THE BEST LAID PLANS......

Today I had planned on cutting out a skirt and get it ready to sew after I came home from working out at the gym but...as is often in my life I make plans and they get changed. Either by me or someone else.Sometimes that is good and some times it is not. Today it was a good change. The skirt will get cut out tomorrow so instead of doing it today I shopped after the gym.

I have a huge amount of sewing patterns that I  will some day use or not but in the meantime I like them organized into a neat file so what ever I am looking for is easy to find. Or if I am looking for inspiration it is handy to do so.  


Years ago I started taking my patterns out of the original, and always too small envelope, and storing the pattern itself in a large envelope and the original envelope with a photo of pattern in a plastic sleeve in a notebook. I ran out of envelopes a few years ago so have neglected to deal with the new patterns  purchases since then. Today I decided was a good day to do it. These in the white envelopes are some of the original patterns I did when I started this practice.

After putting all the patterns stuffed in the file cabinet into new envelopes  I put them in a file drawer in alphabetical order of the pattern maker's name (ie. Vogue, McCall's etc) and then in order of pattern number under each pattern  maker. Needless to say it takes time to write on each envelope and organize but in the long run it is well worth the effort. It took me most of the day after I got home from the gym and the store.

Here is the now empty drawer waiting for the new and old envelopes filled with patterns to be filed away. That has not happened yet but will be fore the day is over with.

After each pattern is stored in the marked envelope I put the original pattern envelope into a plastic sleeve and then into a loose leaf notebook and store it on my shelf with other notebooks of interesting patterns, tutorials and trivia. The nice thing about doing it this way is if I want to purchase fabric and notions I just slip the whole sleeve out and take it with me to the store since all the information I need is on the back of the patterns.