Dressmaker: How to Get Back to a Disappeared Commission
If your client commission seems to have vanished in Dressmaker, understanding sketchbook paging mechanics ensures you can quickly locate and complete your order.
Why Commissions Seem to Disappear
A common panic among Dressmaker players is opening the sketchbook to find an ongoing client commission seemingly gone. Reassuringly, active assignments are never deleted automatically; only handing over a finished project with Complete Commission clears an order from your books. The journal simply reopens to whichever page you browsed last, such as a finished record or the new dress tab.
Sketchbook Navigation and Page Order
Three navigation tabs rest at the top left of your journal: a silhouette head for friendships, a dress icon for your active dress, and a plus icon for initiating uncommissioned designs. Turning forward, sketchbook contents follow a strict order: client friendships first, archived finished garments in chronological sequence, and finally open commissions ordered by start date, concluding with the blank draft screen.
Recovering Buried Story Commissions
When you accept a pigeon delivery or accidentally press Create New Dress, that new project takes priority as your current dress, pushing your main story task a few pages backward. The dress icon will only navigate to the newest project. To return to your client commission, turn backward using the bottom-left page corner or the A keyboard key until the desired client order reappears.
Why Ringing the Service Bell Brings Nobody
If you ring the reception desk bell and no customer arrives, an unfinished story commission is still lingering somewhere in your sketchbook. The bell sounds with every click, but clients only respond when the bell is actively flashing. Flashing occurs strictly when zero story assignments remain open and the next narrative visitor is waiting in queue.
Players frequently encounter this issue following Fierce Funeral, when off-the-rack dresses open right before Respectful Funeral. Creating a new dress starts an off-the-rack project on a fresh page at the end and becomes your current dress. Paging back with the bottom-left corner or A key immediately brings your story commission back into view.
Avoid pressing Restart Dress on a recovered commission page, as this will erase any garment work already completed on that project. Once you finish sewing and deliver via Complete Commission, the desk bell will begin flashing again, ready to summon your next client.