The brilliant Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman, Parks & Recreation) once said, “Don’t half-ass two things.  Whole-ass one thing.”  It is with those words in mind that I welcome you to Sew Fancy, formerly both Pig & Pepper Shop and The Fancy Girl’s Guide to the Universe, but now finding its new home with a slightly new focus. Rather than having a blog for random musings, an Etsy shop AND a photography site, I’m taking the things I love and approaching them all just a little bit differently, and putting them all in one place.  I’m whole-assing one thing.

The new tagline is “Creating, reading, traveling, watching and eating my way through life.”  I figured this covers all the bases of what I’ll be posting about, with some room for extras here and there.  For example, “watching” was meant to refer to all manner of things: t.v., movies, theater, even people on the street if the mood strikes!).  The main event will, of course, be sewing.  However, “creating” covers a lot of bases, and also allows for photography, even though trying to develop a photography business is no longer on my list of priorities.

As we approached the New Year, it felt like a good time for a fresh start.  Truth be told, any time is a good time for a fresh start, but sometimes getting going at the beginning of the year sets the right amount of momentum, especially for me.  But truth be told, this fresh start has been coming on for a couple of months now, though I didn’t realize it until I was having a random conversation about potentially changing the name of my sewing Instagram account, and the words “Sew Fancy” came spewing out, and it felt like something had fallen into place.  As much as I have loved the name Pig & Pepper, I felt like I had outgrown it, and as I evolved, so the blog needed to do so as well.

Why Sew Fancy?  It all has to do with my work nickname.  Many years ago, when I started working on the costumes, my friend Lauren came up with the nickname Fancy, and she has been calling me that ever (to the point that if she ever calls me Kelly, I sometimes don’t even acknowledge it because it sounds so foreign).  And since I’m a seamstress who’s a sucker for amusing wordplay, “Sew Fancy” seemed like the logical way to go!  Is it a super unique name?  No.  Is it the perfect name for me moving forward?  Absolutely.

I am currently going through the old blog and deciding what’s going to come over here with me.  Anything about sewing projects will remain (obviously!) and all the travel tales posts as well.  After that, it becomes a case by case basis to see if the old posts fit in the “Sew Fancy” aesthetic that I am trying to create. Looking through it, I found most of the content irrelevant to what I am trying to do now.  When I first started the blog, the writing was all over the place, had very little focus and was often just me sharing song lyrics I liked.  It seems disconnected and somewhat juvenile, and I’d love to shed that aesthetic.

The previous blog also included a number of book reviews related to reading challenges I was trying to complete.  In an effort to have a clean slate, I am clearing away those as well.  Though I have the list for the 2019 reading challenge, I think I’m going to skip it this year.  Even though it doesn’t matter, it would stress me out not to finish the list and I don’t need extra stress in my life – ever!  This doesn’t mean I won’t talk about what I read, but it does mean it will happen a little bit differently.

So welcome to my little corner of the universe, and thank you for joining me on this adventure!  I am looking forward to sharing more sewing projects and giving a little glimpse into what it is that makes me tick.