I am so inspired by so many of the things going on in the world of sewing blogs right now. Colette Pattern’s Rooibos sew-along is happening right now and tempting me to join in. I love Sarai & company’s excellent instructions, tutorials, fabric tips, and sewing advice. It’s presented so cleanly and is easy to understand.
And then there is Mena’s 7 days of Sorbetto challenge on The Sew Weekly that has really gotten my mind spinning on all the wonderful things I could do with this versatile, free (!) pattern. I already made one up before I left on vacation and although it needs a couple of tweaks, I’ve already been thinking of the variations I could create with this pattern. Mena’s versions just send me over the top in wanting to whip out another one.
Speaking of The Sew Weekly, the make this look feature just gets me going too. The Lime In Love dress? YAY! So pretty! Casey’s recent 50’s dress tutorial was great also. Gertie’s Bombshell dress class on craftsy has really been pulling at me too. What great techniques and while the sarong style skirt isn’t so much my thing, the full skirted version is drool-worthy. Do you see what I mean? So many great things going on to get my inspiration going.
Now the negative to this is that I, of course, want to do them all. Obviously, that’s not very practical, from a time or money standpoint, however. I’ve only sewed up four garments in the 5 months since I started sewing again after Sebastian’s birth. When you consider that two of those garments took under 2 hours to sew, you realize my frequency of sewing has been pretty miserable.
It’s not that I’m a terribly slow sewer when I get down to business (though I am a little), it’s just that I don’t spend as much time down in my sewing area as I need to be as productive as I’d like. There just always seems to be something else going on that is competing for my attention, be it family stuff or just pursuing my other big interests (reading and cooking), and sewing takes me completely away from that because my space is so separate from our living space. Sometimes, when I need a break, that’s a great thing, but other times when I want to sew, but still be involved with my family, it is inconvenient. We’re looking at buying our first house soon and one of my goals is to have a sewing space that is nearer to all the action in the house, but that presents challenges as well. Sebastian gets into just about everything these days and most of my sewing stuff is completely off limits. Keeping it away from him if I had a space more in the main part of the house would be a real challenge and constant battle, so I don’t know if it’s worth it.
How do others manage these problems? Any suggestions?
The second problem to letting my creativity run wild is my limited budget. I have a relatively small amount of money each month to use as my spending money. That includes things like fabric, patterns, books, gardening, supplies, coffee. All of it. It’s always a real challenge to decide what I want to spend it on, what will be sacrificed for something else. Of course, that is something lots of people face, so I’m hardly alone there. Sometimes it’s so hard to choose though! I am totally inspired by Mena’s thriftiness on The Sew Weekly. I marvel at how she can find fabric, patterns, and notions so inexpensively to make all her clothes. I never used to frequent thrift shops or estate sales much because I’ve never been much of a shopper, so I didn’t have the dedication to dig through a big assortment of things to find a single gem, or the imagination to visualize the lovely in some hideous old garment or piece of fabric. I’m working on that now because I think that’s the only way to make sewing most of my own clothes a reality. I feel it’s an acquired skill though, so it’s a work in progress for me.
For now, I’m left to decide what to do with all the great ideas out there and which ones I can participate in. While it can be frustrating that I can’t do them all sometimes, the challenge is also fun in its own right. So I’m going to take a positive outlook on the situation and make the challenge fun. So let’s see how I can get the most enjoyment out of this!
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