Readers, After writing the other day about How Big Things Get Done, and the virtues of assiduously planning that multibillion-dollar megaproject you’d always meant to get around to, I felt a strong desire to scale way down. I wanted to tell you about planning tools I’ve used for getting things sewn that have stood the […]
Book: How Big Things Get Done, by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner
Readers, Nearly three years ago now, when I read about the then newly published book How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, From Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between, I couldn’t get my hands on a copy soon enough. After all, not only am I […]
Using Photos to Speed Fitting Progress
Readers, After stalling for weeks on a couple of sewing projects I am back on track again, thanks to a recent fitting appointment I had with Gail Kelley at Sewing Hive, here in Columbus. I was blown away by what we accomplished in under an hour. After some simple pattern alterations I will start sewing […]
The Project Management Daily Challenge–140 Days Later
Readers, I got such a thoughtful comment recently, on my post Spinning Plates Instead of Spinning My Wheels. Somehow I deleted the comment by mistake from the website but thankfully it was still in my e-mail. M-C wrote, Congratulations on improving the project management, it’s always good to cultivate a bird’s eye view of anything […]
What Works, What Doesn’t: T-Shirt Edition
Readers, Just a few weeks ago I had a sudden realization. Over many years I had sewn Jack many shirts–maybe 30?–but had never sewn him a T-shirt! It had never even crossed my mind to sew him a T-shirt. I suppose the reason was a combination of being inexperienced sewing knits, not wearing T-shirts very […]
Three Easy Sewing Room Upgrades
Readers, About a month and a half ago I had another of those moments when I looked at the sewing room and did not like what I saw. Clutter. Disorder. Half-finished projects. How can a person get work done in here? Who’s responsible for this mess? (Oh, right–I am.) Add to this exasperation a touch […]
Developing My Knit Wits
Readers, Recently I’ve been spending a little time every day taking PatternReview.com’s online class Understanding Knit Fabrics, taught by Sarah Veblen. I’ve sewn acres of woven fabrics but only about a patio-sized amount of knits. I am a knits novice. I’ve wanted to learn about knits for years, but apparently not so much that I […]
