05 November 2013

Starting again with sewing kits

In order to give myself a deadline, I signed up for a local xmas craft fair next month (more details later) - it's an experiment .... No idea whether it will be financially worth while, but it gives me an impetus to be doing something productive in the studio, rather than sifting through piles of fabric and unfinished projects, unable to decide to throw them out and get rid of a little of the burden of "use me, finish me" that can get in the way of new (and meaningful) work.

I had forgotten how long it takes to make the selection decisions for each sewing kit. It's taken an hour to come up with just one ensemble, and I'm still not sure about which ribbon to use -
Fabrics for the inside are at top, for the outside at bottom
The process is easy to describe -- I rootle through my big box of suitable fabrics and choose 13 or so for each sewing kit, configuring the outside according to the size of the scraps. In any session I gather fabrics for several items, then start the next day by sewing them up, which fortunately takes less time than the fabric selection, in fact is quite routine.

What would make the fabric-choosing quicker, of course, is some sort of production-line mode - make each outside to the same pattern and cut standard-size pieces of a limited range of fabrics - but where's the fun in that?

The aim is to make another two dozen in the next four weeks; six a week seems little enough. Some (a dozen?) are already on hand; as backup I have various "travel bags" [could make more of those] and some tee-shirts printed with my travelwriting lines.

I'd also like to make some little (A7 size) books to sell at a very reasonable price, either a set with half a dozen recipes using a "theme" ingredient in each, or a book with some embroidery stitches shown on its half-dozen pages. They'll be a variation of the "secret book", printable on one sheet of A4 paper each, and will have jolly, bright covers, possibly made from xmas wrapping paper.

For the possible stitch book, aimed at beginners, I thought the stitches included - one per page - would be chain stitch, cross stitch, french knots, stem stitch/back stitch, blanket stitch, and running stitch on the same page with "how to thread a needle".

Having set out the programme, I'm wondering if this is such a good idea - but it's an experiment, it's an experiment...!


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