I am Writing a Sewing Book

Those of you who hurried up and followed my new instagram sewing account got first look at this announcement on Monday.

I'll be honest, these plans are still in the very early stages. So why announce now? Well, two reasons.

#1. This is a book for YOU. That means that I want to get feedback from my readers from the get go, so I needed to let you into the 'secret' right away!

#2. It's going to affect my future sewing queue (but this is not a bad thing). I have four garments left to finish, and then the 2015 queue will be complete. After this, I am hoping to focus solely on creating and testing projects for the book until early 2016.

I'm actually really excited about this. My health, particularly with the new addition of fibromyalgia joint pain, has made it increasingly difficult for me to meet client deadlines. I will be on track, ahead of schedule, and then sickness will knock me out for a week and suddenly I'm not just behind on work, I'm behind on cooking and laundry and cleaning and spending time with my family. It's become very stressful. So hopefully working on the book will release some of that deadline pressure, and also create a continual revenue source for future sick times.

As I said on instagram, my goal is to create a resource for beginning sewers to construct costumes on a budget. This isn't a "teach you how to sew" book, it is a "you can sew a straight line, now here's how to create your cosplay and not break the bank with it" book. (but don't worry, in chapter one I'll tell you where to go if you want to learn some basic machine+stitching stuff first!)

What I am hoping to teach you is how to get the best bang for your buck with materials, make deft (but easy!) alterations to thrift store finds to turn them into awesome costumes, and use your own measurements to make simple patterns for easy but stunning core pieces for various historical and fantasy/scifi scenarios. We'll also talk about props, and techniques for working with fussy materials like pleather, foam armor and knits.

This is how I learned to sew. I didn't use a commercial pattern until I was almost 13, and to this day I make my own patterns as much as I alter commercial ones. It isn't nearly as hard as it sounds, and I'm going to teach you how!

I'll also include tons of resources, which will all be hyperlinked in the ebook. (Yes, I'm planning to release it in as many digital reader formats as possible, and I'm planning right now to keep them under $5 each. Budget conscious is the byword of this project, after all!).

If you are going to prefer a paperback hard copy, do speak up! I'm doing research into how to do it economically - I don't want to charge more than $16 if possible. However doing that layout is significantly more work than just the ebook, so I would need to know if there was enough interest for it. I'll be running polls for that later on in the process, but appreciate feedback whenever.

This volume will be specifically created for beginning sewers. If it works well, I might do a second volume for intermediate seamstresses, but that's a LONG way off with a lot of 'ifs'.

Let me know if this is a project you are excited about, and what you hope I might include! You can leave a comment below, on my facebook page, my instagram, or send me an e-mail!

I'm SO excited and can't wait to get going!