Sewing Mamas

Sewingmamas.com is a community of people (99% women) who enjoy sewing and are looking for an environment based on mutual respect where they can form friendships, learn from each other, inspire one another and have fun.  We focus on the parent who sews, but are open to all sewing fans.  We foster and encourage a natural and attached parenting, so members must be respectful and open to this way of thinking.

If you are interested in helping further this purpose, you are welcome to join in the community by registering, which is free. If you would like to participate in the running of the site, we ask that you become a sponsor by donating $15 for a six month membership or $24 for an annual membership. You can easily do this from your control panel.

Sponsors are invited to join in the Board Room discussions on changes, improvements, and growth of the site. They also will be provided a gallery for uploading pictures to the site,as well as new benefits.

Sponsor fees and donations directly fund the running of SewingMamas.com.

All members are expected to conduct themselves in a kind and respectful manner in order to maintain the friendly and supportive atmosphere at sewingmamas.com.

We were all new at one point, so jump in and say hi!

A few notes before you begin

There are no stupid questions here!
Because if you don’t know & can’t find it, then there’s no way it can be stupid, OK?

Please feel free to ask what you want to know about how to do things on the Sewing Mama site. If we don’t know, we can help figure it out.

When you post about something not working, post in the Help Forum. Let us know what browser (FireFox, Internet Explorer, etc.) you are using. Some stuff doesn’t work across all browser platforms yet & knowing which one you are using may help get you an answer quicker. Don’t know what a browser is? Hey, that’s OK – we’ll help you figure that out too

Need to change your user name?  Head over to the Help Forum

Here are a few places you can find lots of info
Some places to look for guidance before you post here

Active Forums

Material Girls
Our virtual sewing circle — Post intros, how do I questions, pretty much anything here! This is the main event here at Sewing Mamas.

The Runway
Strut your stuff here! If you have sewn something, we’d LOVE to see it! Post a SnS (Sew and Show) for us all to ooohhh and ahhhh over! There is also the challenge Runway inside, for more challenging sewing.
NO spam of ANY kind allowed in here.

Mothers of Purl
A knitting forum for those interested or knit curious

Current Trends
Swap information, games, and contests. If you want to join a swap or contest, the rules and sign ups are in here.  You must be a paid sponsor to host a swap, and follow our swap guidelines.

Seamstress Boutique
Fabric for trade, sale or auction. Mama made goods are also welcome! Check the FAQ’s about trading and iTrader scores first.You must have 500 posts to sell here. Posts in the SB or the Testing forum do not count. To see this forum you need 10 posts. These cannot be from the Testing forum or SB

Only Sponsors may create a post, but anyone can reply. There is a group ISO thread where Members and Sponsors can both ask for and offer up items. Once a month we have a Second Saturday Yard Sale — From the second Saturday of the month through the following Wednesday. Anyone can post and reply, and may post sewing and non sewing items.

Limited forums
Open only to Sponsors for posting, but all members can read

Board Room
Participate in and discuss forum business.

Read only fourms
Podcasts, reviews, and Sewing FAQ’s are here. Moderators will move posts here as needed.

Closed forums
We have one private forum here, for the moderators, administrators and Team Sewing Mama members. It exists for us to hash out ideas and create timetables and assign chores to help our site run smoothly. There is no gossip or chatting of non members allowed. Those posts will be moved to the Material Girls forum.

If you wish to become a member of “Team Sewing Mamas” you need to be a Sponsor, and fill out an application. I open up applications every three months, so those who wish to may step down or apply for a new task here at Sewing Mamas.

Signature Lines (sig lines)
We ask that you stay under 400×400 px for pictures in your signature. To see how big your sig picture is, right click on it and click “properties”.

For sew and shows (SnS’s) you can have larger pictures. Lots of pictures in fact

Advertising your WAHM business? Please remember that banners in signatures are a benefit of sponsorship. If you are not a site sponsor, only clickable text to your shop is allowed.

When you post multiple times in a thread, get in the habit of turning your sig line off for your other posts. To do that, uncheck the “show your signature” box under the “submit reply” button.

What is a Sewing Mama Sponsor?
SewingMamas.com is a community run site that relies mostly on member donations and advertising to operate. A sponsor is a site member that has donated membership fees to help run our site.

As a paid sponsor, you will receive these benefits. Without sponsorship, there is no sewingmamas.com. But we wanted to add in a few perks for those who choose to sponsor the site.

• The good feeling of supporting other sewing mamas
• Free banner ads in your sig line when posting on our forums
• Voting and posting privileges in the “Board Room“
• Photo storage space in our Albums
  
• Custom logo and avatar settings
• Larger PM (Private Message) storage space (200 vs 100 messages)
• Can post new events in the calendar
• Custom title
• Add New Glossary Terms
• Upload free patterns to our Sewing Mama Pattern Database

Sponsor fees and donations directly fund the running of SewingMamas.com.

Sponsorship
is offered in three increments

three months for $9.00
six months for $15
one year for 24.00

At this time we only accept PayPal payments for sponsorship. It is not recourring so you need to look in your paid sponsorship folder in your Control Panel to find out when yours expires.
This donation is non refundable if you decide to leave before your sponsorship period is up.

A few tips.
We do not heavily moderate the board. We ask everyone be respectful and kind. We do disagree from time to time, but if you keep in mind this is a board about sewing you’ll find more common ground than disparate. I do not lock or delete threads unless they are truly outrageous — in the case of a troll, non family friendly posts or spam, pyramid schemes, or whatever I find can be truly harmful to the integrity of the site. Let’s keep it friendly. I do have the power to read PM’s but do not use it. Just be aware everything online is hackable and post accordingly.

If you find that 100 or 200 private messages are not enough, you can download the whole message box. Simply go to your Private Message folder and you’ll see the options down at the bottom right. I save mine to xml and I can read them any time, and I have a clean PM box

If a thread irritates you or rubs you the wrong way, you can ignore it. You can even put that thread on Ignore and you won’t even see it at all. When you click a thread, look under “Thread Tools” and choose Ignore Thread, and viola! No more thread for you to see.

You can add friends, or buddies in your control panel and you can also ignore people who irritate you for whatever reason. If you have a person on ‘ignore’ then they can’t pm you and you won’t see their posts.

You can also format any thread for printing also by going to Thread Tools and choosing that option.

SPAM

Spamming in the wrong forum will result in an infraction. Four infractions and you will get a free one month vacation from Sewing Mamas

Moderators
I would like to present our current list of moderators here at Sewing Mamas. They all have the ability to be helpful, and have really worked with me to create an awesome feeling on our site.
We’re going to have an upgrade later this week. After that upgrade the Boutique and Current Trends forums will have sponsor only posting access, and we’ll keep to the rules. See below for details.

NOT their duty
Referee disputes between members Enforce rules Deal with retalitory iTrader feedback. I’ll take care of it.

“Super” Moderators
These people have the power to change names, edit code and do html stuff. They have the power to move threads as needed, and help out with questions when we upgrade to the new ‘board’ look.

mc-squared
mom2a2z
nutmeg
sewmama_admin
(aka nutmeg LOL)

Team Sewing Mamas Mods.
They can move threads, merge threads. They can’t delete or edit posts, read ip addresses, passwords, private messages, etc. They are here to help you and me with the running of the site.
Ama_Anbhu
Mothers of Purl BugzNBean
Material Girls Cheryl
Current Trends Seamstress Boutique CrunchyClark
Mothers of Purl dehart
Current Trends evatgirl73
Current Trends fw221
Challenge Runway Material Girls grtlyblesd
Challenge Runway Sewing Mama Site Help Desk Starbuck’s Home Delivery Service just peachy
Challenge Runway JustImagine
The Runway Kori
Material Girls Seamstress Boutique littlehands
Sewing Mama Site Help Desk Current Trends lovebugsmama
Mothers of Purl Mabel
The Runway mc-squared
Sewing Mama Site Help Desk mom2a2z
The Filing Cabinet sewsew
Material Girls starkl
Current Trends
Seamstress Boutique Stephanie
Yard Sale!

Truffles
The Runway

Some have started already, all have been tossed around for months. I’m going to start keeping a closer eye on things this week, and after the upgrade tighten it up. Please read, so I don’t have to spend time fielding questions and moving threads.

Only Sponsors with 500 posts can create threads in the Boutique.

The Boutique is only for sewing, craft, wahm related items.

You can only see the Boutique if you have 10 posts or more.

Anyone may post an ISO in the group ISO thread, but all discussion must be kept to private messages.

A Boutique Mod will to create a new ISO thread for all every few days, as needed.

A Boutique Mod will also to move any non sewing items for sale or trade to the Yard Sale forum.

The Yard Sale will be open the Second Saturday of each month through the following Wednesday. Anything may be posted there for sale, trade, ffs, etc. Any member or sponsor with 500 posts can create posts at that time.

Only sponsors with 500 posts can create a thread in the Current Trends forum — in other words, they must be a paid sponsor to host a swap. Those who do not complete the swap will be given negative iTrader feedback. The swap coordinator is in charge of leaving the negative feedback.

Swap hosting — see a Swap Hostess FIRST

When showing on the Runway You may not link to an auction or for sale post with the item shown. These belong in the Boutique. I’ll delete links from your posts if I have to, but please don’t make me have to.

You may not show or post items for sale in the boutique that are for sale that are created with licensed characters. For example. If you create a Dora appliqué, or Cinderella stencil or embroidery that your digitized yourself and have it for sale, your post will be removed. Personal use for your family is fine. I have to cover myself here, I can’t deal with lawsuits. You CAN create anything using licensed character fabric, like Dora or Cinderella and sell it.

If you have concerns, I’m happy to hear them in the Help forum. I totally understand I can’t make everyone happy. Sometimes I make mistakes and get a great idea from someone here! I’m just a mom too, not a mind reader (shhhh don’t tell my girls LOL).

I’d rather find out from you that there is a problem directly from you than read it on another site or hear about it through the very alive sewing mama grapevine lol. EVERYTHING gets back to me eventually.  Sometimes I act on it, usually I don’t.   In most cases  it’s a simple problem of a miscommunication or you are just wrong LMAO

Thanks everyone!

Come on in and join the fun!

Nutmeg