Over the last couple of weeks I’ve discovered three new web pages to inspire and encourage, you know the sort that you suddenly realise you’ve been browsing for an hour…well I thought others may be interested too!

The first one is a Pinterest page, I have to admit I’ve never seriously got into Pinterest, I’ve used it as a mood board when I’ve been working on specific projects, but I don’t tend to browse on it…then I discovered Pincushions, Needle Cases, Sewing Accessories, it’s a fascinating mix of antique sewing accessories with handmade pincushions and needlecases of every description, some of them are stunning, it made me want to start collecting!

The second page is on facebook, so apologies to anyone who doesn’t ‘do’ facebook! It’s the Embroiderers Association of Canada, every day they post a photo of a piece of embroidery, quilting, handmade clothing etc. Just have a browse through their photos, the work pictured is stunning. Every photo has a link back to the original web-page, so if you want to know more you can. The photos are of work from all over the world, not just Canada, I found a photo of an applique by Janet Browne who lives just up the road here in Yorkshire. I went to a workshop with WI that she ran and stitched ‘My Garden in Stitches’. Everyday they post a new photo, yesterdays was a beautiful corset, hand made and embroidered in the 1880’s.

I discovered the third page through Laurie’s’ Sew Exhausted blog. Laurie has a Pinterest page of free sewing patterns of all types, clothes, accessories, children’s clothes, all sorts! It’s a treasure trove of free patterns as many are on sites which would otherwise be difficult to track down…and there’s some gorgeous patterns. Every month on her blog, Laurie makes one of the free patterns up, this month it was a great glasses case made from Batman fabric. I found a pattern for a beautiful dress on a website called Your Style Rocks, which doesn’t seem to have been updated for a few years, but still has free patterns on. It’s called Eva’s dress, isn’t it elegant!

So if you have a few minutes or so to browse on your computer, do have a look, just don’t blame me if the next hour disappears!