I was recently reminded of Michaelangelo’s famous quote at aged 81yrs old that he was still learning, which fits my philosophy perfectly. If anything, I am the perennial student. If you want to tell me how to, I’ll listen with pleasure. [caveat; with the exception of on-line games, with apologies to my grandsons] .

I have been a bit confined under the weather the past few days, nothing serious, but it means that I am only able to potter about for short periods and have only my laptop and some hand sewing to keep me occupied, which anyone who knows me well knows that is not enough! Enter sewing blog land, Pattern Review and Craftsy.com and their on-line courses. Thankgoodness!!

When having four small children under five curtailed my working life, I took it as a marvellous opportunity to take classes so that I would have the right qualifications to do what I wanted to do when they were all in school. Because I didn’t have to be anywhere at any specific time, I could manage my day around the children, the house and actually managed to get two hours nearly every day to study, sew or whatever. carpe diem. [Now you know why it’s one of my mottos.] Although that doesn’t apply today, I still like to make use of every moment of the day if I can and I have to say that even on days like the past few, I still feel happier at the end of the day if I can see that I have actually done something. [housework doesn’t count – that’s like the poor, its always with us].

Working on the principle that when life hands you lemons you make lemonade, I enrolled in one or two [actually five, but who’s counting]  excellent on line courses. One I have already mentioned; Craftsy’s “Sew Better, Sew Faster”,with Janet Pray.

 This I really like. Janet is so easy to follow so that even if you are not a seasoned sewer, you could make the jacket pattern that goes with the course. It was this picture on Goodbye Valentino’s blog of Cissie Wellon’s jacket that hooked me in.

 Isn’t that just fabulous? Sarah was reviewing her course with Susan Khalje in this post, so of course, next up was Craftsy’s “The Couture Dress”with Susan Khalje, another excellent tutor. Here is Sarah’s picture of her dress when she did the course last year.

Given my love of the couture method of sewing anyway, I felt that I had come far enough on my journey with my sewing machine[s] to be safe going back into comfortable territory. My preferred tutor before this was Claire Sheaffer, but I think Susan is as good, if not easier to follow, as Claire. The third class is Sew The Perfect Fit with Lynda Maynard.

I haven’t watched more than the preliminaries with this one, but she promises to be another excellent teacher. The good thing about Craftsy is that you can have ready access to the course, the teacher, have questions asked etc., and they never expire. Three good courses which I shall enjoy watching, learning from, and using for as long as I continue sewing! BTW I have no affiliation with Craftsy, but I do like to share what I think is good out there. The other two courses are Kenneth D King’s Clone Your Favourite Garment” from Pattern Review [ I have already done this many times before but just wondered if there was a better way] and Altering Jackets by Angela Wolf. I haven’t as yet at time of writing this looked at the last two, but Angela’s course I will definitely be looking at before continuing with my rust jacket alterations as mentioned in my previous post. The same course facilities are available at Pattern Review  as at Craftsy, permanent access etc., If you can’t get to real life classes [as in the Susan Khalje class reviewed by Sarah in her post above] then this is the next best thing, I think. If you are a perennial student, like me, have a look and see what is out there.