Sewing Pattern Hoarding, and How to Get It Together.

Realizing I've made one too many #etsy purchases for #vintagesewingpatterns and way to many sewing pattern impulse buys from #joanns

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Personally I don't my collection is out of control, but between collecting patterns out of the excitement of a sale or an impulse buy on Esty because my item is "in 3 other peoples cart". I've managed to curb my need to purchase by having a well organized pattern app on my phone.

I've started to notice I tend to purchase similar items that I might already have in my collection, clearly I have consistent taste. Other times I just wish I knew how much fabric I need for that 50s dress pattern I know I have at home. Nothing worse than leaving with not enough or too much fabric from the store or forgetting half the notions you need.

I've been using this sewing pattern app all year, I haven't figured out how to back it up on icloud, but I have tried a few other sewing pattern apps that were not as organized.

This one allows me to organize my patterns in categories and sub categories. I feel like the perfect app would be web and app based to be more like a searchable data base. This one works well enough with the 60+ Pattens I have.

They're organized by garment categories including #dresses, #vintagedresses #Truevintage and #wearnow. Some patterns I have are on the smaller end where I keep telling myself I'll lose those inches needed to drop to the next pattern size, those are in a separate category #Goals.

Took me about an hour to add everything, I decided to categorize and name them later focusing on adding them to the app as quickly as possible. My personal kitten assistant is not so helpful, and was trying to play with them as I photographed.

I keep most of my sewing patterns boxed up and in comic book sleeves or these perfect size ziploc bags I recycled from work. This protects them from the kitten and from the moisture in the closet.

I promised myself I would not buy anymore patterns or fabric until I've worked through the fabric I have stored in my closet. I'm using Google Sheets to document my fabrics and come up with a #memade schedule for 2019

I did this half way through last year and figured out how to prioritize my my projects and estimate whats a realistic time to complete each project. This also helped me cut back on shopping since I have some pretty and exciting pieces in the works.

Hope this is helpful for you to get organized and get it together!