all buttoned up.

Toes In, A Craftsy Review

I stitched a series of straight lines the other day (curtains) and it took me way too long, and I ended up mis-measuring twice. This girl is rusty. Forget sewing clothes, for me or for anyone else. I need to wade back in.

Shelly filmed a class for Craftsy a month or two ago and now it's live! She asked me to take a look at Kids Romper Revamp and review it (Craftsy comped the class) and I was a little dubious about the whole thing. Not because I don't love Shelly (I DO, and you know I love her patterns), but you know, I can follow a pattern... I don't have time for a class, yada yada. Well, I'm also kind of a dumbass. It turns out that a Craftsy class is exactly what I need. Once I signed up, I have unlimited access to the filmed segments which I can watch on my own time and only the ones that are helpful to me. Even though I already own the Zephyr pattern, the class comes with the e-pattern for both the jumper and a sundress variation.

For a limited time, Craftsy is offering the class through this link at half price-- so you get the class, downloadable patterns and all the help and advice you might need for a really affordable price.  It's such a great concept for those of us who would love to have someone gently looking over our shoulder while we sew. Not in a creepy way. Shelly is an experienced teacher and a gifted communicator. It took me all of a minute to sign up for the site and once I went through Shelly's page, I started cruising the rest of the site looking other classes I could sign up for. Hello, Super Cute Librarian Blouse. I've heard lots of skuttlebutt (yes, WORD.) around the internets about other great folks filming for Craftsy, so what might now seem like a limited number of classes, is about to get a whole lot busier.  

So. My sewing machines almost have a home of their own and I've been going through my neglected piles looking for the right fabric to get going. There are tiny (and not so) jumpers to be made. Have you signed up for a Craftsy class? What did you think? I'm most grateful for the unlimited time I get to use the class. As rusty as I am with my machine, operating on deadlines to get things finished is a little more than I can handle at the moment.

Under Advisement

I have been taking your photo storage/printing tips to heart and am going to try several different processing methods. I recently made a Blurb book of Instagram photos for grandparents (as per Molly's suggestion) and I loved how low fuss and quick the whole process was. These are not technically superior photographs, but they are often the most candid and downright hilarious photos that I take. The nice thing about doing it through the IG to Blurb format is that you don't need to download the Blurb book software to get it all done. I'm going to make a longer, hard cover version for our family.

(soft cover blurb book)

One thing that is also helping me feel less overwhelmed in the photo department is the liberal use of the delete button. I don't need doubles, triples or a dozen of essentially the same photo. Realizing that *no* photo is the same, I'm still trying to be a bit brutal with my editing process. I'm trying to take to heart what Beth said in her comment about too much documentation/scrapbooking being burdensome to her offspring one day. I've also been using flickr more and more (yahoo has totally dropped the ball on flickr, but I still love it for connecting with people and as a backup tool), making more of my photos private and using it for a personal 365 project. If I'm going to pay for it, I want to really get the most out of it.

So yes. Summer. It has been a lengthy transition into tolerable (weather and behavior). We had a visit from the bugs, the grandparents, and we are expecting some more great company in the next few weeks. We are far from having an *easy* summer, but that's what I'm working towards.

I can't help but wonder if it would automatically get easier if I decided to drink a lot more.