CONFESSIONS OF A PATTERN HOARDER: PATTERN OVERLOAD!

Hello my friends! I a confession to make. I have recently come to the realization that I am a pattern hoarder. Yes, that's right, when I see a pattern, be it crochet, jewelry, or other crafts, I have to have it! I suppose the first step is admitting you have a problem, right? Read on to discover my adventures in pattern addiction, and how I am trying to recover!!!

What a problem! Yesterday I decided that I was going to spend the day with my bead stash. I pulled out my beads, opened up some files on my computer, and then...yep, I sat there paralyzed, looking at my computer screen. The problem? I am a pattern hoarder! There, I said it. I have so many patterns, it is difficult to decide what I want to make! I would never think having lots of options is a bad thing, but in this case, it really caused me some sort of crafters block. I sat there contemplating what I wanted to do, and before I knew it, it was time to put the stash away and bring the dogs in for the night! Determined not to waste another perfectly good crafty day again, I decided to figure out how to continue to hoard my precious patterns, but in a way that wouldn't cause me such consternation. What I came up with...the solution to my pattern hoarding is... ORGANIZATION!

That's right ladies and gentlemen! Time to organize my digital patterns. I am still not finished, but I made a pretty good dent in it, I would hope so, since I spent the vast majority of 3 days on it! The funny thing is, I just caught myself looking for more patterns! I got this addiction BAD!!!

So I will keep working on my hoarding problem, but in the meantime, I thought I would share some of my favorite places to find patterns for jewelry making. That way more people can become addicted and I won't look so bad, right?

There are some sites that are expressly for patterns. Here is one of my favorites:

Jewelry Lessons is a website that describes itself as "...a highly specialized online community which not only helps to share knowledge about jewelry making but also EMPOWERS users with REAL REWARDS." Sounds great, right? It really is! And one of the best parts of this site is that it keeps a record of your purchases, so you can go back and re-download them when you lose all your files because your computer crashes...er...yes, that happened to me last week!

SOVA Enterprises is another terrific website that offers patterns, some for a fee and some free! The website states, "We are proud to unite over 130 craft designers from around the world with craft enthusiasts world wide." I highly recommend this website and its affiliate sites as well.

Craftsy is another website offering patterns for free as well as for fee. There are tons of designers to choose from and I personally have a hard time resisting almost all of them!

That is it for now, gonna try to get my pattern sorting finished today, I am getting close! I know I promised some bracelet bases and embellishments for this post, but my visitors just left and I had a doctor appointment this morning so I haven't had time to get to it. I got great news, my lump in my breast is totally benign, so I just have to keep an eye on it and it should be good to go!

On that note, here is a link to a breast cancer awareness design. This design is brought to you by FAVECRAFTS, another great place to get patterns, and they are all free! For real!

I hope you enjoyed this post! I will have the bases and embellishments for next week, I double promise!

Happy Beading,

Love and Hugs,

Jillie