Commission gone, and the bell does nothing

You had a commission open, or a dress half made, and now it is not in the sketchbook. The book opens on Off rack, ringing the desk bell brings no one, and the pigeon has nothing. Often the card is still in the book, just not on the page it opens to.

Looking for a dress you already handed in? That is a history entry rather than a missing active commission. Open the old dress from the sketchbook and take a new photo.

First: turn back from Off rack

1. Find the bottom-left page corner. Move to the lower-left corner of the open sketchbook and use the folded page corner to turn back. The tabs at the top switch sections.
2. Keep turning through the dress pages. Look beyond the Off rack page for the request you accepted. Check the card’s title and requirements before drafting anything new.
3. Resume the commission you found. Continue that dress. If you still cannot find its card after checking the pages, try the selling workaround below.

If an order for Marie or Edith disappears after opening free design, try these page corners first.

Keep turning the sketchbook’s pages all the way through, past Off rack, rather than stopping at the page it opens on. The missing card is often at the far end of the book, and this has also cleared a soft lock on Fiona’s second dress. If it is not there, try the next fix.

If it vanished after you pressed Make a New Dress, the card usually sits on the page to the right: turn to it with the page corners, not the tabs. See commission vanishes after Make a New Dress.

If it is not there: sell a dress

When the waiting client never comes back, selling a dress can bring the commission back. An off-the-rack dress in burlap costs nothing in fabric, so this is cheap to try; how selling works is on off the rack, selling and gifts.

If you gave the commission dress away

Open that dress’s page in the sketchbook. It still offers Draft Pattern, so make the dress again: cut, sew and finish it, then hand it over with Complete Commission. You will need the fabric a second time, so check your gold first.

What the patches changed

Build 410 fixed one version of this: a softlock in the tutorial when you click the sketchbook before the bell. There is no patch for the later commissions yet. Both patches are on patch notes.

How to avoid it

• Hand a commission dress in with Complete Commission, not Gift Dress. A gift does not fulfil the request, and afterwards the bell and the pigeon may bring nobody.
• Finish the story commission before you accept a pigeon letter. Taking one partway through can hide the open card; if that happens, turn back from the dress planning page to find it.
• Rose’s tutorial dress has to go through Complete Commission too. Sell dress only turns it into gold, and no new client comes until it is delivered.

If nothing works

• Save and quit to the menu, then load the save again. You do not have to close the game.
• Close the game and start it again.
• If none of these steps works, report it on the Steam discussion board with your save file.

Other problems and what helps with them, from a missing Finish Dress button to pieces that disappear, are on known bugs and fixes.

If Fiona’s gardening request is the card you were looking for, use the Vegetable Empire walkthrough once you find it.