I get asked a lot about Fashionary and how to use it — either how I personally use it or how one would/should/could use it. Simply put, Fashionary is a faint template onto which you can easily draw clothes, which means there are millions of potential applications for it — designing garments, planning outfits, deciding what to pack for a trip or to wear for Halloween. I find myself extremely curious to see what everyone’s been drawing in all the stacks of them that have been bought from Fringe Supply Co., so I thought I’d put the question to you, and then endeavor to piece together a post about all the many ways this tool is actually being used by this community. You interested?

I’ll start: I use both the Fashionary sketchbook and the perforated panels all the time. For me, the larger templates and loose-leaf nature of the panels makes them perfect for working out ideas that may wind up getting tossed. I might sketch out sweaters or sewn garments I’m thinking of concocting, but I mainly use them for wardrobe planning — as a way to see how (sometimes imaginary) garments could work together, and whether I would like them. A while back, I used them to draw up variations on the basic outfit types that work for me, to try to guide my sewing and knitting plans. And I also occasionally flip through those in the morning if I’m having a hard time getting dressed! Being loose, they’re easy to shuffle around, pin to the wall, clip to my Knitters Graph Paper Journal where I might be working out the specs to go with whatever it is. I love the portability and impermanency of those sketches.

The notebook, on the other hand — being bound and all — has become a semi-permanent record of my knitting. It’s literally a visual representation of my queue. So when I decide I’m going to knit a certain item, I draw it into the lineup. If it’s an existing pattern, I’ll write the name of it and the pattern gauge. If I have specific thoughts about what yarn I’ll use, I note that, too. If I decide against something I simply erase it, and eventually something else will get drawn onto the same figure. And once I’ve knitted something, I make a check next to it — so satisfying! In this way, eventually a spread will only contain things I’ve already knitted or still intend to. So it’s both a planner and a diary, and I love love love looking at it and I wish I could go back and draw in all the things that came before it.

For those reasons — the perpetual erasing and redrawing — I only use pencil. And not only do I not put anything in pen or add color, I don’t even do any fancy shading or anything. Strictly pencil line drawings and chicken scratch for me. (Although maybe I should ink in the finished ones, huh? I’ll have to think about that.)

So how about you? Are you a designer or a recorder? Free-spirited or high-concept? Do you draw in pencil or pen? Tack yarn or swatches? Color or shading? Fun or utility? The notebook or the panels? I want to see what you’re doing in there! To give you a little incentive to share, here’s what I’m gonna do: (Assuming there’s a critical mass of shares) I’ll round up a variety of responses and put together a post here on the blog. I’ll also pick one winner at random from everyone who posts, and that person will get a $100 gift certificate to the webshop. By giving you the basic outline to follow, Fashionary makes you look like you know what you’re doing, but drawing skills are really beside the point here. What we’re all interested in is what you’re drawing, not how professional those drawings look. (Although we want to see those, too!)

Here’s how to enter: Take a nice (new!) photo of your Fashionary sketchbook or panels and write a couple of sentences (or however much you like) about how you use it, however straightforward or conceptual that might be. Post it to Instagram, mention @fringesupplyco and hashtag it #fringefashionarypeek. Or blog about it, including a link to this post, and then leave a comment below with the URL. You do not need to have bought your Fashionary from Fringe Supply Co. to participate, but if you don’t yet have one and want to play along, we are of course happy to sell you one.

Share anytime between now and the end of July, at which point I’ll pick and announce the random winner!

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you back here next week—