May has come... pretty, bright, and cool! We have already had some coldness; and it's May! Some parts of the area further North from us; have even had snow! Ahem, May.... anyone seeing the theme I'm going for?
So last month one of my DD's and I went to the Salt Lake City Library book sale. It really is a cool event. Of course as you probably can tell; they sell some of their used books; and also books that have been donated for the sale. I did pretty good, didn't go crazy buying tons of books; this time! I did manage to get my hands on a copy of Sandra Betzina's book "Power Sewing, Step by Step". All for the low, low price of $1.00, or 100 pennies, 10 dimes, 20 nickles; you get the drift! Oh, I did forget 2-fifty cent pieces, or 4-quarters! All hard back books are $1 and the paper backs are 50 cents. I've started reading it and I must say; she sure has lots to share. Great information is just that; great! So, I'm reading along and one of the last things she says in the pretesting a pattern section is; "A pattern that doesn't progress past a pretest doesn't count as a failure." (quote taken from Sandra Betzina's book Power Sewing; step by step. Giving credit where credit is due!!!) Can I tell you that this made me feel great! Sooo; all of you seamstress's out there, basically she is giving you permission to toss that pretest UFO. If you are using old stash fabric to pretest a new (or new to you) pattern and your not crazy about part of it, length, shape, fit, style on you.... toss it! She also says; (and I'm paraphrasing here) that when you pretest a pattern; to not worry about being a perfectionist. Unless your planning on wearing the pretest; (and of course you can if your happy with the outcome) don't bother putting in both sleeve's, or cutting out facings, collars, pockets and you know trims etc. Your the expert here. You know what does and doesn't look good on you. It makes no sense at all to continue if what you finish is not what you wanted or like. Also; if you try on said test item and you find it's not at all to your liking, you can of course continue adjustments to see if there is something that can be done to make it to your liking. If of course that doesn't work; you can move on... sewing time to me; should be enjoyable time.
Back to the work at hand! I've moved back into my sewing room.... carpet was installed on Tuesday, by that night I had most of the furniture (i.e.; odds and ends of such) moved back into the room... it's the fabric and various other items I need to get moving on! I still haven't put my machine back into the table. I will take a finish picture later! I have been sorting out a few things so that I'm not keeping superfluous items! This way, there is less to mess up and less to clean~
Have a great week.... My sewing room looks like a whole new world! Thanks to my DD (you know who you are! ;) ) and my DH for telling me to go get carpet!!! Back to the finishing points!
