I tend to wear things I've made pretty much every day now so I wasn't sure about taking part this year as I always find it hard to get photos each day. However the photos aren't the main point (though they are a great source of inspiration!) so I decided I could still benefit from taking part if I set myself a new challenge.
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| Beginnings of my fabric record on Cora |
So this is my challenge
I, Kathryn of kathrynsbusytown.blogspot.co.uk(kathryn_mhairi on instagram) sign
up as a participant of Me-Made-May '17. I endeavor to wear at least one me-made
garment every day. I also endeavor to catalogue all the garment fabric I have in
an attempt to sew with fabric I already own rather than buying more. I will also
make myself a new summer dress without buying any new fabric to do so.
The first challenge I decided on is a bit of a busman's holiday really as I'm an archivist by trade but sadly my sewing materials, books, digital files etc are not nearly as organized as I am in work! I remembered reading Helen's review of the Cora app for fabric management ages ago so I decided to check it out using the free version first. Asides a glitch on the price section - due to me having my phone set to the wrong region - I really enjoyed using it. Hélène, the developer of the app, was brilliant at helping me sort out why I couldn't get the £ sign in the price section and responded so quickly to my query that I decided to go ahead and purchase the full version. You can add in as much or little information as you like including:
- Photo
- Category (knit, woven, other)
- Weight (light, medium, heavy)
- Content
- Design
- Colours
- Length of fabric
- Width of fabric
- Cost
- Source
- and a notes section.
You can see below how many fabrics I've put in already and I love that you can organise them by price, length, fabric type, colour etc. I like the tool that allows you to export a PDF of all your fabrics which includes the photos and all the information you have inputted. There is also a great section called 'Fabric summary' which tells you how much fabric you have overall. Shockingly even just these 14 pieces of fabric is 26 metres worth. I really hope having this tool will help me sew from my stash as it seems so wasteful to buy more fabric when I have so much already.
Does anyone else use Cora? Or have other ways of managing their fabric?
In relation to the second challenge to make a summer dress I've also recently discovered the joy of Instagram Collections and have started a sewing inspiration collection which, coupled with my newly catalogued fabric stash, should help me decide what to make. You can see part of my Sewing Inspiration collection below. Has anyone else been using the collections in this way? Any tips?
