It's all over the news that Simplicity will be partnering up with Project Runway for the next season's crop of wanna-bee fashion designers. What's not so well-known is the fact that companies that make tissue patterns for home sewers are struggling. Neue Mode is biting the dust. Burda has shifted its emphasis to open-source sewing, which basically means you can download instructions for free and print them out on your printer or at a local copy shop. Even Simplicity has shut down its Niles, Mich. facility, moving production to Wisconsin.

So we laud the launch of Go Patterns, which has exactly one pattern to sell right now. This writer plans to support this site even though the dress design available now is a tad bit pricey (when compared to the .99 cent sales on Butterick, McCalls and Simplicity patterns at Hancock's or Jo-Ann Fabrics). We just need the likes of Tim Gunn and Martha Stewart to plug Go Patterns, and this new site should begin to take off.