Charlie Darwin Textiles: 2025 Studio Recap (New Sewing Patterns, Linen Clothing, and What’s Next)

🙌 I approached 2025 with a big inhale,

a little smack of my own butt, and high hopes of leaving small-business "survival-mode" in my dust. I needed less fight-or-flight. More peace and clarity. And I had a hunch of how I might find it.

If you’re new here: 👋 hi, I’m Leah, and I run Charlie Darwin Textiles—aka this little linen ecosystem that includes sewing patterns, plant-dyed fabrics, and made-to-measure clothing! 🪡🧵👗

Every year, I write one of these recaps because (1) it helps me process what I just lived through, and (2) I know some of you peeping toms are curious what it actually looks like behind the scenes of a small handmade business 👀. Not just the highlight reel, but also the “why tf did I think this was a good idea?!?!” moments.

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So here’s my 2025: a very honest rundown of my intentions, which projects worked, and which absolutely did not 😂

A lil context about me before we dive in👧🌿: I started Charlie Darwin Textiles in January 2021. I am 32yo, a youngest child, Sagittarius, INFJ-T (Advocate) personality, Type 3 (Achiever) on enneagram, Indiana native, PhD dropout, and 2 years into cracking the code on a mysterious chronic illness that has recently been bestowed upon me 🙃. I also moved from Philly to New Hampshire mid-year with my partner of 8 years (+2 cats), and we love outdoorsy adventures!!

Now let's get to the good stuff!!! ⬇️⬇️

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🎯 THE INTENTIONS PART

My intention for 2025: Cozy confidence.

When I made "Cozy Confidence" my word of the year, I was really rebounding from the previous year.... 2024 was my first year working Charlie Darwin full-time (no other side-gigs or school), and it was exciting—but I also felt a bit overwhelmed, overworked, and insecure about every creation and decision. So I went into 2025 (my 4th year of business) confidently cultivating the belief that I’m building Charlie Darwin with a well-educated plan… and also, that it’s okay to lean into a cozier lifestyle while pursuing it.

Cozy confidence looked like:

• not working late nights to finish something minutes before hitting send/upload

• planning fewer product launches and doing each one really well

• not panicking during slow months and adding random stressful projects to my plate

• creating intentionally cozy work days: candles, breaks, stretching, making time for lunch/snacks, listening to my body

• going out for Bumble BFF meetups during the workday

If you've ever heard the term Lifestyle Business, this is kind of like that.

But I learned that there was a surprise concept that was lurking behind "cozy confidence"!! It was: systems.

Throughout the year, it became more and more obvious that (1) my business is growing, (2) I want to work less, and (3) without good systems in place, those two clashing will break the biz. So I leaned into the only real options I had: outsource/hire tasks, delete tasks, or automate tasks.

I found broken systems in my business pretty much everywhere I looked, and I just started to improve them one by one. ✅ I outsourced almost all the plant-dyeing of my fabrics to a local business. ✅ I found a notions distributor so I can source all my sewing kit threads in one place. ✅ I batched similar tasks long before the due date. ✅ I built checklists and repeatable calendar events. ✅ I even experimented with hiring a company to edit some of my YouTube videos (more on that later).

And-- probably controversial to some of you—I asked ChatGPT to help with a lot of business decisions. Because being a solopreneur in a creative job requires a disgusting amount of minute-by-minute decision-making, I've got DEEP decision-fatigue. And honestly, the support of this tool that is steeped in the context of my business made a real tangible difference to my peace of mind and financial outcomes!

👋 I say all this mostly because I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea about what one human person can do in a year without burning out or making a chronic illness worse.

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🙏 On that note, I’d like to thank my tiny village, which directly helped Charlie Darwin succeed this year:

• The pattern printing company that dropships my printed sewing patterns

• The dye house making my fabrics beautiful earthy colors

• everyone who volunteered to be a pattern tester, giving me immense feedback to make my patterns as user-friendly as humanly possible

• My boyfriend and my sister, who do most of my photography, brainstorm big ideas, and help with clothing design decisions

• My business coaches, who made me feel less alone in doing this thing, consistently give great advice

Alright. Let’s talk about what exactly worked and what flopped. ⬇️

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🪡 THE PROJECTS PART

All 3 linen sewing patterns (SANCTUARY, FINCH, and OLENE)

✅ WORKED!

Each pattern had more sales than the last. Here's why (I think).

If we go back to my last pattern of 2024 (Ladybird), it was the first to sell way more copies than all the ones before it—likely because I introduced 3 pricing tiers (pdf, print, and sewing kit), sent many more sales emails, and had a more targeted YouTube strategy than I ever had before. But at that time, I didn’t know yet if it was just a fluke.

NOT A FLUKE, BABY.

I honed in even further on those 3 factors, and the last pattern of 2025 (Olene) made 4x revenue what I made on Ladybird at the end of 2024. And each time, I had my audience vote for which pattern they wanted me to create next.

I also got way more streamlined with the creation and planning stages for each pattern. I now have very detailed checklists for everything that needs to be completed, and when (I use Notion + Notion Calendar for this). And my sewing kits, pdfs, and prints look more beautiful and professional than ever!

What will change in 2026?: This is working pretty dang well, so I will do more of the same, on purpose—3 new pattern launches with the same core levers (pricing tiers + strong email marketing + YouTube support) and even cleaner systems.

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Email newsletter

✅ WORKED!

I did the vast majority of my marketing through YouTube and my email newsletter, and I more than doubled my email list from 1k to 2.5k subscribers.

The newsletter has continuously been a happy place for me to feel more deeply understood and connected to people who care about similar things as me💞. I really enjoy making it a pretty place to share what I’m working on, how I can help you, and share customer creations/outfits. It feels tidy and contained, like a lil scrapbook or a magazine!

2026?: continuing weekly(ish) newsletters + email marketing, with a glow-up for the automated welcome-email sequence that is sent to new email subscribers!

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YouTube + video editing

✅ WORKED!

❌ and also: one part flopped.

YouTube: This year, I published 22 public videos (goal was 24) and doubled my subscribers from 6k to 12.5k. Hell yeah! And if you're curious, I made about $1,575 from YouTube AdSense—which still isn’t much given the hours, but it’s double last year, and way more than the $0 I’d make if I were posting on Instagram.

The part I didn’t expect: I thought I’d feel more confident on YouTube by the end of the year. Like I’d land on a magical formula of topics + filming + editing, and I just… didn’t. I felt just as insecure in December as I did in January 😂. I also totally fell off the bandwagon of responding to comments... I'm sorry!!! Please keep commenting on them! 🥹

My favorite video that I made this year? (the one that felt the most "me"?) ⬇️

The video that got the most views/engagement this year? (which is hilarious because I thought it was literally the most boring video I have ever made!!) ⬇️

Outsourcing video editing: I edit all of my videos and sewing tutorials using Adobe Premiere Pro, and I don’t love doing it. I finally got the gusto to cough up $800 for a video editing company to edit 5 videos for me in October. They only delivered 4, and that 4th one was delivered late. The edits were nothing special, and often way off base on the first round, despite my giving them lots of direction. I didn’t have time to edit those videos personally anyway, so I’m still glad I did it… But yeah 🙄.

2026 change: I'm making some small tweaks to my video background and overall look! And I have a really do-able, realistic plan to publish about 1 video per month, plus 4 videos in pattern-launch months, and I’m trying editing myself again using Descript instead of Adobe. Fingers crossed 🤞

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Outsourcing fabric dyeing

✅ WORKED!

For 4.5 years, I naturally dyed all of my fabrics by hand. But it’s hard to keep up a dye studio while moving between rental homes and dealing with health issues, so it was imperative to my body and sanity that I outsource a lot of the dye work this year. On my last pattern launch, I outsourced all but the charcoal (chestnut) color, and I introduced 2 new colors: Blush Pink and Ochre (which I've already tweaked the color of for 2026). I love the way the fabrics turned out, even if some of them weren't what I expected (that's the joy of natural dyes, baby!)

2026 change: outsourcing 100% of dye work. Goodbye to my basement dye dungeon! 👋

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Teaching a 3-day sewing workshop in Maine

✅ WORKED!

I was invited to be an instructor at an artistic retreat at a cool campground on the coast of Maine! I taught my students how to sew the Swallowtail pants using my plant-dyed linens. This required a lot of energy and hauling of stuff across state lines, but it was deeeeply rewarding on a social level. Hey—I work alone, in my home… every. single. day.

And this event was so much better than selling at a market, because I was with the same 5 students for 3.5 days straight and got to know them more deeply.

I was surprised to arrive and find out I would be teaching outdoors (just a roof, no walls or flooring!), but that also provided a weird fun reason to finally sew with fresh air and a view of the garden.

Overall, working with a small group gave me a lot of insight into what kinds of questions, doubts, and struggles newer sewists have—aka it gave me lots of future YouTube and pattern content ideas.

In 2026: I'll be teaching here again in September, with a different sewing pattern! Registration for the Touchstones Retreat opens in mid-January! Join me!

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Spring Clothing Collection

Design and photography… ✅ WORKED!

Sales… ❌ not as much.

I launched 4 new designs in the Spring (the HERON dress, FINCH top, CICADA shorts, and SANCTUARY shorts romper). This collection really was my personal summer wardrobe—I LOVE the designs. I think they were my most polished, well-sewn, and well-designed garments to date, and I think the photos turned out beautiful.

But as with every single other new collection in the past 4 years, newly released made-to-measure garments don’t tend to fly off my shelves. There is apparently some unspoken witchery where made-to-measure clothing designs need to marinate on my website for about a year before the masses flock.

This was the first year, though, that my clothing sales did not really matter as much to me… because the patterns were pulling so much weight financially. Most of my outward marketing and audience growth is around sewing/patterns, so it’s no surprise that my pattern sales are growing while clothing stays more stagnant (clothing is now only about 1/8 of my total revenue).

Will I keep made-to-measure clothing in my online shop moving forward? I’m taking it one year at a time. But going into 2026, there will be some small changes:

• I'm taking this year off from launching new clothing designs (I still have several older designs I haven’t turned into sewing patterns yet, and I’m going to work through those)

• I love designing clothing, though, so I’m sure I’ll get a head start on new designs for 2027!

• Instead of being made-on-demand, I'll be batching my sewing work into 4–5 contained weeks spread throughout the year (meaning made-to-measure will be pre-order, and every order placed in the past 2–3 months will be sewn and shipped out at one time—so I’m not mid-pattern-launch when I have to stop and take 5 hours to make a shirt for someone)

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Relocating my home and sewing studio to NH (and making sewing room upgrades!)

✅ WORKED!!!

This mid-June pivot split my year in half. I moved from a tiny Philly row-house to a New Hampshire home with more space and quiet: greenery, birds, ocean + mountains within driving distance, and a sewing room upgrade that nearly made me feel like a functional business owner. I’m sensitive to my environment, and I like space. I got that this year.

A lot of tools were upgraded this year, too! Here’s what I upgraded throughout the year that absolutely improved my quality of life:

• a dedicated pair of incredibly comfortable shoes to work in

• air purifier and dusting spray (I’d literally never bought this as an adult, lol)

• antique secretary desk to pack up orders at

• ultra lightweight vacuum so I can make this place a dust-free zone

• Lots of books

• Free (!) UPS thermal shipping labels

• a desk organizer

• new pretty computer keyboard and an ergonomic mouse

• big trash can with a lid (and generally adding more trash cans to the space—game changer!)

• Miele rotary ironing machine and steam system

• cute battery-powered wall sconces and a desk lamp

• I just built a new custom cutting/ironing table! ⬇️⬇️

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Charlie Darwin’s word of the year for 2026?

~EASY MODE~

(further improving systems, outsourcing, automating, getting out of startup survival mode)

What I’m prioritizing in 2026:

• 3 new pattern launches

• launching a new holistic program to help you Build Your Dream Linen Wardrobe

• Teaching at the sewing workshop in Maine in September

• Black Friday pattern sale

• YouTube and email newsletter

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Thanks for following along with my handmade clothing business in 2025!

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