Saturday, December 6, 2014

How to organize your sewing projects?

I'm actually looking for help here.

I have too much fabric and too many patterns, which is nothing new. Every sewist out there has this exact same problem.

I recently spent an hour going through all my sewing patterns and reclassifying them according to designer. I grouped all the Vogues together, all the indie designers, etc. It was interesting to see which company I tend to buy the most from.

Hands down, Vogue won that contest. I have two full boxes of Vogue patterns. Burda and Simplicity seem to be in a close tie for second place, and then trailing miserably are McCall's and Butterick. In fact, after going through them I weeded out a lot of McCall's and Butterick patterns I know I'll never make. I have a lot of indie patterns and a boatload of vintage patterns (they didn't get the same classification exercise as I tend to group them all together).

Anyway, what I'd really like is some sort of software or app that helps me group patterns I'd like to sew soon with fabric I already own. Does anyone know of something like that? I don't sew my wardrobe but I do want to be more deliberate with what I choose to make.

I would love to share the coat project that I finished last weekend, but I'm stumped with having no buttons that I love. I hope to make it into my favorite little fabric boutique later today, she carries a lot of buttons I don't see at the big box stores. In the meantime the coat is hanging happily on Vivienne. Fingers crossed that I can finish the buttons and start wearing it in time for church tomorrow.

4 comments:

  1. I use the free version of Evernote to catalog my patterns, you can add tags and multiple "libraries" that help a lot when I'm searching for something specific.

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    1. Thanks, Molly, I'll check that out, I've not heard of Evernote??

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  2. I use a databasing-app on my phone called MyStuff to track my patterns and (to a lesser extent) my fabrics; it's not free but it was pretty easy to customize for patterns and it's searchable by all kinds of categories. The physical patterns are sorted into drawers and tubs by company and then by number. Before that I used a sewing-specific app called Sewing Kit, which was nice in that it had patterns, peoples' measurements, and projects all pre-loaded, but again not free and it kinda crapped out after 200 patterns. I still use it for peoples' measurements, though.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Tanit! I'll check it out. I downloaded Evernote to my iPhone and it seems promising so far. Then I had to have a little outpatient surgery last week so I haven't been down to sew since then. Hopefully I'll feel up to it again this week.

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