Fearless Sewing (A Borrowed Title)

I was recently doing my usual blog crawl and ended up linking to this post. It really got me to focus on this fleeting idea that I've had for a while. The idea of fearless sewing. As I say in my profile I returned to sewing after about a four year break in 2009. In my previous sewing life I primarily made dresses or palazzo style pants with the occasional home dec or children's project thrown in. For the sake of perspective, the extent of my sewing in the years prior was as follows:

WARNING: Photo lite, verbose posts follows

2006 - custom silk pillows for my guest bedroom.

2005 - custom silk and micro suede pillows for my bedroom

2004 - Dress for my graduation from my doctoral program

2000 - I sewed quite a bit that year (for me at least) because I graduated from college and had a party so of course I needed dresses for those occasions and I also got married that year and had two bridal showers, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner as well as the hair and mani-pedi events the day before so of course I had to have new outfits for each of those events all in the wedding colors of course (this was the year I discovered DSW and the perfect matching shoes.

Extremely Poor quality photo alert

1999 - A full ball skirt and shirt with two part collar in satin complete with layers and layers of tulle and lining sewn in. So my daughter could look and feel like a princess on Christmas. Just thinking about hemming that skirt will probably give me nightmares.

1998 - a beautiful fully lined tropical georgette 3/4 length dress (posh lining was my fav back then) to wear to a summer wedding and white and yellow daisy lace underlined sheath. Easter dresses for all three of my nieces.

1994 - A fully lined, full length designer gown with boning made from my first Vogue pattern for my high school reunion.

1993 - A crepe/lace underlined dress for myself and crepe and organza dresses for my two sisters and sister in law for my mother's 50th birthday party.  All without the benefit of a rolled hem foot or serger.

The point being, when I didn't know any better, if I liked it, I made it, I was fearless armed with my little $70 Brother sewing machine that I picked up on a whim from Target.  I've noticed, now that I know that certain techniques are advanced or working with certain fabrics is supposed to be difficult, I tend to shy away from them or at the very least start to doubt my abilities.  Well those days are over.

I'm declaring 2012 The Year of The Return of Fearless Sewing after all it's just fabric, beautiful, cherished fabric, but fabric nevertheless.