Welcome to the new S&S website!
Ten years after migrating from HTML to Wordpress, it was time for another shift—to something far simpler to manage and easier for you to navigate. I hope this new site fills the bill, and I look forward to putting more time into creating sewing posts rather than fixing software glitches or updating plugins (a seemingly endless task with Wordpress). Here’s to a brand new decade and a reboot!
There are a few changes I want to make you aware of as you navigate this new platform. I’ve had to shelve some aspects of the old website, but that means time for more important projects as we move forward into 2020, including a revamp of my YouTube channel (I have some highly creative teens who are eager to jazz things up!). Here’s a rundown of what has changed with this move to Squarespace:
I now have a dedicated Shop section for the ePatterns and eBooks, divided into categories by era. The old post-style pattern listings are still in the blog to preserve all the comments and replies (some patterns have over 150 comments—lots of info!). But the shop makes it easier to find things without trying to dig through blog archives.
I haven’t added the Dollar Downloads to the shop section and am putting that off until I have a longer stretch of free time. But they will be back eventually—and I hope to add more of these fun historical fashion downloads in future.
Kristen Stoltzfus Clay created the beautiful historical crochet ePatterns I carried for many years, but they have reverted back to her ownership, and you can purchase them directly from her Etsy shop. Kristen also has a fabulous vintage sewing blog that I highly recommend following.
My Historical Fashion Tours blog has moved offsite to free up space. I need to do a bit of tidying up over there (some image galleries got lost in transfer), but my first goal is to finish all the posts from the 2019 tour. Stay tuned!
Sadly, the old message forum was built on an outdated software that didn’t survive my web host’s own internal upgrade last year, and there was no way to preserve the archive of posts. I was sorry to lose 13 years of wonderful conversations, but there was no way to carry them forward from that outdated forum software. The new message forum on my Wordpress site never had nearly the traffic that the old one did, so I’ve just decided to retire having a forum altogether. It seems that various social media platforms have overtaken forums, and I welcome contact through my Instagram and Twitter accounts or through comments posted on this site.
I’ve added Live Chat to this site, which allows you to get hold of me between 12:30 and 5:30pm on weekdays and Saturdays. I still have a full homeschooling schedule in the mornings, but the chat app lets me quickly answer questions that come in over an afternoon. Feel free to buzz me with any questions you may have about patterns or sewing techniques!
As with any site migration, there are bound to be a few hiccups. I’ve already found that some of my posts are missing images, and I’m working my way through them now to get those back online. If you stumble across any posts that look jumbled or have missing images, I would greatly appreciate a quick note through my contact form. My site has over a thousand individual posts in a lot of different categories, so getting through them all will be a long-term task.
Goodness, what an amazing adventure the past 23 years have been since I put up my first “pink” webpage with three images on it and marveled when my hit counter said eight people had visited! Since then, I have gained so many amazing friends and colleagues. Seeing what you make gives me a serious rush of joy. Creativity needs to spread far and wide. I’ve decided my new motto for this decade is “Anything I can do, you can do better!” Because, honestly, you can. I’m just here to open the door and give you a start…or a gentle nudge if you’re just getting back into sewing after years of doing other things. After that, it’s up to you how far you will go…and I can tell you that seeing my students and customers exceed me is addictive and invigorating!
