Tuesday, December 30, 2008

End-of-the Year Ramblings

I've been getting my sewing goals for 2009 organized, but am reflecting on things I've done in 2008. Bear with me--New Year's Eve has started a day early in my house from a bottle of wine that was opened on Christmas Eve ;). I apologize in advance for a possibly muddled post.

Anyway, my sewing goal for 2008 was to sew--a lot! I accomplished that. I don't think I took any Patternreview classes, just applied what I've learned in classes I took the previous three years, many of which were on fitting or applicable to fitting theory (thinking of the dressform class). I haven't posted my sewing goals yet for next year but I've been thinking about and fine tuning them.

One thing I have noticed during 2008 is that I have relied heavily on blogs and my blog feeds for my daily sewing "fix". For a while, I would visit PR and check out virtually every review on garments and some on accessories. These days, hardly at all. Unfortunately, I'm busier, PR is growing exponentially, and the discovery of blog feeds has me keeping up with a projects from the infancy of the idea/concept stage to the finished garment. I find I like the story, the nuances of the project, the progression of the garment, the personality of the blogger--it reveals a much bigger "picture" than of just a review alone. I do check out the message boards on a daily basis, but rarely check out the daily gallery anymore. Is anyone else like this? Unfortunately, I do miss a lot of good sewing reviews, but there is only so much time in a day.

Blog posts are easily "digestable". We given a project in pieces many times. Step by step, with bloggers highlighting the fitting issues, special techniques, or problems they have faced. I have posted this before and will reiterate, their posts are an invitation to their homes to join them on their daily/weekly sewing adventures. And for that I appreciate it. Sewing is an adventure, a journey. I'm constantly learning something new from other bloggers and/or PR members.

This is just one of my many sewing thoughts for the day. On the actual sewing front, I cut the patch pockets for my son's jeans. I'd like to get them finished up by tomorrow. Lindsay also posted an insightful comment--it might be prudent to check out the store flyers--a pea coat for my daughter might be had at a great price. Oh...it's the proverbial Catch-22. I like her to see me sewing, get her excited about the process (maybe light a spark for the future in the deep recesses of her brain), have a smashing coat to her specs but it all comes at a price. Literally and figuratively. I can tell you I want a blue/black wool coat (the Paron's wool in my stash), with black leather welt pockets, and the special buttons I picked up at Pacific Trims. She just says, "I want a pea coat." Nothing specific. So maybe we should just look for a RTW one as she's not looking for anything special. "Special" would require ME sewing it. I'll wait a while longer and see where this issue is headed.

That blue/black wool coat I just mentioned with specifics IS a coat (for me) in progress. I would like to get the interlining done by the weekend. There are a couple of other coats in the planning stages. During the Fall I purchased the Vogue Pattern magazine, and there was an excellent article on coats. Made me think maybe I should have used Thinsulate, but I'll use what I have on hand which is the flannel. Time to pare down the stash!

Right now I'm ready to turn off one of the movies we rented tonight--Leatherheads. None of us like it, and we're a football/baseball kind of family. Everyone else went to bed, and the only thing keeping me up is this post. Certainly not the movie. BTW, has anyone rented the movie, "The Visitor"? I have to pick up some movies for the New Year's Eve tomorrow and Ghost Town and Eagle Eye will proably not be available tomorrow. So I'm on the lookout for good movies. They can be out of the mainstream, but I want quality flicks. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

One good thing is Penn State made it the Rose Bowl, rather than the Toilet Bowl this year ;) ! I'm looking forward to seeing them play.

3 comments:

Meg said...

I hear you about spending less time on PR these days. Blogs are more meaningful and helpful to me, just like you. I'd visit the Review Gallery more but there is so much non-fashion sewing on it that I lose interest quickly. I do find I use it for its original purpose: looking up patterns to see how they turned out on real people.

Sigrid said...

I feel the same about PR. I still look at the review gallery, but read less and less. I do like the site, but as you say, time is limited.

Happy new year to you!

Alexandra said...

I feel the same way about PR. It has grown so much over the last few years, it takes too much to keep up with it (and it looks too cluttered to me). I always click on the Message Board tab and never get back to the main page. And between the lively discussions on Stitcher's Guild and reading people's blogs, I visit even PR message boards less and less.