For Christmas 2012 I received my sewing machine and spent the next year trying out quilting and accessory sewing. For Christmas 2013 I received a serger after a few months of being to try garment sewing. I’d say I’ve been seriously interested in constructing my own handmade wardrobe for about a year now. But I’ve resisted starting a sewing blog for several reasons.

1. Does the world need another sewing blog? Is there really anything new I can put out into the sewing blogosphere?
2. I’m really busy. I’ve been much more interested in spending the time I have sewing garments instead of talking about sewing garments.
3. If I have a blog, I want a blog that looks really good. Without having much expertise or money to spend I’m not sure I’m capable of creating the look I really want.
4. Is my sewing good enough that I’m confident showing it off to the world? I don’t expect crowds to flock to this space anytime soon but I still want the work I’m showing off to look good and (hopefully) accurately reflect my abilities.

Now that I’ve listed the reasons not to start a blog, here’s why I’ve decided to start one now.

1.  Who cares if I don’t have brilliant new insights or techniques to share with the world. I’m thinking about this space as a way to document for myself the work I’ve made, the lessons I’ve learned, the progress I’ve made and will hopefully continue to make, and yes, the mistakes.
2. I’m sharing this because I know how much I like reading about other people’s sewing adventures. It’s possible that no one will ever want to read about my sewing adventures, but it seems unlikely.
3. Now that I’ve been sewing fairly regularly for two years I’ve gotten decent enough that I work faster than I probably should be. I think I’m probably an early intermediate seamstress at this point but I think I’m capable of much more if I can slow myself down. Because my sewing time is fairly limited it’s hard to spend three or four chunks of sewing time on one project because that can end up spanning several weeks. I like finishing garments. I do really like the process too and I would like to learn to slow down, perhaps make fewer things but make things that look professional and that I really feel comfortable replacing my store-bought clothing with. My hope is that if I’m trying to more closely document my process I will learn to recognize the places where I need to slow down and really focus on the details and “the right way” to do things.
4. No one’s blog and no one’s sewing was perfect to begin with. There are plenty of blogs that started out as basic pages written by someone who wasn’t a great seamstress and just wanted to keep track of projects that have since turned into professional sites filled with patterns, tutorials and expertly crafted projects. I’m not sure that I’m interested in writing patterns or making this my job but who knows what will come.

So here’s my goal. At least a post a week that includes photos or info about the projects I’ve been working on, the things I’ve finished or the sewing plans I have. If I succeed at doing that for a while maybe it’ll become more.

-Hannah