The last post… For now

When I started this blog 3.5 years ago, I had this inextinguishable wish to share with whoever would be reading how well I did while learning to sew. My first projects were awkward and funny, but they were mine, they signified my learning curve, and I was immensely proud of them! I have always loved writing – I’ve ran blogs before, so writing about my newly acquired skill appeared to be a no-brainer. And I enjoyed this journey greatly. Every Single Bit of it!

My blog helped me document newly learnt techniques, approaches, solutions to unexpected problems, I used these posts to take notes of any adjustments to patterns that I’d made, and often I’d refer back to those notes if I was using the same pattern once again. It helped me keep myself challenged with new types of garments that I was yet to conquer. And of course – it gave me a platform to interact with other fans of this awesome hobby – sewists around the world! Every comment, praise, a question or suggestion were hugely welcomed and appreciated, and I’d like to thank everyone who has ever come to check out my posts and took their time to leave a word of feedback. This means a world to me! ❤️

Sewing journey for me was just as any pleasant learning journey – it had so much to offer! From the first attempts to install a sleeve, to seemingly incomprehensible tasks of sewing lapels, zip fly or an entire coat – there were hundreds and hundreds of incremental steps, each of which moved me forward and offered huge doses of dopamine when I succeeded. Step by step I learnt pretty much everything there was to learn. Switching gears and moving to another level would mean cracking pattern drafting codes, which currently looks just as incomprehensible as installation of sleeves were some time ago. The difference now is that I no longer have time to learn. Back in 2020 it was a quarantine time, too much time on everyone’s hands and too many options to go insane if we were not careful. I did have time to learn, practice and experiment with my sewing. Now things are different. I have recently changed jobs, have many new things to accomplish in my professional live and love doing that! In addition to full time job in autumn I will continue teaching at the university, and this time around I’ll have even more lectures than I had last autumn. Family life is also busy with two teenagers having a gazillion of different school and extra-curriculum activities. And at this stage of life I am not in a position to learn a new skill even if I badly wanted to. I’m not sure if I do, though.

I love sewing! This hasn’t changed even with me being busier than ever before. And I am not intending to stop! If not for joy, I still have like 35-40 different fabrics in my stash that will NEED to be sewed up! 🙂 Just joking 🙂 I WILL have loads of joy sewing from my (at times very old) stash. This post is not about me stopping to sew. This post is about me stopping to blog.

Blogging is an activity in and of itself. Writing takes time, photos need to be taken, grammar errors need to be corrected. And by the way, not the least, it costs approximately 70 Eur per year to subscribe for and use this particular blog environment and keep my domain. I absolutely love my domain! I put a lot of thought into choosing a name for my domain and blog fours years ago, I even had a friend helping me to decide on GiedreStyle. So giving it up would perhaps be sad. And as of yet I’m not planning to do that.

An unexpected advantage of running this blog was being made to take photos of myself. At times even if I did not want to engage in that, I’d still make myself to wash my hair, put makeup on and take pictures with yet another new dress. And what this did was me now having some 6000 photos of me posing throughout the years. Some of those pictures are bad, but many are really good, and I can see progress in my ability and skill to pose. So yeah, this blog was not only about me documenting my sewing adventures, but also me advancing my picture taking as well as being in a picture and looking well skills. I guess what ended up happening was that all those thousands of pictures taken and posed for significantly boosted my self-confidence. And that’s not too small an achievement!

Documenting my projects also worked as a big motivator to actually sew, especially during times of great uncertainty – when Covid was raging, when the war in Europe started, when I was going through a job change situation. Knowing that few weeks had already passed since my last post made me move my b*tt and get on with a new project even if I did not really want to. But it’s like a work-out – I hate the idea of a work-out before the work-out session, and I love the idea after the work-out session 🙂

And now I no longer need a kick in the b*tt. I know that I will continue sewing. Arguably, it’s like an unconscious competence has formed in my head. I no longer need to extensively document each and every project because they have started running on repeat. This means that I will not invent much new. And most importantly I am at the stage of life where I have to start saving time and instead of blogging I would be sewing. That is why after giving quite a few weeks of thought I’ve decided to stop blogging. At least for now.

I considered not to write this post at all. On the one hand – what does it give? Someone who’ll come by my blog and will read this post will not come back ever again. Whereas if I just stopped blogging, my blog could perhaps be read from time to time. But then I remembered few bloggers and youtubers whom I sincerely liked and who have disappeared from digital space without any closure, and I know how this saddens me. I wish they were around, and I wish they would come back, but I fully understand their desire to disappear and stop producing content. So then – why not share this decision? And thus I decided to share my thoughts about my closure. Truth be said, I don’t even know if that is an actual closure – who knows, perhaps I’ll start missing writing again and will come back to post later. Hence, the title of this post – it is the last… for now.

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Meanwhile, I’d like to share my recent two makes that have already been posted on Instagram, but not here. This is to be consistent till the very end with my chosen way of sharing my projects. These two are new summer garments both of which I very much like and have already started wearing.

Puff sleeve striped top

For this top I needed 1.5 meters of this striped cotton, it has a bit of elastane to it which makes for a comfortable wear as the top is quite fitted around the torso. It has an invisible zipper at the back, interestingly installed from the bottom up and not reaching the top of the back. Have never seen this type of solution, but it does work. Pattern used here is Deborah top by Vikisews. Other notions were: a bit of fusible interfacing, invisible zipper and coordinating thread. This top cost me 16 Eur, it was made in May, 2024.

Birthday dress

It’s become a small tradition to make a dress each year before my birthday which is in the middle of June. I don’t often get to wear those dresses for my birthday, though, 🙂 and this year was not an exception, but it’s very fun to establish a bit of significance around my birthday in making a small gift to self.

For this dress I needed 1.5 meters of this plaid linen which is locally produced and I am really glad to support this. There was no actual pattern, I used my redrafted bodice pattern pieces, which I had made from commercial patterns and adapted to my actual measurements, and for the skirt I used the skirt of Vogue pattern V9075. Neckline and armholes are beautifully finished using bias tape. Other notions were: invisible zipper and coordinating thread. This dress cost me 29 Eur, it was made in June, 2024.

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Even though I will no longer write posts on my blog, at least for the time being, I’m still planning to continue posting on my Instagram account. I had made it public since the very beginning, as in addition to trying to enter sewing community I thought that I would perhaps attract collaboration suggestions. That was related with my probably naive expectation that with my lovely projects and demonstrable progression I will be able to attract a sizeable followers base. But this did not quite materialize. And I don’t know why. At first I tried to understand what Instagram algorithm does to my posts, but eventually lost any hope. Maybe my photos aren’t quite ‘instagrammable’, or maybe I don’t post as regularly as the algorithm would approve, or perhaps it’s my glasses that spoil all the pictures 😀 It is the glasses, isn’t it? 😅

Still, during all this time I did receive several reasonable collaboration suggestions, but much fewer than I initially had thought. Or I should say there were quite a number of suggestions to collaborate but very few that would make sense in terms of time dedication and reward balance. Having this in mind and also the fact that I no longer have any bandwidth to accept any collaborations anyway, even if they were forthcoming, I might eventually make my Instagram account private. But I believe I will continue posting there. So if you liked my work, please follow me on Instagram – you are welcome to click the IG icon on top of this page. I’d love to continue interacting with you there! Sewing is such a happy and inspiring topic to interact about, isn’t it? 🙂

Thanks so much for visiting my blog, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your nice words and support during last few years, and at least for the time being I’m saying – so long! ❤️☀️🤗

~Giedre~