BEHIND THE SEAMS with Jessica Capalbo
Each month we like to feature an alumni patternmaker from our CPMG course. But this month, to kick off 2026, we have decided to do something a little different! We are featuring an interview with CPMG teacher Jessica Capalbo. We hope you enjoy this little peek into her life as an indie pattern designer!
Q: “Hi Jess, can you introduce yourself and tell me a little about yourself?
A: My name is Jessica (she/her/hers), and I am based in Southern California. I am a sewing pattern designer and a sewing pattern business mentor. I work with CPMG students, and it's the most fulfilling and life-giving thing to be able to do because I get to help people all over the world learn how to make garments for their unique bodies. I get to do that both with CPMG, but also through my sewing patterns, so it feels really fulfilling.
I am also recently engaged and sewing my wedding dress, which is super exciting. I have four months left, and I think that I just nailed down the design. I just purchased fabric swatches for it, which feels really good. I'm finally doing the thing I've always wanted to do, which is take fabric swatches and pin them onto a mood board. It feels like a very designer thing to do, and this feels like the perfect opportunity!
Q: “Tell me about your sewing & patternmaking journey. How did you get started, and why did you want to make patterns?”
A: So I started learning how to sew at the beginning of COVID. Back in 2020 I had lost my job and then a few weeks into the pandemic, at the time I was managing a group of people, at the rock climbing gym and one of my employees passed away a few weeks into the pandemic in a tragic climbing accident. It was just such a weird time of life where we had all been stripped of our workplace, which for me was also very much intertwined with my identity because I was a rock climber who did all rock climbing things, worked in the climbing industry. Rock climbing was everything to me. And my employees, I cared so deeply about them and I invested a lot of love and care into them. And so when Tristan passed away, I also wasn't able to grieve with the other people that I worked with. And I wasn't even able to go rock climbing and mentally escape from the tragedy of life as a whole. I needed something to put my energy into, and so I decided to learn how to sew, and I basically learned through YouTube University.
I started by sewing indie patterns. But very quickly switched from indie patterns to self drafting. I really liked it, but I was flying by the seat of my pants and I did not know what I was doing. At the time I was also trying to become a professional rock climber. I had a social media presence around rock climbing, and I was also sharing on my stories about sewing, and people were like, oh my gosh, you know how to sew, and you're making cool clothes? Can you make things for me? And I had also just recently lost my job, so I was like, absolutely, I will take your money to make things for you. It very quickly and naturally turned into making money from sewing, which ultimately turned into a full-time job.
I did go back to work after four months of everything being shut down. But there was at some point a crossroads. I knew that it wasn't like a sustainable long-term solution, because I could only make as much money as I could sew with my own two hands. But I also knew that I was living in a place where the cost of living was low enough that I could support myself financially. And then my partner's job ended up bringing us to California, where the cost of living was three times more than where I was previously in Nevada. And so I was then at a crossroads again, I either need to figure out how to pivot within this sewing space, or I need to go back to working in the climbing industry, which was absolutely still on the table, but I just really didn't want to do that.
And that's when I found Confident Pattern Making and Grading.
And actually, Nat, you were the who introduced me to CPMG, and it was very serendipitous when you reached out. It was everything I needed and didn't really know that's exactly what I was looking for. So I took CPMG, and I launched my first sewing pattern within 12 weeks or something like that.
I just hit the ground running. I loved it. Then I launched my second one, my third one, and so on and so forth. And it just blossomed into this beautiful space and community, and being able to touch a lot of people's lives through sewing.
Q: I want to talk more about your process working as an indie pattern designer. Do you have any specific strategies and/or methods for how you go about your work?
A: Okay, so I will start by saying that I've always been the way that I am, which might sound weird, but I decided when I was seven years old that I was gonna be an entrepreneur. I vividly remember standing in a rock climbing gym, saying to myself I'm gonna open a rock climbing gym someday. And obviously, that's not what I'm doing now - the goal has pivoted, but ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to open a business, and I just didn't know that it would end up looking the way that it does now.
And I'll also say that I'm so happy that I chose to do this, and I don't have a brick and mortar like facility with tons of overhead and employees and those things. So, what I've landed on is exactly what I wanted and didn't know they needed again. With that being said, I'm pretty type A. I'm very focused and driven. But I do have a really hard time when I have multiple projects going on at the same time. I'm a lot better when I focus on one thing, and I bring it all the way to fruition, and then I can relax for like a hot second before I go straight back into the next thing.
Otherwise, I'll just have a ton of ideas in the works forever, and none of them will come to fruition, which I think is actually something that a lot of students struggle with. My students in Pattern to Market, as well as in CPMG, get excited about so many different things. I think it's amazing to be creative and to want to do so many different things, but that can also very quickly lead to burnout when you have so many projects going at once. And then you either never bring any of them to fruition, which feels defeating. Or once you finally do, it's like six or 12 months later and you're like, oh my gosh, that was so much work. Whereas if you were to just focus on one thing, it would take significantly less time and then you would grow your skills faster and you'd be able to do it over and over.
And the more you do it, obviously, the more repetitions you have under your belt, so the easier it becomes in the long term. Sometimes it feels like less fun if you do one thing at a time. But it is the best way for me to personally work.
The other thing I try to teach my students is to understand what your current skillset is and work within that. Because let's say for example, somebody's gonna launch their first pattern and they're super excited about this complex, beautiful design. But because it's complex, there's a lot of pattern pieces, the grading might be complex, the fit testing process might be complex. Even just having more pattern pieces means that you have to do more illustrating and instruction writing. And when it comes to doing a video tutorial it's gonna be like a really, really long tutorial that you have to edit.
So there are all these new pieces that you've never done before. And so if you choose a design that's relatively complex as your very first pattern, but you don't quite have the skills yet to bring it to fruition, it's gonna take a lot longer and then once you launch, you're gonna be like, I don't wanna do the next one. And so I think it's significantly more effective to do something that is within our current skillset, that still feels like its stretching us, because of course this is brand new. That will set you up to be successful moving forward.
Q: That is a perfect segue. I had another question on the same topic that I was curious about. When you're planning your patterns, do you strategizing around doing a more complex pattern and then a simpler pattern, giving yourself breaks in between?
Or like, is that something that you think about?
A: I think about it, but it's not necessarily like a strategy that I implement because oftentimes I'll be like, oh, okay, this is the one that makes the most sense to work on next for whatever reason, maybe it's that by the time I'm gonna launch it, it's gonna be the right season to launch it kind of thing.
Then there's other times where I really just wanna follow my creativity and what excites me the most, and you kind of have to find a balance. Like, for example, I am working on a jeans pattern and I have already vocalized that this is gonna be the first pattern that I would launch this year. Then just a few days ago, I got really excited about a different pattern, and so I fully graded it, put it into fit testing, and I fully illustrated it and wrote the instructions, and I'm like, wait, so should I go backwards and work on the jeans pattern because it's way more seasonally appropriate? And I've been telling people that I was gonna work on it, but also now I'm excited about this other pattern, and I'm also farther along in the process… To be honest, I don't know what the answer is. I don't know if I'll go left or if I'll go right, And I think that that's kind of the beauty of being a business owner. Like you get to choose. And I'm also at a stage in my business where I get to make the creative choice.
Whereas sometimes in a business, like when you're just starting out. You actually should be making the choice that's more strategic. I'm now in a place where I can follow the creativity if I want to, which is a really good place to be. And it's because I set myself up for success by having a pattern library, which is what I always recommend people do. Build a pattern library so that you get to follow your creativity.
Q: I would love to know what are some of the challenges that you feel like you face when it comes to working as an indie designer?
A: I feel like this is a hard question because I love what I do. And so I think that when there are challenges, I don't always see them as challenges, instead I see it as a problem that I need to fix.
Like for example, I love working and I love specifically working on designing sewing patterns and everything, sewing pattern related. And so I can just like go and go and go and go. And not do anything else. It would probably be good if I drank some water, ate some food, and went to the gym. I can tunnel vision because I get so excited about the project at hand.
There have been times in my life where my fiancé, who was then my boyfriend, would knock on the sewing studio door, and I'd be like, I'm sorry, what? Hello? And he would come in and put a piece of cheese in front of me, and say I know that you haven't eaten anything and dinner won't be ready for a few more hours, but you've been locked away in your sewing studio all day.
And I'm like, oh, it's nighttime already?! You know what I mean? So, yeah, I think that it's maybe a blessing and a curse. Like it's great that I can be so focused and that I love my work. But I think my personality lends itself to, like I said, being type A and just like working on one thing.
And so I need to set boundaries for myself in order to make sure that I'm taking care of myself.
Q: “You've done such an amazing job growing on social media, so I was curious, do you feel like showing up online is something that came naturally to you? Or is it something that you felt like you had to learn along the way?”
A: I would say that it's a little bit of both. Natural in the sense that I've always been a performer. I used to take singing classes and guitar lessons and I would perform in front of people, and I always really enjoyed that. I was also a competitive rock climber. I loved being in the spotlight. But I will also say that showing up on social media isn't natural for anyone. It's definitely weird to put a camera in front of your face and talk to an empty room. And then of course, once you post it like you are talking to somebody, it might be one person, it might be thousands of people, and the amount of people can grow and change over time, which with social media is the goal. But it’s still just you at the end of the day.
I feel like the most important thing is to know what, what’s the purpose for you to show up? Showing up might just be enjoying other people's content, if that's your goal with social media, that's amazing. If your goal with social media is to reach people for your business or for your own personal mission, that looks like putting up a camera and talking to your ideal audience. And I think that we can overcomplicate and inflate it in our minds, like what it means to grow on social media and how to grow on social media. it can feel like this daunting thing. There's a lot of potential imposter syndrome involved in showing up on social media. But the way that I like to look at it is you're just showing up as your unique self and talking about the things that you love to talk about and that will connect with people. Especially in this day and age where a lot of what we're seeing on social media isn't even real.
Just showing up as your unique self is so, so powerful. I live in a place right now where I don't really have a real community and I don't expect that I will find that here, so I've actually been able to build my community through social media and people that I would consider my real-life friends, even though maybe we've never met each other before. And I think that's something that's really beautiful that can come out of being online. And the only way that I was able to do that was by showing up as my unique self and showing things that I'm sewing and creating and enjoying. I've been lucky enough to inspire other people, and build a community through that.
N: Oh, that's so beautiful and inspiring, Jess.
It’s truly such a good reminder to remember what the goal is. One of my best friends came from social media, and she's literally going to be one of my bridesmaids this year at my wedding, which is so insane!
We would've never met if I didn't post pictures of myself, and feel a little uncomfortable in the process. I think it's a good reminder for myself that there's only more of that out there.
J: Yeah, and I think something else to be said about social media is that it can feel really uncomfortable and unnatural in the beginning. But just like with anything, with more practice, you get better at it. And if you scroll deep enough, you will find lots of cringey videos of me online. Not that I'm saying anyone should scroll that deep, but you always have to start somewhere.
It's the same with working out. The more repetitions you put in, the more you will get better at the thing that you're trying to get better at. And so the same goes for social media, even if it feels super alien and unnatural right now.
Q: “Moving on, I want to talk a little bit about your 2026 goals since it's the beginning of the year! What goals, patternmaking or personal do you have for this year?
A: I made a physical vision board for the first time ever, which was a very fun and crafty, soothing process.
There were three main things on the vision board. One was pattern making/business work stuff. One was wedding-related since I'm getting married this year, and the other one was home.
Let’s start with home: Like I said before, I live in a place where I don't have in-person community. And for the longest time, I saw this place as temporary and it is temporary. We still intend to move away, but because I knew that it was temporary, I didn't invest time and care into my home. And I spend all of my time at home, like almost a hundred percent of my time is at home between working and pattern making and all of the things.
And so I decided that regardless of whether I'm only here for one more month or another year or another three years, I'm going to invest care into the place that I spend the most time. That might just look like lighting a candle and enjoying the space that I live in. So that was one big thing on my vision board.
The wedding-related stuff is super exciting. I've been pinning on Pinterest for as long as I can remember, like since I was a little girl, probably since Pinterest existed. And I think, of course the thing that I'm most excited for is designing and sewing my wedding dress.
And then the last bucket is work-related sewing, pattern making related things. My goal is to put out five patterns this year, and I only said that because it feels very achievable. I really hope that I put out way more patterns than five. I didn't wanna like create a goal that was too large, lofty, and then not meet it and feel bad about it.
This feels like the year of sewing patterns. I really wanna just dive into being creative and designing and bringing as many beautiful garments to the sewing world as possible.
Q: “What is your favorite part of the patternmaking process?”
A: Hmm. I really love all things digital, which sounds really weird as a creative person. Of course, I love to sew and I love to make things with my hands, but I love to sit on my cozy couch and pattern with a candle and a nice warm light on.
It just feels cozy and it's cool that I can do that from my couch. I also really, really love grading. I have always been super math-minded. And it feels very special to be able to take this excitement that I have for math and channel it into making garments that fit beautiful bodies all over the world.
It's really special that I get to use my skills to do that when I know that a lot of people don't have those skills or might want those skills and don't maybe have the resources to learn. That was me for a really long time, with my made to order business.
I didn't have any real patternmaking knowledge. I didn't go to school for it, so I just graded up and down based on what I thought would work. It worked, but I was never able to take on clients that were much above or below my personal size because I was effectively designing for me.
And now that I have those skills, it feels really special. And again, I get to do it from my cozy couch, which is awesome.
Time for some rapid fire question!
Q: Favorite sewing store
A: Mill End in Reno, Nevada?
Q: What are you listening to or reading right now?
A: I am reading Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdal, and I'm listening to the podcast by Maya Nichol.
Q: Do you have a sewing Creator crush?
A: Oh, I have lots of sewing creator crushes. But currently, Kelsey White!
Q: Favorite sewing tool?
A: I love a pattern notcher. Ooh. Like a whole punch for pattern notches.
Q: Do you have any sewing hot takes?
A: My sewing hot take is that any project can be a beginner project with the right instructions. Yeah, like if you wanna sew jeans as your very first project, I believe in you.
If this interview inspired you, check out our Confident Patternmaking & Grading Program where you can learn how to draft sewing patterns, and get support from Jess directly to create beautiful size-inclusive sewing patterns for all people.
Nat Della Selva
