I think I shall move my crafty adventures to this blog instead of mixing in with my VOX political / news rants. That was a silly place to post it when I have my art blog. Me trying to draw and me trying to be crafty goes together. My wtf is wrong with Republicans rants and purses, those don’t go together… well… sometimes they do, but not usually.

The fabric store that mom shops at in Portland is who I ordered from online. They just called to tell me they’re out of the cute skull fabric I was gonna use for a wallet. HA! Poor Brian we were already going to Joann’s this weekend to buy zippers / snaps since the online selection sucks (think they must only like sending or tracking the bigger / spendier items for online sales) and an iron (hey I don’t need an iron for jeans and t-shirts). Well now I gotta find a replacement material locally for the wallet. Oopsie.

Also the patterns arrived. I noticed a few things.
1. The more I look at them the more I realize that one pattern is the purse I use now. Identical other than this pattern has a pocket in “front” (decorated) where as mine has one on the “back” (front of the purse is decorated so the pocket is plain and on the back) and the strap on the pattern purse is attached differently and not adjustable. But seriously it’s identical is size, shape, etc otherwise.

2. Not so sure patterns are worth paying for. While both purses and the wallet are cute, if I knew anything about sewing and knew about how much fabric and what other materials were needed to make a purse like the one I have now, I suspect I could have made something like it without a pattern and saved $10 per pattern and could then sell them. Can’t sell ones made from these patterns. And calling them patterns is somewhat generous.

The more simple of the two purse patterns is made from two fat squares and does have a “pattern” inside showing you where to cut the material into the strap, etc. The more complex purse pattern is 4 pages of text with tiny pics that go along with the text. Things like pics of the stuff sewn together to show what yours should look like if you followed the text right. Or irons sitting on the fabric to show you what they mean by pressing. *blinks* Genius. The only pattern I really love as a pattern is the wallet. It’s five page of LARGE COLOR pics with easy to read large print bold directions to go with each picture. Granted it didn’t have the spiffy square — your fabrics should be this size — guides but it tells you how big each piece should be and I’ll give that up for these quality directions. Of course it’s also the most complicated one I can easily screw up… It’s probably the only one of the three I feel was unique enough to deserve its copyright / do not sell items you make based on this pattern notice, etc. I didn’t see other patterns like it. It’s actually detailed and worthy of the money I spent based on a glance. Maybe the others are too, once I get into reading them. But at first glance they don’t seem that special or unique, there were other patterns I considered that were similar to them, and don’t even offer much in terms of being a “pattern”.

In fact. Mom you were sewing and making patterns when I was a kid. Make friggin patterns that have good pics and stuff. These people don’t know what the word pattern means and they make $8-12 each for them.