New Notebook

There are some things that I completely, unreasonably geek out about.  The weirdest one is probably notebooks.  I had a large red moleskine that I carried with me for the longest time, and I was so sad when it was done.  I now have a little paperback notebook that matches my phone case.  And the cutest little notepad I obsess over at work.  I like writing in cute, useful things.

So, when I started sewing a lot, and mainly when I started planning lots of projects, I got frustrated pretty quickly with pages of notebook paper folder and stuffed in my purse.  I really wanted to have something durable, useful, that I could throw in my purse and go.

Googling immediately brought me to Beth Byrge's book, 110 Creations, which you can buy here.  I was planning on grabbing a copy myself, but I really wanted hardback so I could not worry about it getting banged up in my purse.  And by the time I added the things I wanted and made so many changes, I knew I should just have something printed up myself.

 

 The book came with a dust jacket (I just threw up a picture of some buttons I took), but I knew I wasn't to use it.  So I chose a nice green linen-ish cover with a simple embossed title.  This thing is lovely and I'm so psyched to have it in my possession!

Up front, I have a place for measurements (and plenty of them).  I'll add my and my husband's measurements here for now, and then whoever else I needed later.

I also have a couple of reference chart.  First for normal ease allowances (which will help to make sense of finished measurements on patterns), and a conversion chart for different fabric widths.

From here, it jumps right in to the projects.  I really wanted to make a custom croquis for this book.  You can find tons of directions online for how to do it with photoshop or similar programs.  But because I am lazy, I just took a picture of myself in underpants, pulled it up on my ipad and cranked the brightness up (actually two pictures, one with each arm straight).  Then I laid a piece of copy paper on top of the screen and traced it.  I went over it with a sharpie so the lines were nice and defined, and took a photo in the sunlight.  Then I converted that to monochrome, cleaned it up, and voila.  A line drawing of myself sans pants.

 I also drew my tattoos on here.  Partly because I love them, and partly for a legit reason.  I work in an office about half the time that is much more conservative than my home base.  So I need to have options for covering my tattoos.  Having them on here gives me a good indication of whether I can expect them to be covered, and how I'll need to wear the garment.

So here's a peek at two projects I have lined up.  I am really excited about both of them.  The scallop skirt is actually going to be made with some fabric that was misprinted from spoonflower.  It was supposed to coordinate with a print I bought, but the coloring is off.  Since I have it though, I'm going to do a solid skirt with a cute hem detail.  The orange top is going to be made of a fabric that is SO CUTE but also SO in your face that it needs a really simple silhouette, I think.

I was so excited to get my hands on this that I've already drawn up 8 projects (which is not even all of the ones that I have the fabric bought and washed for!  Whew!).  One of them is a Christmas present, so it will be kept under wraps, but here's a look at some of the others.

That green sweater will probably be the next thing I make for myself.

Each page has a spot for a sketch, list of materials, notes and changes, and just overall planning for the project.  I also left a spot where I can attach swatches if I need to match for notions, etc.  I have some pages also that are just like this without the croquis, to use for projects for other people or accessories.

And a quick note here.  I would definitely be writing in pencil if I didn't have these amazing erasable pens.  Pilot Frixion, I got mine at work (in my job we mark up a lot of drawings and we need to be able to write in lots of colors and ERASE it), but they are seriously so cool.  They erase BETTER than pencil.  It's incredible.  I'm obsessed with these.

In the back, I have a spot to keep track of all of my patterns, as well as some wish lists for future purchases.

The main reason I opted to make this myself was because I just didn't think there was enough room in the ready made book.  I mean really, half a page for a fabric wishlist?  That's not going to work for me.

I made all of the pages in Word and then printed them to pdfs, where I then resized.  They're super simple, but that's exactly what I need.  The book is about 6x9, so it's small but not too small.  Overall, I'm in love with this book.  I would definitely recommend the one from Beth if you would rather have a lay flat notebook that you don't need to throw in your purse and go.  I just know it's going to be a great resource for me, instead of having numbers and projects and lists just floating around everywhere.

Now I will just get to...

Hopefully I'll have a project complete for next week!