I lost my blogroll...

 This hurts...

I had a long list of blogs that I followed from back in the day.  Unfortunately, some of them have fallen into ...other hands?...and were now being updated with non-sewing material, to put it mildly.

I repeatedly tried to edit out the blogs that were now talking about stuff other than sewing, or that set off my Unsafe Site alert when clicked, or that were now just filled with crazy asian script, but I could. not. get. Blogger to save updates.  The Save button just would NOT activate.  I tried over and over, over several months.

Then I hit on an idea...what if I just made a new blog list widget, with the bloggers that I could remember who were still publishing?  I could copy and paste from the old list pretty easily.  Then I could delete the old one and hopefully not get those random non- sewing links showing up

It was sad to go through the list and see all the fine folks who were no longer blogging.  And, it's true, some had even reactivated after several years of being dormant...that was exciting to see.  But truth was...any non- active blog seems to be subject to being hijacked and used for other purposes so I took a deep breath and just listed the ones I thought were active, as best I could remember.

It saved it...in the wrong place.  I tried to move it, but no dice, so I did a new one...again...

It saved, I thought, but all I managed to do was get rid of both the old list and the list in the wrong place.  The list in the right place, for whatever reason, didn't save.

So I will likely have to reconstruct it all from scratch again and that will take some time.

Bummer.

I guess this is the kind of thing that happens when I can't actually sew, lol.

I will say I am recovering from the hip surgery slowly.  It's one week out today and I actually managed to lift my foot high enough to get over the edge of the bathtub, so I could take a real shower.  Hooray for small victories...

And...the winners of the giveaway....

My goodies are allocated...I started with the most expensive piece of fabric and worked my way down to the one that was the clearance price... If you said you looked good in a color, you were in the drawing for that particular fabric.

3 yards of Navy Zegna silk suiting from Michael, a David Warren suit pattern from Butterick and a copy of Second Stitches goes to ....Marilyn!

4 yards of olive/tan/black tattersal tropical wool from Hancock's...back in the day, sigh....a 1940's retro reprint Simplicity pattern and Jane Conlon's Fine Embellishment Techniques goes to....Debbie!

3 yards of pink linen/rayon eyelet, which is one of the nicest pieces of fabric I've ever bought at a JoAnn's (I believe it came from Cool Springs, TN),  a 3 piece Butterick Wardrobe pattern and a copy of Sewing Secrets from the Fashion Industry  goes to ....Mary Deeter!

2 yards of cross-woven pinpoint cotton shirting from Gorgeous Fabrics, a Kwik Sew classic women's shirt pattern and a copy of Bottom/Chaney's Make it Your Own goes to ....Kathleen Conery!

And 2 1/4 yards of a sylized floral rayon challis in varying shades of olive-y green, gray, black and white,  that I *think* came from Fabric Mart but may have come from Fabric.com... along with a Vogue Basic Designs Shirt pattern and the Baker/Young classic Simply Serge Any Fabric  goes to....Amy Mayer!

And, the truth is, I only had 9 ladies enter the drawing.  So...for the rest of you (Amy Bailes, Susan V., Ann Marie and Amy in SC)...if you will send me your typical Big 4 pattern size, I'll pick a pattern from the stash and send it your way!

So, basically, everyone who entered needs to send her mailing address to tig77lw at yahoo dotcom, and I'll get the goodies out in the mail.


I hope you all enjoy your gifts...so glad you all participated!  And, once again, thanks to everyone who stops by Sew Random!

Now...back to the SWAP sewing...

Post number 1800 and the Postponed 10 year Blogiversary Celebration

Eighteen hundred blog posts.  Hard to believe.

That's, like, a book or something...

But it's been a fuzz over ten years.

I wanted to do a big 'reader appreciation' giveaway back in November, when the actual ten year blogiversary happened, but we were up to our endurance limit with a home remodel that had half the house barricaded and under construction, and the other half crammed jammed to the nearly non-navigable point with the contents of the rooms being rebuilt. I couldn't even begin to think about pulling stuff out of the stashes at that state...and  the celebration got postponed.  Somehow I thought it would be good to put it at the 1800 post mark.

I will admit, it took me longer to reach the 1800 posts than I thought it would, but that gave me time to pull some goodies to send  along.

I'm not going to detail them...but I'll say that each box has fabric w/ one of five different fibers (silk, linen, rayon, cotton and wool -- all wovens) a suitable pattern for the fabric and a book from the bookshelf.

Because I have more fabric and more patterns than I can expect to ever sew my way through,  and more books than I have time to appreciate, and something like 200 followers that I know of who have read the blog, commented on the blog, encouraged me, corrected me, and bailed me out over the past ten years.  Some of you I've met in real life; some are facebook friends, and some have enabled my fabric and stash accumulation.

So it's time for a little payback love for folks who have hung with me in the past few years.

Here's the deal: you have to be a follower of the blog.  Somewhere, somehow.

But I'm going to take your word for it...because I probably can't go check everywhere and make sure.

So...to enter the giveaway:

1) Leave a comment ON THIS POST.  In the past, I've pulled comments from all posts in the allotted time frame, but for this one, I'm just pulling off of this post.  Easier to keep track of. ;-)

2) In the comment,  leave your name,  how you follow the blog, how long you've been following the blog,  and whether you look best in blue, pink or olive green. :-)

3) If you feel motivated to comment on today's post but your fabric and pattern stashes are at the explosion point and you don't want to be included in the giveaway, just say so.  You don't have to enter to comment...but you have to comment to enter. :-)

4)  I'll do a random drawing in a week to pick the folks who will get the goodies.

And thanks to EVERYONE for your support of Sew Random through the years!

9 Year Blogiversary Give Away

I threw the names of the 15 commentors (who did not specifically request not to be in the drawing) into a box, and My Sweet Babboo drew three names:  Here are the three winners:

So, Kris C., Rita (yes, with an 'i', just for clarity...) and Sew Ruthie... if you ladies could email your address to tig77LW at yahoo, I'll get your pattern pack off to you ASAP.

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on the blog this week!  It's always fun to see who's actually reading it...sometimes I kinda feel like I'm talking to myself.

I'm already thinking about what I can do to celebrate ten years next fall... :-)

HItting the Cyber Wall Again

There are two things that have continually been a thorn in the side as I've tried to participate in the online sewing community.

The first has been photo hosting...trying to find SOMEONE who can host photos that I can access for reviews and such without the need to go back and relink the photos every 18 months or so.  I think I'm on the 4th time for updating the links for some of the older reviews....two of the photo hosting sites that I used closed shop and a third one seems to randomly mess with the links; what clicked through to a specific photo one week will just bring up the whole album the next week.  Very frustrating.

The second is the feed collectors... places to subscribe and read all the new posts in one spot.  I think the first one I used was Bloglines; they went away and I moved to Google Reader, then they closed up shop and I tried Bloglovin' before landing on the Old Reader, who threatened to go away but found new owners and stabilized.

However, when I logged in today I found that the Old Reader has instituted a 'premium' service, available at the introductory price of $20/year, effective immediately.

They say they wanted to avoid using advertising, and  have cool new features available for folks who want to subscribe.    But, not to worry, they said, they will still have a free version for folks who have less than 100 subscriptions.  And, while the new pricing is in effect now, they are graciously giving everyone 'about 2 weeks' to look things over and make up their minds.

Now, I am not opposed to paying for services.  But someone dug into the 'terms of service' and found some clause that was left over from the previous free version that basically said that the administrators were reserving the right to terminate the service without notice.  Pretty bad if you've paid for a year.

This seems to be pretty heavy handed.  Not the sort of service I'm interested in paying for.

But I had 227 subscriptions.

So I began to delete subscriptions.  First to go were all of them that had not been updated in the last six months or so (with one or two exceptions...if those folks ever post an update, I want to know...).  That was quite  a lot, actually; I was surprised at how many hadn't been updated in over a year.

But that left me still well over a hundred.  So I went back again and culled all of them that weren't really what I read blogs for...blogs that had morphed into knitting or quilting or cute pictures of grandchildren or lots of links to other places on the 'net.

Still over a hundred.  Now I had to steel myself and be ruthless.  I went back again and removed subscriptions to blogs that I had subscribed to a while but, for one reason or another, I just didn't make a connection with the blogger.  Nice stuff, nice work, but ...sigh.

After all that, I was still at 112.  I reminded myself that I still have subscriptions to all but the very newest ones over on Bloglovin', so it's not like I'm cutting folks out of my life forever.  I took a breath and looked at folks who had posted within the last few months, but the post before that one was six months or so older.  Seldom updated blogs.

Finally, I just had to randomly pick two or three to cut.  It wasn't easy, but I got it down to 99.  And every one of the names on that list are blogs I recognize....intentional subscriptions.

But I'm hoping to bite the bullet and switch to Bloglovin, so I can just delete the Old Reader account.  Because that's just going to be too much trouble to maintain two separate lists.  Besides, they rather ticked me off.

To be honest, if my blog was on the list I probably would've cut it, too...not enough inspirational sewing going on at the moment, just rehashes of old things that don't really fit any more. 

So that made me appreciate anyone who is still following along here.  Thanks for hanging with me; hopefully better sewing days are ahead. ;-)

3 Plus 1 Pillowcases

As I'm sure many of you know, Rhonda Buss is doing a pillowcase drive for Mary Bridge Children's Hospital.  Her goal was to accumulate 900 pillowcases...roughly the amount needed for one month's worth of giveaways.

I wanted to participate, but I don't have a big stash of printed cottons and I just hadn't managed to go hunting for suitable fabric and wasn't sure I was going to get something suitable in time to get them in.  But at the Sewing Expo last month, a pizza-printed cotton caught my eye, and I found that there were also hotdog and hamburger prints.  They were kinda pricey for pillowcases, but, hey, it's for kids, right?

So I brought 'em home and, like every other project I've been sewing for the last six months, I worked on 'em fifteen minutes at a time.

During the course of the little-bit-at-a-time pillowcase project, my high school girls club had a sewing night and made some tote bags from the three cotton prints I could scrape out of my stash (more on that later, with photos...).  I had a remnant left of one of the prints that was just enough for a pillowcase, so I have the three food pillowcases...plus the one random one.

These will go in the mail tomorrow (I hope!);  Rhonda is only 6 pillowcases short of 900 as of her blog post today, so I'm sure mine will be extras, but I'm glad to get to send some along.  It has been fun to see what everyone has done for this.

Praying for Shannon

If you recall, I mentioned that during my 12 weeks of sewing Gorgeous Fabrics, I meant to use the time to pray for Ann...and, just as I was starting the challenge, I learned of another sewing friend who was battling cancer, so I've been using my sewing time to pray for her, also. I didn't mention her name, because she said she was not being very public about it.

However,the news has now gone pretty public, so I thought I'd share a bit about my friend.

Most of the folks in the online sewing community know and love Shannon Gifford; Shannon has taught numerous online classes at PatternReview, written fabric sewing tips for Emma One Sock, written articles for Threads magazine, published the online sewing newsletter 'Sensible Sewing'...she's been visible online, and always helpful and gracious.

But beyond that, Shannon grew up in my neck of the woods and I've had the privilege of meeting her In Real Life on her trips back this way to visit family. She is just as helpful and gracious in person as she is on line. It has been a treat to know her.

I knew she was in a battle; I didn't know the scope of the battle until I happened to stumble across a chat that pointed me to a discussion thread on the Pattern Review boards that lead me to the blog about her battle.

I haven't been very active on the boards for quite a while; I'd missed a lot of earlier discussion, I think. I found the info just in time to read today's post that the doctors have pronounced the cancer no longer treatable.

Both Shannon and her husband have displayed remarkable faith and courage throughout; you can read the whole story on their blog.

I've got 4 more garments to make from my Gorgeous Fabrics; as I'm sewing them, I will of course be praying for Ann...with the fabric being a direct point of contact to her...but I'll also be holding Shannon in my heart and praying for her as well.

I'd like to encourage my friends in bloggy land to pray for them, too.

The CGP

Ok. I should be cutting out the actual dress for dinner tomorrow night; but I just took a break and checked Bloglines and found that Lori over at 'Girls in the Garden' is hosting a Compliments Guaranteed Party and asks 'What garment that you have made gets compliments every time you wear it?'

I thought, "0h, boy, instant blog post!" and jumped on to answer the question.

It's gotta be my Hot Patterns Cadeau T...probably because it's such an unusual top and on the outer edges of my normal style range. Took a couple of iterations w/cheap fabric before I was ready to cut into the good stuff, but it was worth it!

Support for a Sewing Buddy...

I imagine most folks who stop by here readily recognize one of my prime fabric sources, Gorgeous Fabrics. I've had the pleasure of talking to Ann, GF owner and fabric stash enabler extraordinaire, over the internet and over the phone; she's a gem.

But, if you've been reading Ann's blog, you know that she's hit a rough patch of life right now dealing with medical tests and results and other such things.

She's facing twelve weeks of some sort of treatment(this is on her blog; I'm not spilling any confidences...) as a result of the results.

Anyway. I read her latest post and wondered what I could do to support her.

And I had an idea.

I don't know if I'll be able to keep up or not, given the fact that I do have school costumes looming, but I checked the records on my stash and I have enough fabric to sew one garment from fabric I've purchased from Ann each week for the next twelve weeks.

(Well, I could probably go way longer than that, but I'll focus on the next twelve weeks.)

And, while I'm matching fabric and pattern, cutting things out, stitching things up, I'll be holding Ann in my heart to the Father.

For the next twelve weeks.

Anyone else have a goodly stash of Gorgeous Fabric waiting to move into the wardrobe who'd like to join me?

The Sewing Sisterhood

I've been very remiss in this...

Claire from 1 Seam at a Time and Amy from Shirts and Skirts Galore both awarded me the 'Sisterhood Award', which is designated for blogs that show 'great attitude and/or gratitude'. I'm honored and amazed when blogging buddies connect my name with any award, but this one is special. Thank you, ladies, very much!

According to The Rules, I'm supposed to nominate ten more bloggers for the award.

But this award has been flying around the sewing blogsphere, so I'm going to take it upon myself to deviate and just recognize one blogger who has so moved me in the past threeish weeks that I am in awe.

The Rusty Bobbin's Inklings was, I think, the very first sewing blog I read with any regularity. Beth inspired me in many ways: her garment sewing, her regular chatty blog posts, her fitting adventures, her church banner production, her amazing dolls. We've even met in real life at the Atlanta Sewing Expo.

But The Rusty Bobbin is on indefinite hiatus. Three days before Valentine's Day, Beth's hubby (whom she always referred to on the blog as 'Mr. H.') experienced a severe stroke. Now, Beth's daily updates are found on Caring Bridge, and they reflect a journey much more demanding and much less certain than fitting pants.

Yet, Beth has maintained her attitude and her faith through this. And the Sewing Sisterhood award is given to encourage her and let her know that I -- and many others -- are praying for Mr. H's full recovery.

Sharin' the Kreativ Love

Thanks to Diana of Sew Passionista for giving me the 'Kreativ Blogger' award! I admit it, it makes me smile when someone links here...it's nice to know other folks stop by and follow my rather, um, random narrative.

Now, I get to forward the award to seven folks. I don't know if I can find seven folks that haven't already received the award, but I'll give it a shot.

Firstly, I want to nominate Charity of Vintage Threads. If you haven't followed the story of her Hundred Skirt project, you've missed something pretty amazing. With a little help from other sewing bloggers, Charity sent 103 handmade skirts, with matching purchased T's, to an orphanage in Guatamala. If that doesn't qualify for a 'Kreativ Blogger' award, something's wrong in the blogsphere! ;)

Next is Alexandra, whom I have actually met at the Atlanta Sewing Expo, of Studio Alexandra. She uses fabulous fabrics to create beautiful and meticulous garments...and she knits, too!

I also want to nominate Debbie Cook, of Stitches and Seams. Debbie is a fitting master who freely shares what she's learned on some very excellent tutorials.

Amy at Shirts and Skirts Galore has been creating lots of things...maternity clothes and knitted baby washcloths are amongst her latest projects.

Josie at Josie Loves To Sew just celebrated her first year blogiversary; that's something to celebrate!

Claire at 1 Seam at a Time has been organizing and cataloging; that deserves a pat on the back, too! I really, really need to take a few days and do the same thing....

Julia R. is having fun being positively creative at Julia's Sewing Blog

Browsing around the blogs that have already been awarded the button and were nominating others, I found a fair number of blogs I haven't had a chance to read yet. The sewing blogging community appears to be growing exponentially; that's cool.... ;)

I'm a Bookworm

Well, Miss Linda at Threads of Lovliness has nominated me for the Bookworm Award. (I tried to get the nifty artwork to show; Blogger says it's here but obviously it isn't...)

It's interesting to note that I just took, on a whim, the What Kind of Nerd Be You quiz (I really think I've done this one before...) with the following results:

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd   Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Drama Nerd
Musician
Artistic Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Social Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

So, yeah, I'm a bookworm.

The rules of the Meme state that I'm supposed to grab the nearest book, open it to page 56, and write the fifth sentence on that page, along with two to five sentences that follow.

Well, the book that happened to be lying on the computer desk was apparently left by the Actor; it was The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien, and page 56 happens to be the tail end of Chapter 3. So, I will quote from the start of the fifth sentence to the end of the chapter:

And the host of the Teleri passed over the Misty Mountains, and crossed the wide lands of Eriador, being urged on by Elwe Singollo, for he was eager to return to Valinor and the Light that he had beheld; and he wished not to be sundered from the Noldor, for he had great friendship with Finwe their lord. Thus after many years the Teleri also came at last over Ered Luin into the eastern regions of Beleriand. There they halted, and dwelt a while beyond the River Gelion.
(note: there are supposed to be two dots over the final e's on 'Elwe' and 'Finwe', but I couldn't figure out where to find a font that would do that...)

Yes, believe it or not, I *have* read the whole book; it's a fair challenge to keep the names straight and follow the whole story...or rather, group of related stories. But Tolkein actually believed The Silmarillion to be a greater and more important work than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Much of it was written before he undertook the saga of The One Ring; I think that's why TLOTR had such a feeling of being rooted in its time...it really was, with all that history behind it.

Anyway, now I'm supposed to nominate 5 more people. But, like the other memes I've been tagged with lately, I know I have seen this on many other blogs and I haven't paid attention to who has and who has not done it. So, in my favorite random fashion, I tag whoever is reading this post today who has also read The Lord of the Rings trilogy MORE THAN ONCE. If that's you, grab the closest book and list the fifth sentence on page 56, along with a few more for some context.

Then leave a comment here so I can enjoy the notes of my fellow Literature Nerds....

7 Random Things Tag

I've been tagged by my non-sewing-blogging buddy Jess with the 7 Random Things tag...

Now, I'm supposed to link to her blog (check) and then list 7 random and/or weird things about myself.

Um, hm. I hope I haven't already posted these things.

1)My nickname in high school was 'Tigger'

2)My first car (and only car purchased by me for me from my own resources) was a new 1978 white Mustang. It got traded in in 1990 for a boxy Plymouth Horizon which was primarily my hubby's car. My oldest son (Formerly known as 'Teen Son of the Rolling Eyes', hereafter noted as 'The Artist', as he is now 20) is still driving it; it's got a bunch of miles on it and has more shakes than Dairy Queen but somehow keeps going...if you add a quart of oil once a week. I confess I have never been fond of it. I loved my Mustang.

3)When I was a high school freshman, I concluded that I very likely would not marry any of the boys I knew then. Or, perhaps a better way of putting it would be I concluded then that none of the boys I knew would ever be interested in me. I met My Sweet Baboo when I was 18.

4) Need I add I was rather geeky and socially inept as a young teenager? (I refuse to speculate as to whether that has entirely passed from my personality...)

5) I learned to sew starting at age 10 on the back porch of our nearly century year old farmhouse. Concrete floor, no heat or AC (eta for clarification...the porch, not the house, had concrete floor and no heat...lol). Truth be told, it was more of a utility room than a porch and I'm not sure why we called it the porch. The furnace was also located on the back porch, as were the washer and dryer and the chest-style deep freeze, which served as a semi-accessible cutting table. Good preparation for the years I spent with my 'sewing studio' in our garage.

6)Although my degree is a double major in Mathematics and Computer Science, I originally went off to college as a music education major. Um, that didn't work for me...

7) I can't stand salmon. My Sweet Baboo loves it and eats it almost every time we go out to dinner. I know it's good for you and I wish I could eat it but every taste brings back unpleasant associations with the nasty salmon patties my elementary school cafeteria served.

Now, I'm supposed to tag 7 more people, but, to be honest, I haven't a clue who has and who has not already done this. So, I will tag any blog reader whose birthday is the same month as mine (July) who has not already done the meme. Just leave a link in the comments and we'll all come and learn 7 random things about you!

A Blog Award!

I know these awards have been making the rounds, but it still surprises me to be nominated by Ann of Gorgeous Things She is one of my sewing inspirations (not to mention suppliers, since she began her mail order fabric business, Gorgeous Fabrics) So I'm really honored that she'd pick my blog for this! Especially considering other fabulous folks she nominated (Me? In the same list with Paco?).

Anyway, like all blog awards, they have, um, rules.

The first ones are easy... post the award images and a link to the person who gave it to you.

Usually, the rules then skip to nominating others and notifying them, but there's a catch here; there's a request to list '6 of your most important values and 6 negative points you condemn.'. (Who writes these things, anyway?) It looks like there's a lot of leeway for interpretation here...is this six values I consider key to myself, or six values I consider important in others? Does it really matter which way I interpret it?

Well, I'm going to list six things about myself that I think are foundational to who I am, and six things I wish I could improve upon. I don't know if that meets the requirements or not, but it seems fair and in the spirit of the award, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it. NOTE: These are in No Particular Order.

1) I'm a tightwad. I really hate to spend money on frivolous things; I justify my fabric purchases by telling myself it really is cheaper in the long run. And, sometimes I'm right...like the time I had an urgent need for a denim jacket, and made one from denim (purchased on sale several years earlier) in the stash...the only new outlay of cash was about $5 for buttons.

2) I'm a Pentecostal-style evangelic Christian. That conjures up a lot of weird images for some folks, I know, but it's the truth. My life values all come from my faith...and I can't separate that out from who I am. It probably comes through on the blog, although I know there are many folks with different beliefs who stop by here and I try very hard not to offend anyone, I cannot go back on what I believe because someone else disagrees or does not understand. That's part of the reason I started the second blog...so I could discuss that side of my life without freaking the people who come by for sewing stories.

3)I try to be really honest at all times.

4) I love tradition...things all tied up around special events like weddings and holidays.

5) I am very loyal

6) I'm determined to make things work...why I have so few wadders... ;)


Now, 6 things about myself that I'd like to improve:

1) organization organization organization! I'd count that as three but that wouldn't be fair.

2) I have distinct packrat tenancies. I wish I could get rid of useless stuff easier than I do.

3) I hate confrontation. Some things need confronting.

4) I wish I could keep up with sending birthday cards and such in a timely fashion. Maybe that comes under #1, but I don't like it that folks may think I have forgotten them...that's not true.

5) I hate calling folks on the telephone. I'm not sure why, but I do. Again, people think I don't care, and that makes me sad.

6) I also have an unpleasant tendency to speak before I have completely considered how that might sound to the other person...let's just say I get misunderstood a lot and end up offending folks when I didn't mean to. It sounds reasonable in my head...but then, no one else is in my head and they didn't hear the background music, I guess.


Ok...now for my own nominations. These folks are supposed to do what I just did, but I'm not going to fuss if they don't. This is all about sharing the love, anyway, right?

The Rules say to nominate 6 - 10 people; I'm not sure how many I'll end up with.

I'm going to limit myself to blogs that I have recently discovered: if I just found them, it might be that some others might enjoy finding them, too!

Bubblegum for Breakfast. I've seen Birgitte's work on Pattern Review...she has an amazing eye for design and construction. Go be inspired!

From the Stash. Gry designs and sews wonderful things in Denmark.

The Princess Seam. Adriana posts as 'Eli' on Pattern review and does some truly amazing things. She calls herself an 'intermediate' level sewing enthusiast, but I think you'll agree that her garments are well above that level.

After the Dress. Gwen blogged her way through constructing a friends wedding dress, then started ATD to chronicle her sewing for herself. She has an interesting structure...on Fridays, she 'confesses' something, and then on the following Thursday does a little synopsis of the replies she received. Sort of an informal poll; it's kinda fun!

Amands's Adventures in Sewing. Amanda has been doing some pattern reviews of some really sharp things; have a look!

Ok, now I'm going to break with my sewing buds for my last one and nominate a blog that is not about sewing. It's about faith in the real world...

Bring the Rain. This is a real-life, real-time story of one mother's walk through extraordinarily difficult events. Angie is married to Todd Smith of the Christian band Selah, but that really isn't a major part of the story. How she and her family are walking out their circumstances is the story. Go to the first post and read the story from the bottom up. Have a box of kleenex handy.


Um, let's see...the last of The Rules says that I now have to leave a comment on the above blogs so they know they're nominated. So...I'm off!

Blogroll!

Catching Up

Y'know, it's harder to catch up than I thought; there's so much that happened in the last month and I really kind of let it slide right by me (I did manage to vote in the annual Timmel SWAP contest; but I knew that was coming up and I'd been following it up until the Internet Hiatus. The wardrobes are fabulous, as always, and everyone has offered up a wonderful inspiration...one lady made THREE separate wardrobes! Congratulations to everyone who completed a wardrobe, and an extra pat on the back to the winners!). Anyway. I had hundreds of blog posts that I hadn't read, and dozens of pages of unread posts on the bulletin boards... so I just skimmed it all. Real quick. It probably wasn't even enough to know what I read, but I couldn't just hit 'mark as read' and ignore it. So it'll probably take me a while to get back into the flow of things.

But I promised word on costumes today! And I've got two different costuming projects in the wings. One has no 'due date' -- just whenever I can get to it. It's the Medieval Knight Angels. I found the black-and-gold stretch velvet we used for Pippin. It was in the special order book at Hancock's; it was only shown in gold-on-black; it was $20 a yard. Not gonna work. But, whilst I was at Sir's (yes, the semi-local fabric outlet of supreme temptation...the place of my Parity downfall last spring...but I held firm and only bought costuming fabric this time!) looking for linen fabric for the other costuming project, I found some neat gold foil print on white knit; it's the drapey liquid lame stuff, only it's a very pale gold. I think it will look really neat under stage lights...all shimmery. So I loaded up on that, and some white-white linen-looking stuff for the tabbards. And some white knit stuff to line the gold (it is rather sheer). The angels will be coming soon.

But first I'll have to do the project that HAS a due date. This year's Royal Ranger state Pow-Wow camp will have an...arg! Pirate theme, and I've got an assignment to make pirate costumes for three of our commanders (one being my husband, another being the Senior Commander of our outpost). Senior Commander wants a full-out Jack Sparrow Costume complete w/coat. But they will be outside -- in Alabama -- in June. So I suggested linen fabrics as being the most comfortable (hence the trip to Sir's). I actually found several pieces of what feels to be linen or mostly linen for $3/yard up there; the rest is on order from FFC and Michael and should be here this week. I ordered 4 dozen antique gold buttons from Atlanta Thread and Supply that cost about .31 each w/shipping added in; turns out they have a kind of equestrian design on them; I'm hoping no one notices. So...Oi'll be sewin' up some piratey things real soon, matey, but Oi moight 'ave me some 'elp from th' other sewin' loidies.... we got about 5 weeks on that 'un.

It's going to be a busy month.

Fun First Friday: A Year of TNT

It struck me that it might be fun to do the 'what would you...' kind of thing on a regular basis, so I'm sort of playing around with the idea of doing this on the first Friday of each month...

But the question for this month is:

You have to move for one year to a very small space that does not have access to retail or internet pattern sources. You have only room to take 12 TNT patterns with you. So, what patterns would you take to meet any wardrobe needs in the next year?

I had to make my list twice; I lost it the first time! But here's what I came up with...

Pants:
La Fred's Daphne Pant; These are good pants for wearing under long floaty tops; they also make great capris. I modified them to have a waistband and pockets.
Vogue 7881; Claire Shaeffer's contour-waist pants (I added a pocket to these, too). Very good, very basic pants when an elastic waistband is NOT indicated.
Loes Hinse's Oxford Pants I've tweaked these to almost perfect, and I've done some modifications with them, too. I think I could (in fact, I'm planning on it) make a decent pull-on shorts pattern from them, and I *believe* I could, in an pinch, turn them into no-side-seam pants if I needed to for some reason.

Skirts
Straight skirt: Kwik Sew 2581. This has options for pleat variations in three lengths; I could get several very different skirts from this if I needed a serious skirt.

Flared skirt: Cutting Line Designs Farewell to Arms. This is a beautiful, easy-to-wear, easy-to-make skirt. I modified the pockets so that they were free (not stitched to the skirt front) just because that's my preference, but I love this skirt. Bonus: the envelope also contains patterns for an unstructured dress and a pull over top; I have used the skirt portion of the dress before as a straight skirt and it worked well, too.

Tops: This was a hard category to choose. I ended up with mostly knit tops; I don't have a good supply of TNTs for woven shirts at the moment. But I have:

Cutting Line Designs In the Trenches. That's a shirt that can be easily modified w/ sleeve length and trim details variations. It looks pretty, well, trenchy as illustrated, but if you look past the drawstring and the back shield, there's a very nice basic shirt underneath. Oh, and a bonus here...a pegged skirt, too.

Loes Hinse's City Dress; I know, I know, that's a dress pattern. But I've modified the bodice into a very nice little scoop-neck shell and made it a bazillion times. It's a good basic. And, the bonus is, I've got the unstructured dress as well.

Jalie 2005 Choice of T's; Of course.

Jalie 965 Camisole and T. This is the best knit tank I've found...it covers everything and looks great as a base layer under about anything.

Kwik Sew 2948 Twin Set; my favorite KS pattern. I love-love-love that set.

I've only really got one TNT Jacket:
Vogue Today's Fit 8043; I *think* I could modify it a bit for variation if need be (I already have one done...). But the boxy Chanel style is timeless, so it should fill a jacket need ok.

Finally, a dress with some shape:
Vogue 8379; the DVF knock-off wrap dress. I still need to make that up w/my tweaks, but I'm pretty confident they'll work.

There are other patterns that I wish I could take, but they're not TNT yet so they don't qualify. But I'm pretty sure I could get a year's wardrobe out of those...assuming I wouldn't need a MOB or MOG or other Special Occasion outfit.

But, hey, I bet if I got creative enough, I could maybe even pull that off with the little jacket and the shell top and a straight skirt...in killer fabrics... ;)

So! There's my picks! If you want to play, post your picks in your blog and leave a link in the comments and we'll all come look!

And if you're not ready today, you can list your picks tomorrow....

Bonus Post:: I want to thank the Academy...

Well, actually the thanks goes to Mary Beth at The Stitchery, who awarded Sew Random the 'Excellent Blog' award.

The award was started by Project Mommy in January and is wending its way through the blogspere.

Now it's my turn to pass the award along to ten others...and I'm trying not to name folks who have already been nominated (although I don't know how far the meme has gotten; some of these could be duplicates just the same). Here are my picks for 'blog excellence', in, well, Random Order...

Belinda at Sew-4-Fun
Charity at Vintage Threads
Lisa at Sew On and Sew On
Angie at Quality Time
Isabelle at Kitty Couture
Beth at The Rusty Bobbin
Linda at Patterns and Fabric and Thread, Oh My!
Pirouette at Krustallos
Julia at Julia's Sewing Blog
Annika at Annika's Atelier

Not to mention the many excellent blogs on the sidebar who have already been awarded the "E"...

thank you, Mary Beth!

A Little Joke

Ok, I put two clues in yesterday's (y'know...April 1) post that it was, um, inspired by the day. The first was that 'April Fool' was in italics; the second was that the label for the post wasn't 'Stashing: Patterns' or 'My Space' or anything even remotely related to cleaning things out; it was 'The Calendar'.

I was really surprised that folks took it seriously. Not just in the comments...a friend who reads the blog said something in a telephone conversation about me throwing out so much stuff.

Ok, I admit I need to cull the stash somewhat, but down to 12 patterns????

I'm a more convincing fiction writer than I thought, I guess. (LOL)

But it did raise some interesting questions. If, by some bizarre twist of fate, I *had* to cull down to 12 TNT (that's 'Tried 'N' True'...patterns that you've tested, tweaked and made more than once) patterns for a year, what would they be? As Alexandra pointed out, that would be a terrific personal challenge.

So, whilst I'm thinking about it, I've got a question for any sewing bloggers looking for some content in the next few days...Ya wanna play along? What 12 TNT patterns would you take with you if you had to move into a small space w/no access to retail or internet pattern sources for one year?

Post it on Friday and we'll all have fun reading each other's picks. You can leave a comment Friday so we'll know who's playing.

Wednesday Inspiration

It's Wednesday and I've got a really, really bad cold. Or sinus infection.
And there's a week and a half left before we head out of town; I've got a couple of Christmas gifts I've got to get cracking on and a white shirt that's only about 1/3 done (the collar's on it now); it had spent the last week lying on the sewing machine bed waiting on the final dart when I sat down to work on it yesterday.

So I'm not inspiring nobody this week; I'm just drinking liquids and taking decongestants and hoping this goes away without a trip to the doctor.

But that's not to say there isn't inspiring stuff going on. Go look at what Laura made last week (scroll down a bit; her week of sewing photos start with the coat). She didn't even take time off of work!

Amazing. If there was such a thing as a 'Fabulous Flying Needle' award, I'd give it to Laura this week! Go enjoy her work!