (Wandering Aimfully)
✅ WORKED - BIG TIME
As a frugal and resourceful business owner, I was skeptical that business coaching could really be "worth it" for me. Kind of sounds like a scam. So for three years, I simply took in all of the FREE content that Caroline and Jason Zook created about running an online creative business (via email newsletter and podcast). Every year I debated joining their program Wandering Aimfully Unlimited- but always chickened out, thinking I could just keep piecing my business together with free advice I find online. Things changed when the Zook's released their Calm Launch Formula to their members in August 2024 -- I wanted this sooo bad... CALM launching was definitely not my forte, and by now, I trusted that they'd have the answers.
So I took the leap, made the investment, followed their basically done-for-you launch formula, used their online course platform (Teachery) to host my pattern workshop, organized the whole thing using their Notion system, and BAM!! My next sewing pattern launch skyrocketed from my usual $800 to a lovely $5000 in the first two weeks (see LADYBIRD pattern, below!). I have absolutely no regrets.
Oh, and I also use their full Notion Starter Pack to organize my ENTIRE business. It's like having a second (better) brain on my computer, and super easy to learn with their totally pre-made templates and tutorials.
The best part? My one-time investment gets me everything they've ever created PLUS everything they create in the future (for free), including their online course creation platform, Teachery, where I hosted the tutorial for my LADYBIRD pattern.
Insane. Love it. Love them. Highly recommend. 10/10.
(👋 You can learn more about their work here, but if you decide to invest in their coaching program, Wandering Aimfully Unlimited, PLEASE consider using my affiliate link to check out, so I get a little commission for recommending you!)
LADYBIRD sewing pattern
✅ WORKED weirdly well!
This was massive for me guys....
I created my most versatile sewing pattern yet, used the marketing advice given to me from the new business coaches (see above), came up with the idea to sell my pattern in 3 pricing tiers (PDF, Print, and full Sewing Kit), had a Youtube video do pretty well a couple weeks before the launch, launched on a full moon... and BOOM. I pretty much 6x'd my usual sales within the first 2 weeks.
I somehow didn't have any tech meltdowns the week before the launch, and I didn't forget any pattern pieces in the pdf (these things happen!)
Now, I don't expect all of my pattern launches to go this well in the future, but it truly gave me the confidence that it IS possible. I'm making cool things, and as my skills and audience grow, so will my sales 😎🆒
YouTube
✅ WORKED!
🎉🎉I posted 33 videos this year on my channel (my goal was to post 30)! And I reached over 6k subscribers! HELL YEAH, MAN!
And the size of my email list doubled this year, which I would almost entirely attribute to my YouTube channel. 🕺
But it wasn't all rainbows... 🙃 I actually struggled with my relationship to Youtube a LOT in 2024. I found the lengthy editing screentime to be hard on my eyes/body and workload (so I'd put off making videos, and then beat myself up about it). In 2025, I'm going to try a more seasonal and energy-first approach to making videos (instead of the "consistent" weekly grind), and I'm going to reduce my goal down to 22 videos for the year.
I'm also going to try and have a different type of relationship to my comments section. As a Highly Sensitive Person, a deep empath, and INF-J personality, I know I'm prone to taking comments deep to the heart (for better or worse). Even though 99.9% of comments left on my videos are SO NICE and well-intentioned, there are like 3 a year that hit me the wrong way... They might trigger me because they are reminiscent of a critique from my parents, or they might remind me of a mean email I got from a customer one time. They might just simply remind me that annoying people exist. And unfortunately, it's these few obnoxious voices that get in my ear and sabatoge me making more videos. Luckily, I can literally block people who hit me too hard (which I've done a couple of times) because this is my safe space. Buzz-off, annoying voices!!
And honestly some of the comments are so dumb that it's just funny 😂
For example, in this video of sewing tips, I had said "slippery buttons can go to hell" and TessTN was pissed about it ⬇️😂
Honestly not that sad to lose ya, Tess!
Other wins: My most popular YouTube video now has over 90k views! And in case you are wondering, I made about $700 in adsense income from my YouTube channel this year. It's not a ton (given how many hundreds of hours went into filming and editing), but hey, I wasn't getting paid a dime to post on Instagram, so I'll take it!! 💸
The Holiday Hub - Online Gift Shop
✅ KINDA WORKED
After 2 years of successfully doing an in-person holiday market in Pittsburgh, I couldn't find the right one to sign up for in Philly. But after a kind of stressful year, I was ready to keep things low-key anyway. So I made a page on my site that was dedicated to all things great for Charlie Darwin gift-giving (scarves, linen paper, etc) and promoted it via email. It didn't rock my world, nor did it totally flop. I met my sales goal for the month, and got to spend a relaxing 3 weeks away from my biz to reset and recharge (and ride some roller coasters in FL). That's all I really needed!!
What else worked in 2024?
I ran my first Sample Sale with sample and returned garments-- it completely sold out in the basically 2 days!
My black garment sale was a big hit in October!
I was asked to be a mentor for the Creature Conserve mentorship program, and I've been helping an awesome shoe designer work on her project combining shoes and animal conservation!
I started 3 new streams of passive income...
Amazon affiliate links (for my sewing tools, etc)
Buy Me a Coffee (a way for you to support me and my work by just throwing me five bucks)
Opened a High Yield Savings Account (currently accruing 4% interest on my savings... why did I not know about these sooner?! If you want to switch to one, use my referral link and get an extra 0.25% interest!)
I took a 10-day trip to England with my family, and it rocked :)
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