Sunday, January 22, 2012

Saturday Night Notes

I hope everyone is having a nice weekend!

We finally got some rain in San Francisco - it's been a dry winter, so far. And, of course, rainy days encourage one to stay inside and get creative.

I've been working on another Au Bonheur pattern and have the "muslin" (black ponte) version almost finished. This pattern has one squillion pieces - something is not quite right and I haven't yet figured it out. So stay tuned.

I've also been doing some dusting and cleaning on the blog: I've deleted 11 blog posts. Don't worry, I am not deleting anything that people would care about - I doubt anyone would even notice had I not mentioned it. This effort has allowed me to delete some of my Picasa photos, freeing up quite a bit of space. (In the early days of my blog I was storing pictures at very high resolution unnecessarily.) I've also reorganized some of my Picasa albums.

All this cleaning feels good. :)

From time to time I think about some of my favorite blogs that don't seem to have a lot of visibility. I think about highlighting them, then I worry about all the other blogs I might overlook. This is one of the reasons I don't participate in blog awards - it's too stressful. Nevertheless, last Tuesday I started thinking of which blogs I would like to highlight, planning a post on the subject and making a mental list.

At the top of that list was a great blog, Rhonda's Creative Life. So, I am musing along these lines on Tuesday, and then, on Wednesday, Rhonda published a post highlighting my blog! I decided to wait a bit before posting about hers.

Let me tell you why I like Rhonda's blog:

  • Every Friday (or thereabouts) she posts a free pattern or tutorial. These usually involve a piece of clothing created using simple shapes. She has posted some very interesting and cool designs. In fact, one of her designs was highlighted in the January 2011 issue of Threads, called the "Spin Around Top." (I couldn't find an online link to the article.)
  • She highlights blogs and other resources on Wednesdays.
  • Beginning this March, she is highlighting a sleeve pattern every Saturday. Based on her preview, it seems that she will be using sleeves from vintage patterns. It looks to be quite interesting.
  • In January, she posted an invitation to folks interested in following the Artist's Way, which includes daily morning pages and weekly artist dates. I was interested, but haven't made the time.

I recommend adding Rhonda's Creative Life to your blog list!

I'm tickled, because in May, I will have a chance to meet Rhonda. She invited me to come see the Haute Couture Fashion Show in Chicago and I'm planning to attend. I'm really excited to visit Chicago and to meet some fabulous sewists!

I was sewing recently with the television tuned to PBS, and I saw an episode of the Red Green Show. I thought this "Handyman Tip" on making cutoff shorts was cute. Enjoy!