A month or so ago, I was suddenly and surprisingly inspired to sew a coat. I don’t need to wear coats very often in LA and really never thought that I’d take the time to make one. But I’ve been feeling cold more than usual this fall, mostly due to living in a new neighborhood closer to the ocean and a new house with heating issues. The heating issues are going to be addressed (it will take some $$$$) but in the meantime, why not sew a coat? :)
Today I have a different kind of treat for you. It’s sewing related but specifically useful for sewing pattern designers. While I was working on designing my 2018 Sewing Calendar, I started playing around with Illustrator brushes and created a set of brushes to create some of the most common machine stitches. I love how they turned out on the calendar and thought it would be fun to share the brushes too. If you use Illustrator to create sewing related illustrations, these brushes are a quick way to show different types of stitches. Just draw a line, apply the brush and you have a fancy stitch line that would normally take much, much longer to draw.
There are a couple of ways to use the brushes. One way is to start by drawing a line. Next, with the line selected, open your Brushes palette and click on the style you’d like applied to the line. You can adjust the color in the Color palette and the weight of the line using the Stroke palette. Another way is to start by selecting a brush. Then, using the Brush tool, draw a line. The stitches will curve along the lines you create and the color and line weight can be adjusted. Learn more about brushes here.
These brushes didn’t take a lot of time to create (not counting my years of experience using Illustrator) in comparison to a sewing pattern but they do have value and are available for sale on other websites. So, I’ve decided to do something a little different, and ask for donations to UNICEF (learn more about what they do here). Why UNICEF? They help kids in desperate need all over the world and a little bit of money can go a long way with them. Also, I know I have readers from all over the world and wanted to choose something that’s relevant to everyone.
UPDATE OCT 2021: The donation system stopped working due to back end issues that I can’t figure out. So, I’ve set the price for these brushes to $3 USD. All proceeds will still be donated to UNICEF.
Please note, these brushes are for personal and commercial use. Resale and/or distribution is prohibited. I hope you find these brushes useful and fun. Happy sewing and thank you in advance for supporting!
I’ve been really thrilled this year to see how positively people have responded to my 2017 Sewing Calendar. I had a number of requests to update it for 2018 and I’m so pleased to share it with you today. I really enjoyed using the calendar this year, filling in the spaces for what I planned to sew, thinking ahead to special events and of course, checking the box when I had completed a project. Just like last year’s design, this calendar has a page for each month and spaces to list your projects and special events. AND it’s totally free for you to download and print at home. Woohoo!
