More blogging!

What a week this has been!

As well as blogging for the fabulous William Gee (awesome supplier of all things sewing & creative) I have just been accepted as a blogger for White Tree Fabrics.

There is a big difference between the types of blogs you will now see from me - there will continue to be William Gee blog posts, dedicated to small projects and information but with the hook up to White Tree Fabrics, I will be sewing real patterns for real clothes. Detailing the trials and tribulations. Detailing the "oh no, look what I've done! I'm such a dunce!" Moments - hoping to make you laugh, cry and sew along with me.

So watch this space - my first project has been selected and the pattern, fabric & supplies will hopefully be with me soon. Watch this space!

What to do, what to do

You know the feeling, the weekend is looming large on the horizon and you feel a wave of excitement - no work! Relaxation! Sleeping!

But then it dawns on you - you've no food in, the teens are bringing friends round (who you aren't allowed to interact with in case you're embarrassing), the in laws are due on Sunday and you wanted to do some sewing or knitting or drawing, whatever is your thing.

How do you motivate yourself to get cracking?

In my mind, I break the day  into chunks - my time for doing my creative stuff, interspersed with sorting out the household stuff and relaxing doing nothing (ha!). My husband works shifts so I also have to take his start/finish time into account.

Recently, I have started a calendar of sorts with all the projects I want to start/continue/finish. Sometimes, the planned stuff goes out of the window but it doesn't matter, does it?  Our Etsy shop is stocked with items ready to ship so I am not against time constraints. 

A 'bionic gear bag' can take several evenings spread over a week so I chunk it up and do other things in between like cutting out, drinking tea, watching a bit of MLB baseball.
When I am sewing garments, I don't stop in the middle of an important bit like adding shirt cuffs or sleeves as you can easily lose your thread (no pun intended). As I said in an earlier post (http://www.williamgee.co.uk/sewing-mistakes-no-one-will-ever-notice/#.VdRXR5c7cyg) for WilliamGee.co.uk, I have sewn shirt sleeves on the wrong sides of my shirts because I didn't mark the pieces properly and so picked up my sewing after a break and it all went horribly wrong.

So how do fit your crafting into your otherwise busy life? Are you one of the brave ones who crafts & creates full time? Let us know, we'd love to hear from you.

And thanks for reading!

5 things I love about sewing

I am a computer nerd, using & maintaining computer systems at work. I avoided Home Economics at school, loved fixing my old cars. I've never considered myself as having much of a creative streak.

But everyone has a creative streak, in some shape or another.

Sewing patterns appeal to the techie in me - pieces that go together in a certain order, in a certain way, allowing a 2D piece of fabric to become something 3D. 

I like seeing a detail on an item of clothing and working out how it was made. But I do not have the creative juices to come up with original designs except by combining details from various sources.

But fabric? Designs made by super creative people!

It is a tool and as such I am amazed at the designs made by clever clogs like Tula Pink and Amy Butler. And I mean clever clogs in a good way - talented, talented people.

Colours that go together.

Textures that can make a garment zing.

All from the creative vision of designers.

I can make things that no-one else has.

I can make things for other people in colours and combinations they want.

Not creative? Think again!

What I love about my bionic gear bag

As is normal for crafters, we use items daily without even thinking about it - items we have made as well as tools for crafting.

I am at the point where I cannot imagine not having my bionic gear bag to hand. Let's call it a BGB, saves me mis-typing it (and my spellcheck still hasn't quite learnt what it is that I am trying to type).

My sister is the seamstress, I am the leather crafter, hand stitching all the leather items in our Etsy shop (scissorsistas.Etsy.com in case you haven't seen it). She wasn't 100% happy with a specific BGB she had made (no idea why, I cannot see what is wrong with it) so I snapped it up and stuffed it full of my leathering tools.

I kept ringing her up, telling her how much I loved it. Telling her how much it was perfect. Telling her that I used it every day. She stopped taking my calls about it after a while!

And what is it about a BGB that means once you have one you won't be able to manage without one?

Compartments. Lots of them. I can keep my knives and blades safely zipped in their own place, so no fear of cuts when rummaging round.

A 'tray' to stop stuff rolling off the worktop. My awl is a perfect example. If I had a pound for every time it's fallen on the floor...... No problem now I have a BGB.

I can craft 'on the move' and have all my gubbins safely stashed in my BGB. No more Quality Street tins or carrier bags.. The BGB is pretty damn neat and super stylish. Better than a Lidl bag for life.

It's like a tardis. It's astonishing how much 'stuff' I can fit in there. This is what I have stashed in there at the moment:

Dressmakers scissors
Shoemakers knife
Snips
Small scissors
Tin of leather needles
Pack of Stanley knife blades
Stanley knife
Tub of pins
Ribbon
3 pens
4 pencils
Beeswax
Linen thread
Awl
Bone folder
Roll of double sided tape
Pricking iron
Edge crease
Parcel tags

It goes on. And yes, I can zip it all up. It really is like Mary Poppins carpet bag. Buy one and see for yourself. 

Scissorsistas.etsy.com

5 things I like about leather

1. The smell. Everyone loves the smell of leather, right? And it's a smell that lingers, it doesn't really fade. Walk into the room where I store numerous hides (half a decent sized herd at the last count) and the smell hits you - boom! And I love it.

2. The perfect imperfections. No two hides are the same - obviously. This isn't a man made material, so every piece of leather is different. I love to see the natural scars and veining on a side of leather. The ragged edges. I study each hide I buy and it tells me what style of bag to make.

3. The substance. A piece of leather is not like a piece of fabric. It is thicker in places. Softer in others. That's why bag making is an art - it's knowing that parts of the hide should be used for straps, but never for gussets and vice versa.

4. It's green. Not the colour green, I mean it's environmentally friendly. Contravertial maybe, but no-one ever bred a cow for it's hide. Leather is a by-product of the meat industry (or fishing industry if working with salmon or carp leather - yes, really!) so using it is actually a form of recycling.

5. Its' versatility. Give me a piece of leather and I'll show you the bag, the journal, the belt, the phone case, the dog collar, the cuff, the manuscript cover etc etc. A good tannery offers a wide range of hides and with skill, the right tools, some creative flair and a bit of knowledge you can make all sorts of amazing things!

See our work in our Etsy shop - ScissorSistas.etsy.com