A half-dozen years ago I was allll about the sewing; I was making all sorts of vintage reproductions–aprons, bathing suits, high-waisted Hollywood pants and bias-cut dresses. I knew a few local women, peripherally, who were doing the same thing, but mostly I just isolated myself in my sewing room. Funny thing is, all these years later, these women are still around, still making and creating, and doing a real kick ass job at it. Honestly, I’m pretty blown away by a scene that I’d almost forgotten existed.
Susan Beal just put out another book, all about quilting. She’s got some great tutorials in there and ideas on how to use quilting for easier tasks than making an entire quilt. She also blogs over at West Coast Crafty, definitely one to put into your favorite RSS reader. Torie Nguyen is running Crafty Wonderland, a massive craft extravaganza that I’ve visited, ogled and never realized that she was in charge of.
From following their links and their blogs to other and around and around the Internet I go… suddenly I realize I am not ‘that girl who sews’ anymore. There are tons of us. Yeah, I know, this is a slow awakening, but for the past few years, I’ve been more entrenched in traveling with my kids here and in Southeast Asia than I have been trying to figure out how the craft scene is developing. I totally missed out on that one.
But I am back! The fabric stash has been retrieved from the storage unit and I’m stoked about digging through it even more to find out what’s been tucked away for all this time.
Today I’ll be stitching buttons on more super-fun colored wallets (orange! pink!) and getting those up online. And probably adding to my bandage collection on my fingers. All the handstitching yesterday left me with three wound covers. Eep.
