Vacation Inspiration/Snoop Shopping

I'm often asked "Where do you get your ideas for the sweatshirt jackets?" My answer is "From Everywhere". This old brain sure can't remember every idea I see, so I carry a small spiral notebook in my purse for taking notes - sketching, etc. Above you can see a few of the pages from our recent trip out west.

Obviously, many ideas are from garments themselves I see in Ready-To-Wear (RTW), but others are sketches of just LINE - DESIGN. For example, the pattern of the back of a chair at a restaurant, the design of a piece of metal yard sculpture.... EVERYTHING gets sketched or noted in my notebook.

THEN, when I get home, I tear the pages out - copy many of them so I have duplicates, and put them with different bundles of fabrics, etc. that I think they 'go' with. These pages also get put into my DESIGN NOTEBOOK so they are never lost.

SEW...like this next week when it's time to design and sew some new jackets and perhaps develop some new patterns - my creative process is just interpreting, combining, and implementing these ideas. The only hard part is FILTERING the ideas - forcing myself to decide on the best interpretation, the best technique, etc. on a jacket - NOT PUTTING EVERYTHING ON ONE JACKET! But, since my "Frumpy to WOW" class teaches that - I am finding it easier to 'practice what I preach'.

Stay tuned for the rest of August and much of September for postings and photos of my upcoming design and sewing fun!

My Love Affair with Fabrics

This is my current 'job'.... measuring, swatching, naming, describing, scanning and uploading this wonderful group of Fine Italian Fabrics that just HAD TO COME HOME WITH ME from Albuquerque. The vendor across the way was selling these (and many more 'to die for') fabrics,and when it came apparent that I could buy them wholesale to offer to my customers, I............weakened, ONCE AGAIN!

I'd pretty much weaned myself off of offering fabrics on my website - mainly because I just couldn't find many of a quality that I demand - but these Italian fabrics just wooed me mercilessly.

I'm on my 3rd day of this task - and hope to wind it up this morning.....so off to work I go! I've even dreamt up a really exciting debut marketing plan with them and the Sewing Workshop patterns that I think my customers will love.

Went to My First Political Meeting.......

On Monday, I went to my first political meeting - happened to be the Senior Republican local group. I really call myself an Independent thee days - truly disgusted with most politicians - regardless of whether they're 'red' or 'blue'. As far as I'm concerned, they all have let the power and trust we placed in them go to their heads!!!! TERM LIMITS - that's what we need - that's what was planned in the first place. These people are just all too full of themselves.

WHY oh WHY wouldn't they want to PROVE they had decided the best in health care reform for us by RUNNING to sign up for the same - not REFUSING the same plan??????????????????????

And this not reading bills before voting? Gee golly whiz - I could say the same thing about my house contract?? That I just didn't have time to read it before I signed it - therefore I shouldn't be held responsible for what I signed??? It's the same ridiculous thinking! A friend of mine suggested the other night that we pass a law that every legislator must pass a POP QUIZ on any legislation before he is granted the RIGHT to vote on it!

Representing me? I really don't think so - they are representing themselves - and usually not even honest enough to realize that they are so buffaloed by what someone has said they'd give them ($ for their re-election campaign or a better loan on their mansion of a house) that they don't even KNOW what they believe - they just OWE people.

I was reading in Romans 3 today in the Message and these words jumped out at me...
"Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting HIM set the pace,not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade."

A gentleman was at the meeting letting us know he is strongly considering a run for state Congressman against a woman who is so 'in bed' with Chicago politicians that it makes us cry - and his presentation was quite inspiring. After the meeting, I had one important question for him - "On what basis do you make your moral decisions? What is your 'rudder'?" When he answered 'Jesus because I am a Christian' - I gave him my business card and said I'd be happy to work in his campaign any way that I could.

To me... That says it all. I'm just praying - fervently for our country these days - specifically that these 'leaders' so entirely, disgustedly full of themselves and only themselves GO AWAY - either by the Lord taking them out in some miraculous manner, or us voting them out. I can only figure that God - who is in control - knows where we are in this country, and has let us fall this far in the hopes that we FINALLY seek HIM again as a nation.