Don't Be Afraid Of Challenges

Okay, if you're like me you may be doing both a job you don't like and working toward learning how/doing one you love. For me this means being a freelance writer for hire while really wanting to pursue/indulge and dive into a fashion career. Somedays, I can't work on patternmaking, it's true because deadlines, articles need to be done at certain times. Being a ghost writer too, means that you're letting more than one person down if you don't complete your deadlines. Your direct client and their client, no a good thing.

So when you need to make the money with the job you don't care for, you need to face up to the fact that this is about daily/weekly priority fluctuations. You've got to be patient and avoid being reckless with your time. Think about your time priorities, if you've got an extra tight deadline to meet (4 articles need to be done by the day after tomorrow for example) then get those out of the way before working on your heart's desire (patternmaking practice). However, when you have a breather in the form of no current projects or a distant deadline, don't go slack. DON'T PROCRASTINATE!

If working on patternmaking or anything else that you really want to do that takes time and effort, don't steal time away from your dreams by taking it easy. Get up and fight for what you love and get busy working on it. The little problem that keeps us from doing that is wanting our undesirable work to be easier right? Like, if we just relax and take some time off doing nothing, than the 'other work' won't be so depressing and stressful right?

If this is happening to you, put your foot down with yourself and remind yourself that if you work on what you love anyway it's the only right way to invest in yourself and your dreams. Even if by doing so you keep your not-so-fun work on a constant fairly tight deadline, at the end of the day, you still know that you're working toward your goal, you're getting somewhere. It's like what they say in the fitness industry, "no pain, no gain".

If you'd like to find out more about the fashion industry, schools, work, inspiration or anything else related to fashion visit my site at:

Budget Online Fashion Design Schools and Resources

If you're a designer or home sewer and you'd like to find some cool eco-friendly fabrics and more check out my resource page at:
The Eco-Friendly Fashion Designer's Resource Page

The Time Doctor, Setting Priorities And Patternmaking Practice

Okay, so there's only so much time you can squeeze out of a busy schedule. However, remember that you make time for the things that are important for you, we don't always like to face up to that. However, setting priorities and especially with something technical like patternmaking and making a commitment to laying one brick at a time, will allow you to reach your goals.

I'm already a quarter of the way through my patternmaking book and it's thanks to a great little program called TimeDoctor. It's free and what it does is help you stay focused on you're real priorities, not all your distractions. You'll be able to keep track of how you spend time on the computer and different tasks you list in you current schedule that way you have a little reminder and a way to get a bit self conscious about letting yourself swerve from the things you're supposed to do.

Well, I use it for sticking to my article work and when I've got milestones for article work completed that's when I'll use any bit of extra time to get busy with my patternmaking. Every little bit helps.

And a wonderful thing happened a few weeks ago, when I was working on developing the panels for the princess panels for the torso blocks, I discovered how to create the pattern for one of my own designs. This was a pivotal moment for me similar to how it felt when I first realized the secret to making successful cream puff dough. Or how to save your computer on your own from a virus. The knowledge of how to create something from scratch is very empowering and it definitely has increased my resolve to complete my study of Connie Amaden Crawford's "Patternmaking made easy".