Our Shopify pattern shop will be closing near the end of August 2026. To clarify – this blog is not going anywhere, I’m not going anywhere, and you will still be able to purchase FehrTrade patterns via our Etsy shop as well as through our partners Pattern Review and Thread Theory.
This is only the end of the Shopify storefront, which charges a monthly fee, regardless of how many patterns are sold. As I’ve been unable to work on any new patterns while ill, sales have dwindled below the monthly fee, and a recent spate of scammers using our digital products to test stolen credit cards has really soured me towards keeping it open.
As I’ve been rebuilding my health over the past 9-12 months, I’ve been thinking about new patterns I might want to develop, and to be honest, none have really given me the fire I need to work steadily for the 6-12 months needed to release a new pattern. Plus, I look at my own activewear wardrobe, absolutely bursting at the seams with leggings and tops I sewed 10+ years ago and I just… don’t need any more activewear. There comes a point where I have to ask myself if I’m just making for the sake of it, and is that just another flavour of overconsumption?
I am so, so proud of every single one of the patterns I’ve developed for FehrTrade, and I’m so pleased that they’ll continue to live on as new sewists discover and sew them. They’re functional, practical, and timeless, and have enabled thousands of people to exercise more effectively as well as express themselves. I really feel like I’ve covered so many needed activities and garments over the past 13 years, and I’m constantly wearing the samples I’ve sewn for myself, too! Back when I started FehrTrade Patterns in late 2013, there were very few functional activewear sewing patterns beyond the very basics, and I’m pleased that the landscape has changed so much since then.
I am definitely not saying that I won’t ever develop any more patterns, but this feels like a natural point to pivot and pause and think more about long term sustainability, and moving sales to places where the fees are per-sale rather than per-month is definitely a good first step.
What does this mean for you? Well, I strongly suggest you download any purchases made through shop.fehrtrade.com ASAP. I don’t know for certain what happens to customer downloads when I cancel the Shopify subscription, so I think it’s best to assume your download links will no longer work.
So please PLEASE go and download any purchases to your own hard drive or cloud accounts right now!
If you cannot find your download link and you cannot login at shop.fehrtrade.com using your email, then please use the Contact Us form and include either your order number or the email address you used to purchase so I can resend your download links. But I’m anticipating a lot of requests so please bear with me.