Touchy, Feely Challenge

One of my challenges with doing any creative endeavors is my need to see and touch for inspiration. Unfortunately, though, the art of garment sewing seems to be a dying skill-set. And with “fabric” stores having morphed into craft-centric, junky repositories for, well, junk, there is not as much excitement in getting an idea in my head of what I want to make, because I know my fabric choices when I reach the fabric store are so limited. No offense to those of you who love crafting, but you have whole stores devoted to your creative, crafty endeavors. Used to be I could go to a fabric store and talk to the folks working there about fabrics and sewing, and be inspired by them too.

I expect there are online places to get better fabric choices, and folks with many inspiring creative idea too, but I’ll kind of miss out on my need to see and touch to help my inspiration. I expect, too, I could to head to the garment district in LA, because what’s being offered in San Diego is not working for me. I guess I can eventually learn to try to get inspired by online resources, but I can’t imagine ever being able to have the electronic translation of the fabrics colors, patterns, and texture be the same level of inspiration.