Exploring Stitchery Faire and a Solo RPG That Unraveled
Design and create garments for patrons in a bustling marketplace with charm, artistry, and diligence in Stitchery Faire.
One of my most anticipated solo RPG experiences was Stitchery Faire, and I was so excited when the book arrived! The freedom to create and sketch seemed like a wonderful idea, and although I don’t have a lot of artistic flair, I welcome the opportunity in different places. Playing the part of a seamstress was rather new and exciting. Off to this colorful faire!
Game Overview
Game Name: Stitchery Faire
Publication Year: 2026
Designer: Amanda Kastner
Artist: Amanda Kastner
Publisher: Self-Published
Solo Mode: Designed for Solo (Included in the Base Game)
Over the course of 10 weeks, a chosen character meets patrons and others. It is a combination solo journaling and sketching RPG designed to weave together the experiences that lead to completed dresses. There are little touches of magic, and a lot of promise from the lovely introduction.
Preparing to Play
I want to preface this by saying that I didn’t enjoy this experience, but still want to try to explain why. There are definitely some nice points to this solo RPG for others!
It only requires a standard deck of cards and a d6. The commission ledger is a little more involved, though, and is designed to be a record of everything for 10 weeks.
There was a lot of work put into me just figuring out how to print out the correct order using double-sided paper.
But I made it, had a bird-themed deck that seemed to fit the general aesthetic, and was ready to dive into dressmaking!
Steps Upon Steps
The table of contents gives a very useful overview of where to find everything, plus a fun little blurb about the author!
But all of these pages correspond to a step or sub-step in the process of play. There are cards to pull, details to copy over, dice to roll, numbers to add and compare, and… It was a lot.
Character creation went through 30 pages of instructions. These were quick, but I was mostly copying text or trying to understand why I had to split the cards into 3 decks.
The magic of the introduction faded away a bit into a lot of procedures, and gameplay followed another 30 pages.
At the Faire Chart
I understood this card chart, but it felt strange to have to keep track of 3 different decks with their own discards. All of the information is right here, so why not just reshuffle?
The prompts felt pretty limited compared to all of the work I had to do in the bookkeeping realm. I caught glimpses of fun, yet pictured here is all about setting up to play.
It was also interesting to me to have no examples of how to sketch. A style guide provides ideas for parts of dresses…
But as someone who doesn’t sketch, I wasn’t sure how to go beyond a basic dress design to add layers or drape fabric.
Bookkeeping Work
This was where the first week of play started to lose me. Each phase isn’t that complicated, but I wasn’t sure if I was recording the details correctly. And I wish I knew more.
Lower value cards are easier to fulfill early on, so it was only lucky that I chose the value 4 over the value 10 at first!
Rumors encompassed a little bit of everything, but I skipped over the actual rumor generator. While interesting in practice, some of the possibilities seemed a little too mean.
I was also unsure about putting in the time to create initial ideas and sketches when the dice roll might toss them out.
Understanding What Didn’t Work for Me
I’ve been enjoying a range of solo RPGs recently, from ones where I have to come up with tons of details to gamebooks that mostly involve dice rolls and character sheets. So why did this seemingly delightful setting not pan out? I wanted to take a look at some very subjective aspects, more so I can remember the details for myself and possible future purchases!
Confusing Campaign and Reward Redemption
This is the first time I backed a print-on-demand product and didn’t redeem all of the codes. I received no less than 10 emails with codes for every product, including a single card and about 4 different card deck options. No matter how I sliced it, counting my crowdfunding backer tier plus the products and shipping, it would all have come out to $90-$100 USD.
So I only picked up the hardcover book, and still wonder if I did something wrong. It was an unnecessarily complicated path to simply get the materials needed to play. Although I will note that the card deck was not what I expected, and the custom commission ledger is 108 pages long for a single playthrough. Not sure I would have ever filled those pages up!
Lack of Sketching Direction or Ideas to Build Off Of
I get it: Fashion is very eclectic and this is designed to encourage creativity in every sense. Yet when commission requests can include words like exaggerated, smooth, approachable, or confident, I wasn’t sure how to interpret those. As someone who enjoys sketching, the only guide I had was to try to copy some of the art sprinkled throughout the book.
The phase to get ideas is about just doodling or even pasting ideas into the ledger, yet where was I to start? Doing searches online? It would have been lovely to have a basic dress design on a page to roughly color in edges, possibly with other patterns or little ideas to layer on top. I almost tried to look into buying paper dolls to help here, as I was left with nothing.
Perhaps my mistake was in going in as someone who hasn’t done any sketches in fashion. There was always the route of simply writing what I was thinking of, but again, when a design came up that needed to be blue, velvet, and lace… I didn’t really know how else to describe what I pictured. And how does one sketch velvet or lace? I just felt very, very lost.
Limited Room for Solo Journaling
Prompts are certainly included for the phases, but these are often tied to dice rolls. And unless I read everything incorrectly multiple times, it seemed like I could always pick up whatever materials I needed. There was no currency, and nothing to say I couldn’t build every dress out of the most expensive, rarest fabric. The risk was in the dice for the patron’s opinions.
Although there were prompts to think about how I gathered the materials, there were no stakes. As this was a large marketplace, it seemed plausible that I was simply locating everything within the hall. Maybe there were relationships to build, yet where was the tension and silly story possibilities about finding a box of buttons in a bird’s nest? Or anything?
Less Coziness Than Expected
With so many phases to go through and lots of bookkeeping, there wasn’t this carefree, creative vibe I imagined would be present. It wasn’t particularly cozy for me. I had to put in a lot of effort to flip through the pages, copy down details, and even start to think about what I might want to do in terms of sketching. A lot of elements felt like actual work.
Patrons might also turn down ideas, and a table of complications even indicates that they could change their minds or force a seamstress to start over. To me, that’s erasing creative progress. If I went through the trouble to cut out, paste, and sketch whimsical ideas that I’m excited to turn into a final dress creation, those changes don’t feed into my creativity.
Rumors felt kind of mean-spirited. I had to choose 1-2 characters to be the subject of what boiled down to gossip. I suppose these could be taken as positive conversations, yet some of the topics didn’t interest me at all. I could have skipped over them, yet rumors are notoriously not cozy. I can make them silly, but why would my character pay attention to gossip?
Glimpses of Magic
I loved the table of tools, and copying down these details at the start was wonderful! There were so many ideas I had of how I could bring these to life in my dressmaking.
But alas, I felt very boxed in by dice rolls and didn’t have enough guidance to feel like I was going to sketch anything.
The final phase also involves the community judging a final design and possibility criticizing it. I understood the story potential, but again, that didn’t feel like a cozy sentiment.
Although this definitely didn’t work for me, perhaps it will be a wonderful time for those who love to sketch fashion!
Continue the Conversation
Have you played Stitchery Faire? Are there any other solo journaling RPGs you enjoy for the coziness? I was sad about how flat this fell for me, even though I put in a few hours to create my character and go through my first in-game week. There is a wonderful idea here about creating and bringing creative ideas to life. Hopefully, I’ll find another solo RPG soon enough!
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