Is sewing the new craze?

Over on MasonDixon today, Kay talked about a fancy new sewing book that a favorite blogger of hers wrote and just had published. Yay for people getting published!

I've seen a lot of cute little books about sewing little bags and things coming out lately, and a lot of knitters picking them up and beginning to sew things from them. Cool, more people sewing, that's good. What's bugging me is that these books are picking up the "hipster crafter" vibe all over again - you know, the annoying "Not your mother's ". Well, I've been sewing a looong time, much longer than I've been knitting seriously, and you know what? It is my mother's sewing. It's my mother's knitting, too. I don't make cute little totes, either, I do complicated period costumery, and believe me, as long as I've been sewing and as experienced and skilled as I am at it, I'm very much still the apprentice at it. Well, ok, maybe more like a journeyman - but by no means am I a master, and I probably never will be, just because I have neither the resources nor the interest to pursue it that deeply. I don't need to do the primary research on my chosen areas of interest - I'm happy to reap the fruits of other people's work. I sometimes feel like I'd like to be able to do more of the heavy-duty research, but I also know that I never will.

I could make cute little totes if I wanted to. But they're boring! Here's a few things that inspire me to sewing:

The Tudor Tailor: absolutely the bee's knees on making and wearing Tudor-era garments.
The Medieval Tailor's Assistant: fantastic instruction on making high medieval garments from the skin out.
Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd: I own this. Somewhere. Primary research at its most amazing.
This lady from my costuming forum. She gets paid to *do* the primary research!

I could go on and on, but I won't. I will try to have patience with all the knitters discovering the delights of sewing, much as I have patience with all the people discovering the delights of knitting. I think it will be much harder, though, since sewing is my foundation.