Blogger Party

I agree with you on not letting big corporations decide what your stuff looks like. I was lying in bed the other night looking around the room thinking to myself how everything around me has been made by someone else. The house, bed, bed-clothes, carpet, wall-paper, paint, cupboards, etc. It may sound silly but I would love to be able to make all that myself. Even build my own house! Imagine lying in your own bed looking around and thinking to yourself 'I made all this'. Wow. Unfortunately, the existence of money is the dasher of my dream!

seriously, i think about that ALL THE TIME!
i lay in bed sometimes, and i look at one of my walls and think, "why does my wall have to be all white? what's my wall made out of? i bet i could invent a better way to make a wall."
My dream, seriously, for a long time, has been to build an entire house. I think that it is actually a lot easier than people think. I have like zillions of ideas for how i would make it, and i've drawn out plans for room design..
the other thing is that when you make things yourself, you are living actively and forming YOUR environment instead of your environment forming you. It makes you feel self-sufficient and you know the reason why the things are the way they are. Everyone's life and needs are different, and making things the way you want let's you streamline things. the worst feeling for me is feeling like things dont have a point, and just thinking that so many things in the world are wasteful and pointless.
i took a trip to denmark, and seeing a lot of the things in shops, the buildings, and stuff in people's homes, i remember thinking "damn, that is such a good idea!", from faucets to bringing yor own backpack to the grocery store, to riding bikes.. Denmark revealed to me the possibility of rethinking things, so that kind of inspired me to do this blog too.
if you have any requests for a tutorial that you'd be interested in, tell me and i'll see if i can put it up, cause im not really sure what to put up first.

..for your nice thoughts. Personally, I'm trying to start somewhere I can manage, being that I have a 7 week old baby to take care of and free time is in short supply right now! I have bought a sewing machine and plan to make my own patterns and clothes. If you have any patterns I could look at for an idea of how they work, that would be great! I've never made anything from a pattern before, you see.

And I used to draw house plans too. Plans for my dream home made by me! Am a loon! LOL

well, actually, a lot of what I do is make clothes, and I have found that patterns are, for the most part, a big waste of time. The important thing to remember about patterns is that you do NOT need to follow all the directions. I have no idea why they make it so tedious and unnecessarily detailed, but it doesn't have to be that way. Most clothes that I make, I don't use a pattern at all.
Ive always wanted to make clothes for my baby (one day) and make them look like a who-ville character! hehe!
The best way to do it, and come out with something original, is to design what you want on a piece of paper. draw it like it is on the person. Then just cut out pieces that are way bigger than what you need, pin them together and drape them on your self, and then re-pin to make it fit you right. when it looks right, sew where the pins are!

Otherwise, if you want to use a pattern, just throw out the directions, cut out the pieces, and any two-year old could figure out how they go together.

But, my personal opinion is that when you don't use a pattern, you have a lot more room for creativity, originality, and you get results a lot quicker.

Also, I don't know where you live, but if it's in a city, find out if there is a store called "scrap" in your area. These are places all over the country where they have tons of great fabric for insanely cheap prices. It's all donated by large clothing manufacturers, so it's scraps, but it's huge scraps. So far I know they have one in san francisco and portland.

if you want to know anything else, just ask!

I will be coming out with part 1 of shoemaking pretty soon.

.. for the advice. Yeah patterns always looked way too complicated to me. I thought about taking a pair of my favorite jeans and just drawing round them, giving a little for sewing the edges! When I get a bit more time, I'll try it. Am sewing a patchwork quilt for my daughter just now, whenever she's asleep! Too fiddly for the machine though so I'm hand sewing it. It's taking ages but I want it finished before she hits 16 at least!! LOL