Sewing, Coding & Sports…Oh My!

I’ve officially made the big switch and jumped into the world of self-hosting for 21^st Century Gal.  I hope you enjoy the new look and the ability to click on your favorite topic above and get directly to the posts that are related to each one.  It’s a great feature that I’m happy to finally offer as I know I use it often on other blogs that I love to visit.

I’ve been deep in the midst of work, several sewing projects and the job search.  It’s funny how I started that one sewing project and now I find myself doing new ones at least once a week.  Last Saturday after I made my version of the Victoria’s Secret wrap dress I’ve been pining over, I started looking through another catalogue and found a shirt that I’ve been so tempted to buy.  Once I remembered I still have an assortment of fabrics left over from the infinity dresses I made it seemed only natural to put together a plan to make the shirt myself.  By the end of the day I cut out all the fabric and was crafting a plan.

Tuesday night I started sewing the pieces together and I was proud to have something that roughly resembled a soon-to-be shirt when the boyfriend came home.  Right now all that is left is to hem the bottom and create some straps to attach to it.  It’s hard to believe that all I did was look at a photo and craft a full piece of fashion from that, but I think I inherited my mother’s knack for this as I remember her hating to use patterns.  Knowing my grandma, she would be cringing reading that I too have stayed away from patterns and embraced the “wing it” theory my mother uses.  Either way I actually managed to produce a shirt and, despite being there to see every step of the process, I’ve amazed myself.

It might have been my sudden streak of carefree creativity that made me think I could once again take on the challenge of creating my own website and learn how to host it this time.  It’s been a few years since I worked with HTML coding, but I think I’m falling right back into it and having fun getting to see the tangible product moment after working on it.  I guess HTML coding is a bit like sewing at times.  Either way I end up squinting to see what I’m doing, possibly going back and fixing any mistakes that were initially made and in the end getting to see a finished product right before my eyes.  I can’t wear a redesigned web page, but at least I don’t have to worry about whether I was it or dry clean it.

In the last week I was reminded that it’s difficult to get any projects done while watching T.V. as I have tried to multitask so that I don’t miss the Olympics.  I’m excited to see all these amazing athletes getting to compete after so many years, and for some whole life times, of practice.  As much as I respect the amount of work each person has put into their careers to have made it the Olympics, I am still amazed to see competitions in some of the areas that I didn’t even know were in the Olympics.  While you ponder what those areas might be, I’m going to try reorganizing my schedule for the millionth time to figure out how to create extra hours in the day so everything on my to-do list can get accomplished.