All About Email Marketing for Pattern Designers with Ashleigh Wempe
You know you should be emailing your list. You have the freebie, the signup form, maybe a few hundred people who raised their hand. But every time you sit down to write, you wonder whether once a week is too much. You don’t know what to say besides “new pattern!” And the second you hit send, you’re refreshing the app and watching the unsubscribes tick up.
If that sounds like your inbox, this episode is for you. My guest built an email system that goes out three times a week without her writing a new email every week. And she built it as a pattern designer, not a marketer.
What you’ll learn in this post/episode:
Why email beats social media for pattern designers, and the open rates that prove it
How to let subscribers segment themselves, no manual sorting required
What an evergreen email sequence is, and how Ashleigh runs three of them
How often to email your list when you’re just starting out
The three email metrics worth checking, and why unsubscribes aren’t personal
Why your best pattern should never be your freebie
Connect with Ashleigh:
Website: https://ashleighwempe.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleighwempe
Email: hello@ashleighwempe.com
Pearl and Publish Membership: https://purlandpublish.com/membership/
The Tinking Circle: https://ashleighwempe.thrivecart.com/tinking-circle-general/
Meet Ashleigh Wempe, the Collaboration Queen of Knitting Pattern Design
Ashleigh started her business the day after she got out of the Air Force, with a brand-new Instagram account and a plan to design the knitting patterns she could never find online. She’s been designing since 2018, has hosted three virtual summits (7,000 knitters showed up to the last one), and runs two memberships: Purl & Publish for knitting pattern designers and the Tinking Circle for knitters. This year she embraced the role of, in her words, “the collaboration queen of the knitting pattern design world.” and after speaking with her (and being invited to her membership!), I totally agree!
How Do Pattern Designers Grow an Email List?
This is great advice no matter what your medium is as a pattern designer: knitting, quilting, sewing, crochet - it works for the craft industry.
For Ashleigh, the answer is collaboration. Her biggest list builder by far is running her own virtual summits and participating in other people’s. She also hosts freebie bundles, where a group of designers each offers one normally paid pattern for free in exchange for an email address. Every designer’s list grows, and knitters meet designers they never would have found on their own.
Her reasoning: a collaboration is other people sharing their audiences with you. After collaborations, her next biggest source is word of mouth.
Why Is Email Marketing Better Than Social Media for Pattern Designers?
Ashleigh’s definition of email marketing is simple: letting your audience get to know you better through email. And unlike social media, you own it. An account can get restricted, a platform can go down for a couple of days, but your list stays yours.
It also gets seen. Ashleigh’s open rates usually land between 35% and 45%. Mine run about 38–42%. That’s a lot more eyes on your work than a post the algorithm decides to bury.
How Do You Segment Your Email List Without Doing It by Hand?
Let your subscribers do it. At the bottom of Ashleigh’s opt-in forms, one question asks what they’re interested in: knitting, pattern design, virtual events. That single question splits her list into knitters and designers automatically. Everyone gets her knitting emails. Only designers get the designer sequence.
Then she tags. Every subscriber is tagged with the freebie they came in through, so she can see which lead magnets are working. They’re tagged when they enter her welcome sequence and again when they finish it. If someone grabs a second freebie later, they get a short “welcome back” instead of the full five- or six-day welcome all over again. Buyers get tagged too, so she can check in after a purchase and ask for a review. None of it is manual. Her workflows add and move the tags on their own. As she put it, the tags are “just for your brain.”
Already have a list you never segmented? Send a poll and let people sort themselves. Ashleigh’s point: the people who open it and answer are probably your warmest subscribers anyway.
What Is an Evergreen Email Sequence?
This is the part that made me want to go rebuild my own email system. Ashleigh runs three evergreen sequences, each 52 emails long, one a week for a full year:
Tuesdays (knitters): each email features a different pattern.
Sundays (knitters): the Sunday Swatch, casual check-ins with no pitch, like a book she enjoyed.
Fridays (designers): the designer-side sequence.
New subscribers move through her system in order: opt-in and freebie, then a welcome sequence (introduce yourself, help solve a problem, no pitching yet), then a pitch for the matching membership, then the evergreen sequence. Built into that year are two flash-sale sequences offering non-members 14 days free, plus a self-cleaning check: anyone who hasn’t opened an email in 90 days gets asked whether they still want to hear from her. No answer, and they’re quietly set aside.
She pitches about 20% of the time. The rest is checking in, sharing tips, and asking questions. In one of the first emails, she asks a quick this-or-that question, like whether you block your projects or just start wearing them, because getting a reply helps her emails land in the inbox.
Fifty-two emails sounds like a mountain, and it did take her time. But you don’t have to start from scratch. Go back through emails you’ve already sent, keep the ones that still hold up, and strip out anything tied to a holiday or the weather. Ashleigh built hers from Liz Wilcox’s weekly email templates, rewritten in her own voice. When she launches something big, she pauses the sequences and sets a calendar reminder to turn them back on.
How Often Should You Email Your List?
If weekly feels like too much, Ashleigh points to her own inbox: clothing and beauty brands email her constantly, and she doesn’t get mad at them. “Send the email… Just send it.” Go a month or two without writing, and your subscribers will open your next email wondering who you are and why they signed up.
Just starting out? Her recommendation: build a basic funnel with a freebie and a short welcome sequence focused on the reader instead of you, then email twice a month. Write both emails on the same day and schedule them.
Which Email Metrics Should You Track?
Ashleigh watches three:
Open rate. If it drops below her usual 35% or so, the subject line probably needs some tweaking, or the timing buried her email.
Click-through rate. It will always look low. Around 1% is good.
Unsubscribes. A spike tells her those people weren’t the right fit.
She checks every 90 days (it’s on her calendar) and daily during a summit or bundle, when new subscribers pour in.
About those unsubscribes: she used to get a notification for every single one and took each personally. Then she turned the notifications off and realized people who leave are “cleaning themselves” off her list. If someone doesn’t want her emails twice a week, they won’t want her membership, where they’d hear from her every day.
Should You Give Away a Pattern as Your Freebie?
Ashleigh’s answer is a hard no: “Do not be giving away your work for free.” A pattern takes months. Your freebie shouldn’t take more than a day. Spend a couple of hours in Canva making a checklist or something else that makes your customer’s life easier and introduces you.
Then offer patterns at the end of your welcome sequence, ideally as a bundle. In the knitting world, single patterns over $10 are hard to sell, but a bundle of five for $19 sells easily and raises your average order value. The exception is a collaboration like a freebie bundle, where giving away a pattern is the whole point.
Want to see Ashleigh’s system from the inside? Join her list at ashleighwempe.com, where you’ll also find her patterns and both memberships: Purl & Publish for designers and the Tinking Circle for knitters.
Hey Tori Takeaway
Your assignment — 30 minutes or less. Pick one:
1. Let them sort themselves. Add a one-question “What are you interested in?” field to your main opt-in form, or send your current list a quick poll.
2. Get a reply. Put a this-or-that question in your next email and ask people to hit reply.
3. Start your evergreen folder. Find three past emails that still hold up, strip out the dates and weather, and save them outside your email platform.
You don’t need 52 emails today. You need the first three.
Email is the heart of what we call Nurture Strategy inside the Digital Marketing Magic Coaching Program. If this episode had you rethinking your list, that’s exactly the work we do together: mapping how people find you, what they get when they join your list, and how your emails lead to sales, built for the quilting and crafting world. Members get a personalized roadmap, live coaching every month, and access to all the custom AI tools. The best first step is a free 30-minute strategy session — no pressure, just clarity on your next move. Book yours here.
Want me to answer your question? Submit a question here!
About the Author: Tori McElwain is a digital marketing coach for quilting and creative businesses. With 24+ years of quilting experience and a Master’s degree in Education, she helps quilters attract more students, sell more patterns, and grow their businesses online — without losing the joy of creating. She’s the author of “Workshops Unleashed” and cohost of the Quilting on the Side podcast.
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