On my pattern patterns

I am writing this in a hotel room at a pretty heavy duty conference my work has sent me to. Very interesting but my brain is a little numb but one of the great things about an obsession like sewing is that there is always a place you can go with your thoughts that is still fascinating, even when your mind is not up for much else.

The truth is that between seminars I have come up to my room and done a little recreational pattern surfing as my version of "the break."

Of course the combination of online shopping and a piece of plastic in my purse is very tempting and I have done the odd "cancel order" and some reality checking and honest appraisal of who I am and what I really do.

This is how far I have got with that tonight.

Reality check #1:

Style change faster than my ability to keep up to them in my sewing. My purging of the unneeded has continued at home since my last post and one of the things I have uncovered is my extensive collection of impulse buy patterns. Thank God there are so few sewing shows anymore, those were the worst. See anything made up and I was convinced that buying a pattern was the equivalent of acquiring the garment.

Repeat a pattern is just a pattern - on its own (add time, effort and of course fabric) it does nothing immediate to add to a wardrobe. If intentions were clothes I would not be having my regular wardrobe crises. At least fabric, wild patterns excepted doesn't date while you neglect it like patterns do.

Reality check #2:

If you are a busy person with things like a job and an involved and involving extended family with their own animals, projects and conversational and other needs, there really isn't a lot of time to fool around with new patterns. The part I love is the fabric-stitching-pressing-wearing part, not the flat-pattern-measuring part that involves a calculator and trying to figure out what 7/8" is divided by 4 and then wondering if that little amount really makes a difference, and then finding out that it really does - or moving the bust point on a blouse 1 1/4" down and then going through 17 sewing books looking for the fast and easiest method to move a dart down, wondering if you really should just be making that dart bigger - all of which you can do - except that by the time you have done it there is no time left to just stitch.

Which is the part I love.

So this is why I am a sewer of multiples. Once I have made that investment I want to collect as much interest as I can, stretching out the part I like as long as I can, and shrinking the time spent altering, and pattern tracing - I forgot I also find that as annoying as it is necessary - to as small a proportion as I can.

Which leads me to:

Convention wisdom.

I was sitting this morning in an excellent keynote speech where one of the themes was that people don't need more information they just need better information when I thought "Of course that's it. What I need is not more patterns but better patterns."

I am sure that my institution would be delighted to know that they have paid for this convention so I can come up with sewing insights - but after all everything is about sewing isn't it? Eventually.

And that means really finally working through what patterns if I had them, and they were all perfect, I really would use a lot and jump right to the sewing and stitching when I needed to sew and needed to have something to wear.

So here is my own essential pattern list, as prosaic as it is:

1. A good T shirt pattern. I started with this because I actually have it. Long, 3/4 and short sleeve. Fits, fun to make. Ottobre pattern.

2. A cardigan pattern. No check mark here but I have one I can use, also in Ottobre if I traced it out and redrew the neckline to a V or crew, don't like the scoop in the picture. If I had this pattern and a short sleeved T shirt I could have a twin set which I could make up in all the large yardages of wool jersey and other knits I bought in that one winter I decided that all I was ever going to wear was knit dresses, until that mood passed.

3. A shirt, with a collar on a stand and a band. The real thing, but this time one that fits. In my line of work a good shirt and a straight skirt stand in as a suit equivalent. Thank goodness. Easier to sew and machine washable.

4. A blouse, convertible collar because who always has the energy for a collar stand and a sleeve placket? And besides not all fabrics are crisp enough for shirts, I know I have boxes of stuff like that, and it would still work in a blouse. Long, 3/4, short and no sleeves. This would be very useful.

5. A straight, straight skirt. This means a gabardine skirt with lining, darts the whole deal. Although I think ideally it should have some little waist elastic at the sides or something because my waist is unreliable, or at least I am. I swear in 40 years of sewing I have only ever made waistbands that are too tight or too loose. Enough already.

6. A straight skirt with some sort of pull-on waistband because the fabric is a stretch woven - I know it can be done - a yoke with the elastic in it at least at the top, because I have seen it in the stores. Stay tuned on how I work this out.

7. Pants for stretch wovens (can I do something like #6 in the waistband - don't see why not, apart from the fact I don't know how to do it). Trendy leg shape would be good, I have decided at this convention that a lot of women of a certain age like me wear pants with dated leg shapes, like boxy legs, or even tapers. Have decided that this may be as significant as old-fashioned glasses on your face.

8. Real pants, trousers - for wools etc. the sort of pants that you line. Ditto on a little bit of elastic in the waist though.

9. A camp shirt. I know these are not really stylish but boy are these useful for not-at-work-wear in warmer weather with jeans, capris or shorts. My most worn garment, still in circulation is a cotton camp shirt in really great fabric that I made about 18 years ago. You would think that anything that I had worn that much for so long would have been a garment I would have duplicated wouldn't you?

10. A sheath dress. I have this and it fits - thanks to Wild Ginger, although I need to lower the too high jewel neckline.

What is missing from this list are casual pants and jeans - I can buy these for not too much and  with a reasonable fit and jackets and coats. Jackets and coats I have decided are in a special category which is;

1. Easy to fit, I am not talking blazers of course but cropped or stylist like jackets loose enough that they are not complicated to fit and of course the same goes for coats. I have decided against the classic coat until I change my mind. A coat can afford to be a bit stylish I have decided because you wear it so much that by the time it goes out of style it will be at the end of its life anyway. A besides if people are going to see you in something a lot it might as well look current - straight skirts, T shirts and blouses can quietly go on under things for years and sort of blend in.

So what does this all mean? I need to focus on getting this list in place before I start buying up any more other patterns. There are a couple of sew-alongs in SG that I am going to do as a focus for some of these patterns and see how I go.

Because after all what I need is not more, but better.