Sew fantastic blogs: mirid

Today I'm very pleased to welcome my real-life sewing and blogging friend and neighbor Miriam from mirid. As amazing it is to get to know other sewing fanatics online, it still is even better to meet on a daily basis, to go fabric shopping together and to spend nights sewing and chatting together. If you want to know more about how Miriam and I met, please read this post. Here, I only want to say how extremly happy I count myself to call such a fun, open-hearted and creative woman my friend. Miriam is super talented. She has written severalsewing (and crafting with paper) books, constantly thinks about new sewing projects and has fabric and trim in every colour and material. She even was in the finals for "Germany's most creative blogger". She loves to sew bags – even though she already has more than enough - and the details that she includes in each of her makes are fantastic. Here are my favorites.

Wolf bag, Skirt and matching clutch, beautiful bag

First things first: Please introduce yourself (who are you, tell us a little bit about your family, which country and maybe city do you live in, are you originally from this country, do you work or are you a stay at home mom, etc.)!

My name is Miriam, known as Miri D through my blog, going towards 40, living with my boyfriend (btw, not planning to get married) and our six years old son in a small (tiny small) bavarian village, after some stops in Kassel (Germany), Graz (Austria), South Caroline (USA) and Frankfurt (Germany).

I have a degree in administrative law, quit after a couple of years (thank goodness!) and restarted in an advertising company. Now - several years later - foudn my passion in writing craft books. Plus, I can actually live of my work, that amazes me every time I think about it!

Let’s talk about sewing:
When did you start and who taught you to sew? 

I started sewing when I was six or seven years. My mom had a sewing machine that was ... well ... kind of a mess. The tread tension somehow didn’t exist. But it couldn’t prevent me from sewing little things for my dolls.

Do you consider yourself a beginner, intermediate or professional sewer? 

Well, I don’t sell my sewn stuff, so I’m not really a professional. But I think I’m a little more than intermediate.

Which three tips would you give a beginner sewer? 

Borrow a machine, get yourself some inexpensive fabric and try. This way you can find out if you really like it.

For whom do you sew? 

For me, for our son and sometimes for friends. But I don’t sell my stuff, so I usually know the person who gets something from me.

How often do you sew? 

As often as possible, but since I’m working and have a familiy my list of sewing tasks is growing longer and longer.

What fabric type(s) do you like most to sew with? 

I loooove jersey! There’s nothing more comfortable.

How do you get inspired? 

Since we live in a small village there is no real street style. I usually get my inspirations through internet, while traveling and discovering different countries and once in a while through craft fairs.

Do you have any real life sewing friends?

Sure! You for example!

You blog at mirid. I’m curious to hear a little bit about your blog:
When and why did you start to blog? 

I started a little more than three years ago. I published a couple of DIY books before but there are always ideas that are just not right for a complete book or are a variaty of an idea from a book. So, the blog is the perfect platform to show these ideas. And it’s a good start for creative interchange.

Is there anything that you would make differently if you started your blog now? 

I would put my signature on every picture right from the beginning. You don’t know how many people have use for your photos if it doesn’t contain some kind of mark.

How often do you blog? How much time do you spend each day/week blogging? 

That depends on how much time I have beside my work. I try to blog twice a week. But often I only have time for one post, or even less ...

Do you plan your sewing, picture taking and blog posts in advance or do you just let things happen? 

I rather let things happen.

What are the three two sewn (and blogged) items that you are most proud about or that you yourself like most? Show us some pictures (with links)! 

Actually, I’m most proud of these two items, just because I actually wear them often and I feel very comfortable in them.

Ribbon shirt, Mayana skirt

Do you make money with your blog or do you have any sewing related business (e.g. Etsy or dawanda shop; pattern shop)? Do you have tips for someone wanting to start a blog business? 

I work for a bookpublishing company, writing DIY books. So, they usually do the marketing. With my blog I don’t make money, it is rather a support for my books.

Taking Pictures and editing these is an important part of blogging. Good pictures are often what make us want to visit a blog again and again. Unfortunately, I only have a compact camera (and two kids that rather want to play with their friends than take pics). I’m excited to read what camera you are using and if you have to bribe your kids, too...
What Camera and Objective do you use? 

I have a Canon Eos 300 D, the objective is a photosensitive Sigma.

What is your skill level in photography? Did you learn everything yourself or did you take a course or similar? 

I taught myself. But a good camera made that pretty easy. Plus: My work in an advertising company a couple of years ago somehow gave me a feeling of what might work. But I’m far away from professional.

How do you get your kids to cooperate when you want to take pictures? 

I usually don’t take pictures of our son. I don’t want him on the internet. That’s a point he has to decide in a few years.

What programme do you use for picture editing and which steps do you normally take to edit your pictures? 

I usually work with Photoshop and I love it. So, I’d like to show you one easy but remarkable tool I use in Photoshop. It’ll work for Photoshop Elements as well. It’s called: Levels. Sometimes you have photos that somehow look “foggy”: no real black parts and no real white parts. In order to really shine a photo needs both; the very dark parts and the very light parts. This is a photo I took this spring in the Death Valley area in California.

As you can see, Death Valley seems soooo boring. When you select >Image >Mode >Adjust >Levels you can see the above pop-up called “Tonwertkorrektur”. The black (kind of dumpling) part represents the colors used in the photo. And you can also see that the black part is only in the center. This means, there are no real light colors and no real dark colors in the photo. When you push the little arrows towards the center (see red circle below), the light parts are going to be lighter, the dark areas are going to be darker. And that’s how my photo turns out:

 

Look at the incredible intensive sky! Death Valley is the place to be, right?!

What would blogging be without other blogs? I’m always on the hunt for new inspiring blogs. And I love to get in contact with people from different countries. Who knows maybe you have some blog favourites that I don’t know about?

What are your three favourite sewing blogs to read? Why? 

I really like Anlukaa, she has a very unique style. And I looove her glass work.

Do you follow any blogs that are written in another language? 

What are your three favourite ones? I just stumbled over Maria Denmark. It contains a bunch of sewing tipps.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer my questions!
And now let's get sewing! I'm curious to see your signature tee!

 

This shirt somehow describes my style pretty good. It’s a plain shirt with a colorful detail.

Thanks a lot Miri for visiting my blog.
And everybody, come back next week to see what Sophie from C'est la vie has to say.