Sharon Sews

Do you know a young DIY-er just bursting with creativity? One who is always on the look out for new ideas to pique her curiosity and push her imagination into overdrive? Then pick up a copy of the newly released book, Altered You!: A girl's guide to personal style by Karin Buckingham. The 94-page book is filled with many fun and creative ideas geared towards the interests and skill level of tweens and teens. We all have our own sense of style and this book is designed to help a teen expand on hers. The 18 projects can be created just as shown or used as inspiration. The projects has both sewing and crafting techniques and includes not only clothing but accessories and fun home decor items. The book begins with a section on what to include in your sewing basket, jewelry box and craft tote - complete with photographs to help you identify what some of these things are - and moves on to explain basic techniques that are referenced in the books. Each project begins with a full color ph

Yesterday I told you how to search for vintage sewing patterns on Etsy . Today, I'll share my list of sellers who offer sewing patterns for sale. A couple of tips for you to keep in mind before I get to the list. Etsy provides an RSS feed button on the home page of each seller's shop. This makes it easy for you to be notified when your favorite seller adds an item to their shop. The RSS feed is the last item on the right side of the page. You can also heart a seller or a pattern, but you do need to set up an Etsy account to do this. I'd recommend it because it makes it easier to find a pattern or favorite seller again. As a seller I can see who hearts my shop as well as who has marked any of my items with a heart. But, as a buyer, if you dont' want that information public, you have the ability to keep your hearts private. It just shows up as a secret admirer. BTW, feel free to heart my shop as I only have 42 so far and I'm feeling a bit like the last kid in gym c

When you think of Etsy you think handmade. At least you should since that's been their guiding principle since they launched the site in June 2005. Their mission - to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers - reflects the handmade focus. However, did you realize that Etsy has a multitude of sellers that sell vintage items - including sewing patterns? With a little bit of searching, you can unearth treasures, such as this vintage Simplicity pattern Linda recently purchased. You just need to know how to search. You see, the default search function for Etsy is to search for items listed under the category "handmade", because, well, that's what's Etsy is known for. That means if you type in "vintage sewing pattern" because you just want to browse and see what's available, you won't see all of the vintage sewing patterns that are for sale. Oh, you'll see some, but those are the ones that weren&