Today’s post is dedicated to my Airtable Sewing base. What is Airtable? It’s a site where you can create spreadsheet like databases to organize and manipulate your data.
I first heard of Airtable from Lisa of blackwomenstitch (check out her podcast it’s awesome!) who shared her sewing table. After some investigation I decided that maybe it would be a good way to organize my makes, patterns, and fabrics.
Airtable calls the databases you make “bases”, each tab a “table”, and the data within the table are “records”. I’ll be using this language moving forward. My sewing base has 9 tables. I’ve had both more and less at different points, but as of May 2020, this is what my base looks like.
I use all of the tables pretty regularly, but I’ll breakdown what each one is.
- People
- This tracks all the individuals that I have measurements for.
- Measurements
- This table contains the individual measurements I have for individuals. Each time I take new measurements I make a new record and link it to the person record it belongs with.
- Patterns
- I keep track of all my digital and paper patterns here.
- Pattern makers
- Where I track all of the pattern companies I either have patterns from or want to get patterns from.
- Makes
- Tracks everything I make and links to every table
- Fabric Stores
- Tracks where I can buy fabric, both physically and online.
- Fabric
- All of the fabric I’ve purchased
- Thread
- Tracks the thread I have (to prevent overbuying).
- Notions – Other
- Tracks all the notions that I have. This was prompted by buying a BUNCH of zippers for one outfit and not remembering what they were all for.
The three tables I use the most are “Patterns”, “Makes”, and “Fabric.” This really helps me decide what I want to make and what fabric I have. When I’m in a fabric store I can quickly pull up my “Patterns” table to see the yardage and notions that I might need for a project. Before I would either bring my patterns with me or continue to open them in Dropbox to remember what I need.
The “Fabric” base is my trickiest. I try to input the fabric I buy, including wash instructions, yardage, type of fabric, content of fabric, etc., as soon as possible. This works really well for online purchases, but not as well for things I buy in the store.
Airtable has really helped me “see” what I have. It also has allowed me to keep more detailed notes of all of the changes and adjustments I’ve made on patterns. I tend to keep all of those notes within the “Makes” table and transfer to the final adjustments I will need to make to the “Patterns” table for the individual pattern.
The hardest part of using Airtable was just getting it all there. It took me a good two weeks of my free time to get in all of my patterns and some of my fabric. I’m still behind on fabric (maybe patterns too). The continued maintenance can also be an issue, but I’ve done a good job keeping things up to date. There is a lot more you can do with Airtable that I don’t really use for my sewing table.
It’s a great tool for me (for now) and I’m pretty content with the app, which is what I use the most. I’m always looking for new ways to utilize Airtable for my sewing projects.
Do you use Airtable? If so, what do you like about it? Do you organize your fabric and patterns in another way that’s more accessible to you?