Pattern Hoarding and Hanging With My Stalker

 



Last Thursday I had the delightful experience of hanging out with my stalker for a morning. You'd think having a stalker would be a downside of using the internet, but not this stalker, she's just lovely.

 

She first contacted me in person when she was on holiday and was thinking about me. Weird you might think. but no, not really. She was in a shop that sold Japanese Pattern Books and spied one that she owned and that I'd left a comment on her blog saying how great the coat was that she made. So she bought me a book.

 

And then I forget what order the rest happened in... It went roughly like this: I sent some money for the book and some spare fabric, she sent some other fabric back in return, then she flew in from overseas to be with me (he he) and bought me a coffee and a chocolate croissant. We got along famously but not being the instagramm-ey types there are no photos. If you need a visual, try this one. (it's only wrong by one letter!)

 



Except for the fact that she doesn't care for bicycling and kept tossing her hair around and drawing far too much attention on the street it could have been a perfect match! Seriously though, it was a great blind date and we visited a few fabric and button shops and talked about sewing as well as world affairs. What a morning! Thanks J.

Putting the pattern book she bought me on the shelf I realised how many new, untouched patterns I have, so I took some pictures. I'd love to try ticking off a few of them this year.

pattern book from J-Wo on left

Still on the Japanese theme I bought another Cross Stitch magazine from my local Japanese Second Hand bookstore. As well as cross stitch designs (which I've never tried) there are some basic bag and top patterns in there and so many pretty pictures. My Secret Valentine gift which I'll share later this week was inspired by one of these magazines.

There's a decent pile of Oliver + S patterns which I'm yet to open or use in any way...

And some grown up size Lisette patterns which I might put to use for me....

And some patterns which, if I can make anything that's "any good", might be useful for Flipper. these are the newly released paper patterns versions of the PDF patterns from Thread Theory. They are beautifully presented and I'm looking forward to sewing with them. Just reading the instructions is a joy!

I couldn't help myself when The Fabric Stash had a sale recently and added a Figgy's pattern to my order (there's currently 20% off so go check it out - use coupon code fabric-stash 20). The awesome Janice from The Fabric Stash is our sponsor for the Little Things To Sew Cover to Cover Challenge and her shop is so well run. I'm always hesitant to fill a shopping cart with lovely stuff, go through pages of personal information then discover the shipping prices are astronomical. Not so with this site. The prices are great and the shipping calculation is done at the start. As a mail order shopper I LOVE that.

I finally managed to make a rafflecopter widget work for me (am I the only one who struggles with those not loading or losing my entry?) and I got lucky! I won the Clever Charlotte pattern through Frances Suzanne and their Flip this Pattern series.

Finally I armed myself with a new pack of paper and a glue stick and printed off my digital patterns:

There is no cost effective way of printing these things in this country (that I've found at least) so it was A4 paper and lots of trimming and glueing. The patterns all came together well, and if you're worried about how you'd amuse your kids while you do this. Here's the answer: let them join in using up the offcuts



it's the Emerald City in case you were wondering

Just make sure you have a spare glue stick otherwise you'll end up sticking that last PDF pattern together like this:

So, that lot should keep me busy. At least until the next distraction or coffee blogging date comes around! What are you working on?