September is National Sewing Month!

Like the title says! I didn't know. I gotta get on this!

Someone was asking me today for my best sewing tip. I'd say it would have to be to PRESS YOUR STUFF. Don't go hacking at it all willy nilly with your machine. Press it before you cut, press all the hems into it, and enjoy how much easier your project is.

Oh, and don't use starch.

Treasury

Oh, I'm excited. I made an Etsy treasury!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c8e9c9ae9916d911ba44822/american-girl-dolls-play-clothes?index=0

Go click there and see some of the doll clothes I picked out. Hope someone finds something they liked!

Inspiration

Where do you get your sewing inspiration?

Honestly, a good lot of the time, I ape mine from people who make girl's clothes. I tell myself that copying them makes my pieces more historically accurate. Pretty good line, right?

I don't know why I go to Old Navy's website a lot, but I do. They don't always offer useful things, but I was there today, and looking down the page made me think I could sew:

• Pleated tops
• "2-in-1 Baby Doll Tops" -- the gathered shirts with the fake sleeves. Tres cool!
• Those "smocked" short sleeve tops. I don't think they're really smocked, just sewn with elastic thread. I'm not sure, but I don't think it's the same thing.

I don't think I'll be trying another gather-top tank this late in August. It'll have to wait until next summer. I'd saw my arm off for a decent heart print or colorful plaid small enough for AG scale!

But, that's a huge amount of inspiration for the week. Last week, I was upset with myself because I could only think of bottoms to make. Now, I just have to hope I remember what all those bottoms were!

Bad Week

You ever had a day that wasn't your day? I had that WEEK last week.

I have this purple shimmery cloth that I've had for a long time -- no idea what I bought it for, but it's lovely. So, I devised a pattern for a tank in my head, fuddled about, got it cut out, and got to work.

First, I hemmed the wrong end of my cloth. Oops. Then, my thread wouldn't quit breaking. (At this point, I got so mad that I went away to tie yarn onto a wig, but in true form, I started tying the yarn to the inside of the wig instead of the outside.)

So the next day, I went back to my machine, bucked up, rethreaded everything, adjusted X, Y, and Z, only to have the thread break every couple of stitches again. Fie. I stormed off.

It took me a while to convince myself to hop back on the horse, but by God I did. That's what you're supposed to do, right? I limped along in my project, thread breaking every which way, until I got it all sewn up! But, after putting it on Jess, I discovered:

IT WAS TOO SMALL.

I am going to put the pretty purple cloth away, walk off, and on Monday, sew something else all together. The purple cloth, it is cursed.

New Internet Outpost!

Someone suggested to me the other day that modern blogs -- doesn't that sound funny to say? as if there's such a thing as an ancient blog! -- should be more like magazines. And I thought to myself, "Wow! I could be the editor of an American Girl magazine!"

Not really, because it's not in print, and plenty of people do it already, but I have some fantastic ideas and I can't wait to give them a try. I hope they entertain you!

I'm also going to be keeping you up to date on the things that happen on The Bean Stalk, so if you don't follow The Bean Stalk on Twitter, you can keep up with it here. I do feel an update coming on this week!

If there's anything you're really jonesing for, make sure to let me know in the comments.