The Renovation
Category: Patternmaking Series 18 December 19
The Prologue
It’s been a really long time since I wrote the last post here. I can’t even remember when and what it was. It’s not like I had nothing to say, I just guess I’m not the person who can tell a whole novel about going to a grocery shop. But sometimes projects or events, that are worth mentioning, happen. That’s why there are times of stillness here in this Journal. They can be long like winter nights, but spring always comes and brings back life in all the colours and lights.
Without any doubt, this is not a weekly magazine, it’s a journal that keeps the brightest creative memories of mine. And if somebody finds them inspiring then I didn’t write them in vain. Those who have already been here might notice that this place has changed a bit. I must say not only it did. Many things happened during that still time.
Life Renovation
On the 13th of March 2019, I came back from work late in the evening. Still dressed in a coat and with my scarf hardly taken off, I tried to release an Instagram announcement about my sewing pattern shop, that I’ve been tirelessly working on. An hour this day, 3 hours another day and half an hour on the weekend—it was a crazy and exciting adventure to those 4 dresses.
In many parts of the world, Instagram was down that evening. Disappointed, I decided to postpone the announcement for a day. I’ve been working on that project for 5 months, one day wouldn’t change a thing. On the 14th of March, I posted a picture and closed my eyes in excitement. That was Thursday.
On Friday, my husband and I were going to the theatre. There, on the hall stairs, he told me we were moving to Berlin because he got a job. It was on the 15th of March. I can hardly remember next 2 months. Everything from documents preparation to stuff packing and the flight with numerous suitcases is blurred inside my head. Aside from this huge mess, that occupied my mind and time, I didn’t and still don’t know how to promote things that I’ve done and we were moving to another country which has its own laws. I had to shut the shop down, but I could still keep this journal.
Blog Renovation
Sometime after we settled, my husband suggested to renovate it and finally make it look the way I initially wanted.
- Following us, the Journal moved from a heavy, slow-working, me-irritating Wordpress to a lighter site-builder. Now it works times faster than before.
- The design became clean and minimalist. It works as a perfect background for vibrant illustrations that I end up with every time I try to make something discreet. Maybe I should accept it’s what I am.
- Finally, the text is readable, well divided and marked, thanks to the new fonts.
- So are the pictures. Now they can be enlarged by a single click, so you won’t miss the details.
New Ideas
Nothing is ever perfect. So apart from renovating the old content again and again, I need to create new posts. Sewing Stories would be great, but I don’t sew that fast and taking process photos ruins the whole magic for me. That’s not an option. But I used to be a tutor for patternmaking and sewing for 2.5 years and I had to quit the job because we moved.
I might not speak German and have the class and the students, but that doesn’t mean I cannot share my patternmaking notes. I can do it right here, in this Journal, so anyone from anywhere around the Internet could read it.
These notes will be called Patternmaking Series. They will form kind of a short course or a number of lectures with some practice tasks. I have a couple of them written already and will release the first one soon. I won’t lie to you and promise to post every week or two. I will do it at my own pace, but I promise to keep the quality high. If you want to wait and then read a chain of them one by one, please, be my guest.
Sewing and patternmaking is a huge part of my creative life, but they don’t occupy it all. Lately, I started to knit and make crochet sweaters. This is a surprisingly calming and relaxing process, so I’m going to share the results here someday. I haven’t been drawing for a while and now I feel the need to go back basics. I hope more pencil-drawn romantic-looking fashionable-dressed girls will pop here. And I shouldn’t forget the flowers, especially during this rainy autumn we have here.
Who knows what this place can become. Sometimes you should let the thoughts flow to come to yet unknown concepts. So, we’ll see.
xoxo
Kaia