And what a Friday it has been! I’ve spent a lovely day on Goldhawk Road with Handmade Jane, Su-Sews-So-So and Myfabrication and as per usual I forgot to bring a camera. Question: if there are no images of the purchases made, do they really count?
Meanwhile, here’s another question for you:
Do you read sewing blogs in languages you don’t speak?
It may just be my Fear of Missing Out (FOMO if you will) talking but I feel like there’s a whole lot of sewing action I’m missing out on. Plus, when you use Google Translate to decipher them, it has it’s own entertainment value ( no really, try reading the garment descriptions on burdastyle.de).
Here are some that I have stumbled across:
J.na Lesno Marchewkowej in Polish
Can you believe this is the same coat as the one on the cover of the December Burda Magazine?
pachi-pachi in French.
Madame Palagie in Greek.
And finally, because I am un-employed, I have time to scour the internet just for you*. Here are my favourite things this week.
"Make it work!* (*After you have lost an arbitrary amount of weight.)" - Caption from Lesley @ xojane.com
- “Criticizing Tim Gunn is like calling Kermit the Frog an asshole: Not only is nobody going to take your side, the odds are good that many people will be actively offended by your sharing this minority opinion.” From My Big Fat Problem with Tim Gunn on xoJane. Keep reading down to the comments because there’s some interesting discussions going on.
- “There were all sorts of choices, of course. I could buy thongs, hipsters, bikinis, and even something called a cheeky panty. (That last, I can only guess is some sort of insolent, but loveable, undergarment. Perhaps it has Oscar Wilde quotes on the tag?)” From The Case of the Tiny Knickers on A Confederacy of Spinsters.
- “I was pondering why an old story about a delicate, emotional, drug addled actress from the 50s is so much more romantic than hearing about a supermodel hitting the runway with half a bag of coke littered around her nose. Easy. Photographic evidence. “ From How the Internet Has Taken the Glamour Out of Behaving Badly on Smaggle.
- “Resist the urge to over-design: Chevron squiggles and textures and shadowed fonts, oh my! Once you discover the wonderful world of templates and photo editing it can be a slippery slope down to this. Resist the urge, my friends! You are stronger than the gif!” From Making Your Blog Look Like A Million Bucks on Yes and Yes. Guilty as charged, especially while I’m working on the move to my .com address. I need this tattooed on my hand.
Lazy Stitching 
They totally count so the best thing to do is to get them photographed and show us your haul ;o)
The foreign-language blogs are beautiful to look at, but I’m particularly fond of the Greek one, mainly because I can read/understand it! Whoop, being bilingual has its advantages ;o)
Could I possibly admit I ‘only look at the pictures’ of foreign blogs??? Wonder what would happen if you left a comment on one of the blogs you enjoy …
Oh, dear! I’ m so happy right now! I am her, the (headless) girl on the third picture! Madame Pelagie. The Greek one.
Beautiful blog you have here. Really cute colors and clear pictures.
You must have been searching for the burda coat (the one on the first picture), I guess, to have stumbled upon both J.na Lesno Marchewkowej and my blog. I have already cut the pieces for that coat, and it’s really giving me a hard time to get it together (me being a basic level seamstress and all), but I know I will win in the end! Just hope it turns out as good as J. na Lesno’s.
P.S.: I was thinking for a while now to also write in english, but I kept postponing it. That was a great push for me.
Thanks!
Happy to help, although google translate almost makes sense 😉
I love how google translates things, except the times that I actually want to know what’s going on!
I never really know how to find foreign blogs, but these look so beautiful I might give it a try. I also really really can’t believe that’s the same coat from the magazine. I have to admit I was not a fan of it until just now!
Tell me about it with that coat! It’s swung me around to it for sure.
How did you find these Alana? (real question) I am always looking for new blogs which have nice clear photography and are mainly about show casing their garments (i.e no tutorials, or sewalongs, just good old fashioned garment making) but feel like its all a bit stagnant in my blog feed right now…
Hmmm… I want to say probably burdastyle.com? I usually browse through the projects tab and if there’s something I like you can click on the contact’s name and it shows you if they have a website. The other thing I’m finding quite good at the moment is the new Sew Weekly format – lots of interesting blogs but you need to sort through and find the ones that click for you personally. I always like adding more but I also use bloglovin as my reader so as a feed it only shows you the first photo and couple of sentances so the volume is manageable (I click through to the ones I want to read in full).
Ideally I want to get back to doing TGIF posts again and featuring new blogs as I find them 🙂
isn’t that funny, I really struggle with making sense of the Sew Weekly layout. The headings are in lighter smaller font than the copy in some cases aren’t they?I get confused, if something is not simple immediately I honestly don’t have time to figure it out, which is a shame cos there seems to be some great stuff on there! I feel like such a ‘spesh’ for just admitting that!
No I totally get it… I didn’t follow for quite a while for that reason, but now I just have the feed in my reader and read the posts individually without going through the front page
Alana, I have to say thanks from my Spinster blogging alter ego for linking to the tiny knickers post! I had one of those shaking-my-fist-at-Wordpress moments, when I accidentally commented on your awesome Pattern Purchase Decision-Making post while logged in to my “anonymous” account. I’m so glad you liked the post, however, my commenting mishap notwithstanding! Thanks again for the link. 🙂
I normally don’t read non-English sewing blogs, but I have stumbled across some great ones lately, through Burdastyle wanderings. In fact, one of my favorites is the Polish blog you linked to above. She has such fabulous style! Sure, my Google translate makes a hash of most of the post, but the pictures are beyond worth it. I can’t believe hers is the same sack-like Burda coat from the magazine! It has such a lovely shape on her!
Dude, your awesomeness is like a transformer. Just when I’m loving your sewing blog you go and throw the spinsters in and now your like the optimus prime of awesome. I, obviously, am not a writer hence the clumsy transformers analogy but just wanted to say I love your writing style – I literally laughed out loud.
well, english is not my 1st language and I read most latin speaking blogs even if i cannot understand everything.. it also need to think a way of presenting my post for my friends as not all may ready well english..
Oh, about the trip.. Im leaving a similar time from gatwick.. to arrive at 10. should we met at the Edinburgh airport?
Sounds good! I was planning on catching the airport bus link into the city (it’s about £7 return) if you want to meet by the bus ticket booth? (there is signage in the airport for directions)
I “read” the Polish one too! And I’m pretty sure I discovered a bunch of them via Burdastyle, just like you did! Great minds and all that, LOL!
You’ve also introduced me to some very interesting blogs. I read via Google Reader so sometimes I have no idea what the real blog page looks like.
And that comment re: Sew Weekly is sooo right! Whenever I stupidly delete the feed, I regret it bitterly. I absolutely DO NOT get the appearance of that very fun blog. It’s just sooo busy and cluttered, IMO.
Now if I could just get back in the sewing room…especially since I have nothing to wear to work, LOL!
You know, I do really like the design features on Sew Weekly and Mena obviously works really hard on it. I think the big difference is that it isn’t really a blog in the traditional sense, any more. They’ve made the transition into a community website which is an altogether different beast. Once I got my head around that and started navigating it in that way I found it a lot easier and enjoyable 🙂
Hey Alana – had such a great Friday morning meeting and shopping with you, Jane and Gail. Thanks so much for coming along. And thanks for helping me justify my fabric purchasing – I like your logic!! 😉 Oh, and I may have purchased a little bit of that lovely large navy blue gingham fabric that you got….twas so lovely!
As for the Non-English sewing blogs, I have been following the Polish one for a little bit…mainly looking at the pictures for inspiration, but I have a Polish colleague in work, so sometimes I ask her for translations! I haven’t heard of the French or Greek blogs, so I’m off now to investigate – thanks for the links!
Thanks so much for the link love!