I am a very new user of Pinterest. I have to admit, I never really understood the point. Sure, I like to look at photos of cute baby animals and tasty cakes as much as the next person, but I just didn’t get it. With all the things there are already to keep up with, it just seemed that it would be adding one more to the list, and I wasn’t sure what it would add to my life. Until I started sewing. Although even then it took me a while.
At some point, when I was first trying to decide on a pattern for my dressmaking course, I came across a blog post of a simplicity dress that I really liked the look of. For some reason or another, I decided not to buy it at the time (I was probably trying to restrain myself and only buy the one pattern I was going to make on the course. But a few weeks later, when was making good progress on my dress, and starting to think about what else I might like to make, I decided that I really did want that pattern. Except now, I couldn’t remember the pattern number. I usually email myself useful links that I find online. So I checked my email inbox. I looked at every link for a Simplicity pattern that I’d sent myself. Twice. No joy. I check my inbox on my work email, I checked my sent items, still nothing. At this point I was surprised, I have a tendency of emailing myself anything that I think is remotely useful or interesting. Half the time I never look at the links again. No problem I thought, I’ll just look for it online. But with only the knowledge that it was a Simplicity dress pattern, this was harder than I thought.
I knew I’d seen it on a blog. I couldn’t rememebr the name of the blog. I remembered various comments about the dress from the blog post, like the fact that the pattern apparantly included a lot of ease, and that the person who’d made it was going to wear it to work. Surprisingly, searching for ‘Simplicity dress pattern lots of ease work dress’ did not produce any results (or rather, it produced many results, but not the one I wanted!). By this time, finding this pattern had become a bit all consuming. The more you can’t have something, the more you want it etc. Having already spent a bit of time trying to find it online, I spent my entire lunch hour at work on the mission. I looked on the Simplicity website, but couldn’t find it there. I looked at the search results for various simplicity patterns that came up as suggested search terms, in the hope that it would suggest ones I’d searched before.
Just when I had pretty much given up any hope of ever finding out what this pattern was, I saw it! It was there, in the image search results…of a completely different pattern number! I have no idea why, but I’m so glad it was. The pattern was Simplicity 3673, and the blog I found it on was Molly’s sewing and garage sale adventures. Even after working out which pattern it was, I had a hell of a time trying to find it anywhere! I eventually managed to track down a copy on eBay. Incidentally, if you like this pattern, it’s one that Sewing World Magazine have in their pattern special this issues, for the princely sum of £2.95. I’ve got some lovely teal suiting type material to make view B up in – I didn’t really think it was suitable for the summer, but now we’re moving into winter, I’d better get a move on!
A little while after this traumatic experience, I read this post on Tilly and the Buttons about using Pinterest for sewing inspiration, and to keep track of things you want to sew. I realised that I need never ‘lose’ a sewing pattern again. I promptly signed up, went through all those other links I’d emailed myself, found images of them online, and pinned those ones which I wanted to make to a ‘things to sew‘ board on Pinterest. It’s so nice to be able to keep track of them in one place, not only the patterns themselves, but also the blog posts about them, and different versions that I’ve seen online which have made me want to make the patterns. I’m going to try and make sure that every time I see something I want to make, I pin it there straight away (unless it’s on my work computer where Pinterest, along with other useful things, is blocked, in which case I have to hope I remember later!) before I lose track of it. (Although in the time it’s taken me to actually get this blog post finished and published, I’ve realised I’m not quite as good at it as I would like to be, but I’m getting better!)
I’ve also created myself another board, with sewing tips and tutorials on when I’ve had to look things up, and have thought of a few other uses. Instead of emailing myself and Clare links to about 15 different blogs about Walthamstow market before our trip there, I should have just created a board for that. Something to remember for next time. Similarly for advice and tips on particular patterns.
I’m still not a massive user of Pinterest for browsing – although I would love to spend time looking at everyone else’s inspiration boards on Pinterest, I just don’t have time, what with keeping up with facebook, twitter, blog reading etc. But I find it a really good place to keep track of things.
What do you use Pinterest for – sewing or otherwise?
Make, sew, do 