A few more delightful designers

The fabrics that we use for the clothes featured in OTTOBRE magazines come from various suppliers. We have cooperated for a long time with Hilco, a German fabric wholesaler. Their collections include beautiful patterned fabrics as well as wonderful basic materials, such as fine cord, regular corduroy, poplin, and cotton and viscose jersey. Toptex is another German associate of ours. Their fabrics are especially suitable for our women’s clothes.



For our latest issue we also chose beautiful, soft cotton fabrics from the fabulous collection of the American designer Anna Maria Horner. Anna Maria designs fresh, innovative fabric lines for the “Free Spirit” collection of Westminster Fabrics. Fabrics in Anna Maria’s “Good Folks” collection can be ordered directly from her webshop – that’s what we did.



In conjunction with the publishing process of the latest issue we accidentally discovered two other talented American textile designers and are more than happy to introduce them to you. What happened was that bootleg versions of fabrics by these designers were distributed in Europe and, due to our ignorance, we picked them from the collections of a Finnish wholesaler and used them in some of our designs in the latest issue.

Our sharp-eyed readers did some detective work and noticed that the fabrics are copies. While the copyright issue is now being dealt with by the parties concerned, we take a clear, strong stand against illegal copying. From now on, we will also investigate the origin of the fabrics ever more thoroughly.

Textile and clothing designer Sandi Henderson designs fabrics for Michael Miller Fabrics Inc. and writes her amusing, down-to-earth blog. Genuine fabrics by Sandi’s are sold by Michael Miller Fabrics Inc. The authorized European distributors for the fabrics are also listed on Michael Miller’s website.



Textile designer and illustrator Amy Schimler designs fabrics for Robert Kaufman Fabrics Inc. You can take a look at Amy’s playful world here. Amy’s fabrics are cheerful with lovely childish motifs. They can be purchased at various online shops throughout the world. Amy’s latest collection can also be viewed on her blog.



On genuine American fabrics, the names of the designer and manufacturer are printed on the selvage. Notice also that American fabric widths differ from European ones, the most common width being 44’’ (approx. 112 cm). The fabric requirements in our magazine are based on the standard European fabric width of 145 cm. We have now calculated fabric requirements for the genuine original fabrics. You’ll find them here.

Illegal copying is shabby and nasty. We feel deeply ashamed on behalf of the offending Europeans! By choosing genuine designer fabrics you support the work of freelance designers and the right of individual designers to control the use of their work.

However, thanks to this wretched incident we made acquaintance with two talented, pleasant designers, and we are extremely delighted about that. We hope that in the future, we can continue our cooperation in happier circumstances. We entirely agree with the remark from one of our readers: “At least they are bootlegging good stuff!”

A couple of wonderful designers

While sewing patterns and instructions form the core content of the OTTOBRE magazine, we also try to make the layout and illustration as stimulating and captivating as possible. We hope that, in addition to adults, children also find the magazine interesting to browse through. Our family business has managed to build a network of talented, creative people from all over the world to cooperate with.

In the latest issues we have made use of two wonderful Scandinavian illustrators. Vibeke Høie comes from Norway and lives with her family in the small town of Sandnes. Vibeke illustrated the “Gardening with Friends” theme for issue 1/2009. You can take a look at her other works on her website. Our cooperation with Vibeke will continue.



Terese Bast, visual artist and mother, belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. She and her family live in Jakobstad on the west coast of Finland. Terese created the lovely illustration for the baby theme in issue 3/2009. You’ll find more works by Terese here. You’ll also find charming postcards, prints and pins at Terese’s Etsy webshop.