Retail Therapy

I have a confession to make: I have a weak spot for pretty things. I'm a marketer's dream. Slap together a pretty website, cute packaging or amazing color combinations and I'm sold.

That, armed with the fact that I have my credit card number, expiration date and CVV2 number memorized, makes a little time and a computer with an internet connection, very, very dangerous.

A while back, I came across the prettiest iridescent polka dot fabric - and it kept getting better when I realized it came in every color of the rainbow. I immediately fell in love with Michael Miller's Mirror Ball Dot fabric. When, a few weeks later, I found out that they packaged and sold a box of the fat quarters in EVERY SINGLE COLOR, I knew I had to have it. So, I added it to my wish list and promised myself I'd get it.

Fast forward to about a year later. The Mirror Ball Dot fat quarter boxes were becoming scarce. In fact, so scarce that the places where I'd originally seen the box were now out. Sure, I could have asked about ordering it - found out if they were getting more in but, when I found a store with it still in stock, I figured it was destiny. It was the universe's way of telling me I had to have that fabric. I didn't hesitate and I typed in those 16 digits as fast as I could.

Although that might have, under ordinary circumstances, satiated my internet-shopping whims for the week, during an evening of blog-surfing, I had to click one little link that started a snowball of 'add to cart' action.

It's just paper, right? That's what I thought too when I clicked the link. It might be just paper but it's very, very pretty paper.

Needless to say, I'm excited about my new purchases and I can't wait to put them to good use. Black Friday, Cyber Monday - call it what you want but I call it retail inspiration.

Being Realistic Instead of Perfectionistic

Whenever someone has asked about my website recently, I've given them the address followed by a disclaimer. "It's in dire need of updating - I'm going to try to get to it this weekend," I'd say.

The problem? I've been issuing that disclaimer for about 6 months. Next weekend has turned into the next weekend, which has turned into the next weekend... you get the picture.

While the sitebuilder product I used to build my store is extraordinarily easy to use, it's much better for someone who has lots of stuff or lots of time - someone who can load the products and let it go or, alternatively, someone who has the time to manage it more than once every 6 months. Given the way I work (probably a result of slight ADD and a propensity toward boredom if required to make the same thing too many times), I found myself struggling to keep my store updated - to circulate inventory in and out of the shop, set up new products, and just maintain it in a way that kept up with my 'everything must be perfect or the world will stop' nature.

So, instead, this weekend I caught up with my good friend Etsy. Sure, it's not as fancy-schmantzy as a storefront but, given that lately I barely have time to fit in showers and meals, Etsy is perfect. Shoot a few pictures, write a quick description, name your price and, BAM: 20 cents later, your item is posted in a pretty little listing. For sellers like me - with only a few items and continually revolving inventory, it's a great option.

At the request of friends, family and the kind people who stopped by my booth at the Strut, I've posted a ton of my leftover inventory and re-directed my site to my Etsy Store.

Now maybe I'll be able to find some time to sew!

Falling Behind

I've always been one to bit of more than I can chew, burn the candle at both ends, put too much on my plate - whatever idiom you choose to use for someone who tries to do too much, chances are it applies to me.

It's 9:00 pm and as I sit here frustrated; although I realize that I probably couldn't ever accomplish everything on my overly-ambitious to-do lists, even if weekends were 4 days long, I'm angry with myself for not being able to accomplish more.

Of the things on my list: packing up a custom order dress for my friend Daniella and putting together some fabric samples for a very sweet, very patient woman who has asked me to help design a crib skirt for her baby. Yet, here I sit, at 9 pm, exhausted after putting in a long day at the office, cooking dinner, checking email and trying to squeeze in a little exercise.

I have great visions of what I want to do for our first child - of the scrapbook pages I'll make, the clothing I'll sew, the super cool projects that will decorate the baby's room. But, I wonder if I'll ever get around to all of it.

I'd like to blame it on the baby - to think that my lack of energy is the result of this thing growing inside of me - but quite honestly, I can't think of a single period in my life in which I haven't felt like I was behind the proverbial 8-ball. Perhaps I thrive on this type of self-applied pressure - maybe it's my own form of motivation. But, damn, can it get exhausting.

I'm always amazed by those women - you know the ones I'm talking about. The ones who manage to put their photos in albums, complete scrapbook pages before the event being memorialized is over a year old, manage to cook, bake and garden, hit the gym every day and find time to write about it. Anyone know their secret?

A Lock!

It's been forever since a Favorite Things Friday but I'm here to redeem myself - a day late and a dollar short, as my grandmother always said.

I've wanted a serger for a while but I also know that if/when I get one, I want to get something that's going to do what I need for it to do - not one that I'm going to grow out of in a year. The good news is that after pouring over a ton of websites, talking with friends and reading a great article in a back issue of Threads magazine, I know what I want: a five thread serger (preferably the Janome, Pfaff, or Bernina). The bad news: as you can probably guess based on those names, the price of a five thread serger - even a used one - is pretty hefty.

So, I'm saving for that perfect serger but, in the interim, I decided to get the next best thing and bought an overlock foot for my sewing machine. I finally decided to take on the scary looking foot and give it a shot last month while preparing for the East Atlanta Strut.

The verdict? It's definitely no serger but at about a quarter of the price, it's a great little tool.

There are a few tricks to learn - positioning the fabric correctly, ensuring there's enough fabric under the cutter, and sewing at a slower speed (which is probably the most difficult part for a speed demon like me!) - but after getting the hang of it, I wondered how I ever lived without this foot.

An overlock foot isn't for everyone - you need to have a sewing machine that is capable of doing an overlock stitch (although the foot instructions list a zig-zag stitch as another option, I can't see it working as well), you need a machine with interchangeable feet and, of course, you have to be sure that your manufacturer makes an overlock foot that fits your machine. But, assuming it's an option and you, like me, aren't quite ready to shell out the cash on a serger, an overlock foot is a great investment.

What are you waiting for?

The Things You Do For Love

I did manage to use my sewing machine this weekend and, even better, I finished up a present for friends who will be in town for the next few weeks. I blame the belated nature of the gift (their son was born in February) on the fabric - each time I see it, I feel my eyes beginning to melt and my hands start to burn. But, since my friend was some big-time basketball player at Auburn, I had to make sure his son had an appropriate present.

Instead of the regular 'taggies' that I've made for several friends at their request (as much as it has killed me to do so since - although I know kids love them - I find the whole concept of them (and the whole 'patented' idea) silly), I went with sports-themed ribbon and, as always, made sure it was backed with something super soft.

The Auburn applique was an afterthought (so much so that I had to run to the store to buy 12-month onesies because I was quite certain that the 3-month sized stash I have wouldn't work for a 5-month old son of a basketball player. After a few false starts, I stuck a little tear-away interfacing behind the applique and Bam! Talk about night and day - where has that stuff been all of my life? I definitely recommend using interfacing when doing applique if you, like me, have a less-than-perfect, slightly finicky machine.

Although I was excited to finish the present and to give it to friends, more than that, I'm just happy that damn Auburn fabric is out of my house.

A Welcome Note

Little Baby W,

Just in case they forget to tell you, before you were born, your parents called you ‘Cletus the Fetus’. I know it doesn’t have the ring of ‘Cletus the Fetus’ but I always thought of you as Baby W - I like that the W can stand for so many great words: wonderful, wishful, whimsical.

Months ago, when you were an itty bitty thing, your mom asked if I would make your bedding. She knew you’d be special and wanted to be sure that everything that surrounds you – especially the first thing you see when you wake and the last thing you see before you drift off into dreamland – is just right. As we scoured through fabric she knew what she wanted the minute she saw it: Elvis.

It might take a while to learn that not everyone is lucky enough to grow up with an Elvis crib bumper but once you do, you’ll know what a great set of parents you’ve got. They’ve spent so much time planning for you and are so eager to let you be who you are – not some cookie-cutter kid who goes with the flow. And that, Baby W, is way cool.

Old people like me like me sometimes have odd beliefs. Mine is that all of the thoughts you have while making handmade things are transferred to those items.

While making your bedding, I heard a song by David Ryan Harris – a song offering his son wisdom that sometimes brings tears to my eyes (if you’re a girl one day you’ll understand this; if you’re a boy, you’ll learn that crying is one of those things us girls sometimes do). When I heard that song, I said a little prayer that it, in addition to lots of love and tons of ambition, was in some strange, crazy-old-woman-who-believes-in-weird-things way transferred to your bedding.

Welcome to the world Baby W. You’re very, very loved.

-Robin

Hot Child in the City

Each year when the weather turns warm I start to think about things like running through the sprinklers, the sweet sticky taste of mango and long evenings of sitting on the porch watching people play ring toss.

I grew up in Florida where the weather didn't differ much from spring to summer but there was one distinct difference: instead of being locked in a classroom we were allowed to roam free in every backyard within walking distance and splash for what felt like forever in our neighbors' pools.

When I was very young, before central air-conditioning was the norm and when my parents didn't have the money for huge electric bills, after our baths at night, my mother would dress us in nothing but our underwear (Wonder Woman in my case, Spiderman in my brother's). Later, at night after we slipped on our jammies, we'd huddle up in our parents’ bedroom - the one room in which they'd run the wall-unit air-conditioning – and all snuggle in bed together. In the morning, using sheets, comforters and pillows, we’d pitch a tent in their bedroom and watch cartoons while we ate our breakfast, waiting for our friends to beckon us from our house for a day under the Florida sun.

Those days didn't last long - eventually I got older and realized that 'big girls' don't walk around in just their underwear and my parents eventually installed central air-conditioning at which point my brother and I were relocated to our own bedrooms for the night. But, the memories are some of the fondest of my childhood.

Maybe it’s just a desperate attempt to back some of those memories but I've been really into experimenting with girls' dress patterns lately - the really open, airy kind; the kind you could just slip on over a diaper or that pair of underoos. The kind of dresses that would be just as comfortable as if wearing nothing at all. The kind that would be perfect for those, to steal the immortal words of Richard Marx, endless summer nights.