Who am I and what am I doing here?! April 24 2016 12 Comments

Welcome to the inaugural Decades of Style blog post! We've read up on how to blog and we learned the first and MOST IMPORTANT thing about writing a blog is to establish your “voice.” We don’t know what our “voice” is yet so when we figure it out, we'll let you know immediately *wink*. In the meantime, we'll be posting some information about the E.S.P. dress and we hope you enjoy!

Why are we finally doing a blog now after nearly a dozen years in business? We are always late to the party! (Joining social media and offering PDF patterns in the last 18 months - but better late than never, right?) We’ve been having so much fun on Instagram and we don’t want to lose touch with anyone as the app “improves”. We feel this is the perfect time to create a consistent place to share information on a platform that is not vulnerable to the whims of social media algorithms. We are going to show you inspiring pattern variations which are better suited to blog format rather than Instagram or Facebook. 

Ah, memories! The first time we were mentioned in Threads magazine. We're in the BIG LEAGUES! And look! It includes pictures of two of our discontinued patterns (a 1920's jacket and 1940's dress). The 1930's Kitchenette Pajamas and 1950's Wrap Blouse are still available.

Our blog will cover basic sew alongs of our patterns as well as tricks and easy alterations to achieve a different look. Our sew alongs won’t cover the nitty gritty of every step in the sewing process. Why? Because the internet already contains thousands of tutorials, videos, articles, and blogs on how to sew a dart, armscye, hem, put in a zipper, and everything else! We'll show you what we do for any chosen task, but chances are it won’t be that different from all the DIYs already out there. Sharing sewing information is great and we'll include links to our preferred and/or wildly different tutorials or informational blog posts that you might enjoy (like have you seen Oonabanoona’s 12 Things I've Learned About Sewing? Hi-larious).

E.S.P. dress with striped and tufted fabric from Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics

To kick it all off:  a sew along for the E.S.P Dress!! We’ll cover how a Full Bust Adjustment really improves the fit for anyone with C cup or larger bra size. We adapt the gathered skirt pattern into a pleated skirt and increase the fullness by 50%. We’ll cover changing the direction of your pattern layout to "on the cross grain" (this will change the direction of the stripe on your finished garment.) And finally, a few words about the sleeve length just for comparison.

So at least we answered half of the title questions! You can subscribe to our blog using the RSS FeedBurner feed by clicking on this text. You can also sign-up to our e-newsletter at the bottom of our page.  Look for the sew along to start the first week of May!