Blog Hop!

Ah, and so it came to pass that Dibs resurfaced after a long spell away from her blog. My friend Mela over at Pincushion Treats nominated me for a blog hop. Those of you who have been reading my blog for sometime will have seen mention of her round these parts. If I ever visit the US, Mela would be one of the reasons why......oh and the various garment districts. Come to think of it, there are many US bloggers I would love to meet. I am looking at you Ginger, and you Nettie (peeps how cool is this woman?), and not forgetting Carolyn, and oh, I want to be best friends with Renee (even though she already has a sewing bff, but who cares, emperors have been dethroned before)....but I digress.

I am not exactly sure how to answer some of the questions as I think they would require me to actually think about stuff, and most often I don't know why I do somethings. Anyways her goes....

Why do I sew?

I don't know. I suppose I sew because I like sewing. I like learning new things. 

My mom started sewing bed linen and curtains as a hobby, then later started selling them, while maintaining her day job as an accountant. I hated sewing at that time because it involved my aunt and I unpicking thousands of stitches with dressmakers pins. Either my mom did not know that seam rippers existed, or she just plain hated us. I hated it. Then she decided she wanted to sew clothes, enter Burda. That again, was totally unwelcome as I was responsible for tracing off the patterns she wanted. I had a HARD childhood people.

I suppose what really got me into sewing was wanting my university room to look like those in the glossy home magazines. I told my mom I wanted my curtains to match my bedspread, and I also wanted a strip of fabric round my room as my wallpaper. My mom told me to make it myself. I did, but my room looked so cheesy. I did not care. I loved it. 

When I came to the UK, sewing was not at the top of my list, but a couple of years later, I discovered Burdastyle. I started reading some of the blogs attached to the Burdastyle profiles and when I moved back to London after my Masters, my husband bought me a sewing machine. Searching for fabric shops in London led me to Karen's blog, and my first sewing meetup. The rest peeps, is history.

What am I working on?

For now, nothing. 

The last thing I made was a denim dress which I did for my high school alumni meeting in Coventry. Unfortunately, when I was finishing off the neck, my needle broke, and when I tried to take the needle out, it fell into the machine. I need to take it to sewing machine repair shop. 

We recently moved from London to Northampton, and I now work in Birmingham. Which is not good for me as I work in the city center, fabric shops. Not good. I have a sewing room to myself now but I still need to kit it out. I have high plans of enticing Claire out to Northampton to plan it out for me.

How Does My Sewing Process Work?

I just sew as the sewing spirit moves me. I don't like to plan projects. 

When I feel like sewing, I just pick out a pattern, and then match it to a fabric. I get pattern inspiration from other bloggers. I would see a project on someone's blog and decide I want to make the same thing. Buy the pattern, then never make it. I want to change that though, as I now have many patterns that I know I will never, ever sew. I like sewing mostly from the Big 4, but I recently bought 2 By Hand London patterns ( Charlotte skirt and Holly jumpsuit), to make work related outfits. So watch this space.

I will only plan a project if it is for a specific event, like a wedding or a black tie event. Even then I change my mind countless times.

When I start sewing an item, if I don't finish it, within 3 days, I run the risk of NEVER finishing it. I have a toile du jour dress I started last year. It is almost finished, but I somehow can't cross the finishing line.

What keeps me motivated to blog?

I blog because I want to. I don't blog often, and I don't know if I will get back to my pre-baby blogging levels, but I will see. If I feel I have something to say, then I will say it. I mostly blog if I have a sewing project to show. My blogging suffers when I don't sew. No sewing, no blogging. I am hopping to change that though. I have decided I want to bore you all to death with my life. So be prepared for many non-sewing related posts.

So apparently I have to nominate someone. I won't stop at just 1 person. There so many people whose viewpoints I want to get but for today I will settle on three people I admire. Sandra ( she makes sewing wrap dresses seem so easy.), Vicki Kate(  I still have your umbrella dude) and Ana, who is supa dupa talented and who I used to hero worship on Burdastyle back in the days.