A studio year

January to March: garments for autumn

Winter is when the big projects happen. Sweaters take the longest to design, grade and test, so they start in the coldest months to be ready by September. This is also when the tester round for a garment runs, because testers have more evenings free and are happy to have a sweater's worth of wool in their lap. Two garments a year is the realistic number; three is a stretch.

It is also when the learn section gets its attention. Articles are written in the gaps while samples dry, and the ones from support tickets over the winter, questions that came up again and again, go to the top of the list.

April to June: summer and small things

Spring is for cotton: tees, market bags, baskets, the things people want to make in warm weather. These are quicker to design and test, so several can move through at once. It is also when the toy patterns tend to happen, because a toy can be designed, made twice and tested in a month, and a spring toy is ready for the run up to the end of the year.

July and August: the quiet weeks

Summer is slow for pattern sales everywhere. We use it for the things that do not have a deadline: reshooting photos of older patterns in better light, updating patterns that have collected small notes, writing the seasonal make list, and swatching ideas that may never become anything. Some of the best patterns in the shop started as a July swatch with no plan. It is also when we take a couple of weeks off, and support may take an extra day.

September to November: the busy season

This is when the autumn garments launch and when most of the year's sales happen. Support is busiest, because more people are making more things at once, and the tickets from these months shape next winter's writing. Blankets do well from October, and hats and headbands go from a trickle to a stream in November as gift making starts. The free beanie pattern was made for exactly this: something quick that a person can make five of.

• Garment launches: one in September, one in October if the second is ready
• Blankets and home patterns: October
• Hats, headbands, small gifts: early November
• Nothing new in December; people are finishing, not starting

December: finishing

December is support and rest. Nobody wants a new pattern on the fifteenth of December; they want help with the one they are making. Ticket volume peaks in the two weeks before the holidays and drops to nothing on the day. The last week of the year is for planning: which garments for next winter, which articles the year's tickets have asked for, what to retire.

What this means for you

New patterns arrive in clusters, spring and autumn, not evenly. Older patterns get updates in summer. Support replies fastest in the quiet months and can take a full business day in the busy ones. And if you have an idea for a pattern you wish existed, the best time to send it is January, when the next year's list is still open. Several patterns in the shop exist because someone asked.

It is a small operation with a long lead time, and we would rather publish four good patterns a year than twenty rushed ones. The seasonal rhythm is what makes that possible. If you want to plan your own year of making around it, the seasonal make list is where we put the suggestions.