Old Fashioned Way:
1. Go to (insert your fave fabric store name here).
2. Sit and pour over books filled with pattern options.
3. Select pattern (finally). Let's pretend it's #2417 McCalls.
4. Go to drawer with the correct label number for pattern: 2400-2500.
Open drawer to find patterns were NOT actually organized according to the number labels on drawer front.
5. Flip through another drawer until you find the card marker for 2417.
6. DANG IT!!!! Nothing. Pattern is sold out.
7. Return to table. Repeat steps 2-5.
8. Alas!! They have it!
9. Scour the store selecting the perfect fabric & notions for your selected pattern.
10. Come home. Open up pattern pieces in your living room floor because that is the only place large enough to spread them out.
11. Crawling babies really like crawl on little thin tissue paper. This must look like a tummy time mat to them. Baby tears pattern.
12. Tape pattern back together. Decide it's best to cut out pieces once children are in bed. Give your best attempt to fold pattern back up into that perfect little shape to fit into pattern envelope. This is pretty much the equivalent of trying to solve a Rubix cube IMO.
13. Check to make sure that children are safely snuggled in bed. Attempt Step 10 again.
14. Think to yourself " Am I making Dress A or Dress B?" Whats the difference? Hmm, if I spoke 'pattern' I might be know, but since I don't, I will just cut out all pieces for both. This requires pieces 1-5.
15. Locate pieces 1-5 (out of 27) on tissue paper. 1-4 are all together. Phew! But where is 5? Where is 5? ........ Oh there it is! It's by 22!!!!! And I have to cut around 18-21 to get to it!
16. Refer back to pattern instructions to determine importance of piece #5 ( is it a sleeve or just interfacing? ). Decide to forego piece #5 as it's interfacing, and who really knows what that means anyway.
17. Admire your nicely cut, super straight lines-- because tissue paper is SOOOO easy to cut.
I could go ON and ON and ON, but you know how this story unfolds.
Frustrating.
Lots of *&^*&&)(*&^&*%$%^%$#!!!!!
This is where I usually give up!!!!
AHHHHHHH!!!
But there's a light at the end of the tunnel----- (sung in true Andrew Lloyd Weber style)
And that light's name is:
Check her out!!!!!
Little Lizard King has made me fall in love with sewing!! She has amazing patterns that she creates herself-- draws all the pieces, takes real photographs of each step, and then magically turns them into a PDF file that she can email directly to you. No need for draggin crying babies to the store while you sit and look at books. No need to figure out which pieces you need. No messing with awful tissue paper. And she does it all in words that you understand!!
If you know how to to turn on a sewing machine, you can use her patterns. The hardest part is picking out which fabric to use.
I cannot wait to make some more cuteness with her stuff!!
Thanks, Little Lizard King, for rockin my sewing world.
Love,
Becca-- Your Darling Deuce