Category Archives: Sewing

April 12, 2011 · 5:04 pm

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

The Cute, it burns!

As I contemplate the fact that I have hardly made any progress on, well, anything, in the last several days, it occurred to me that I never did a final post about the coat I made for my niece in January (like, after I put on buttons and hemmed it). So here you go—if you’re not into looking at an excessive number of photos of my seven-year-old, feel free to stop reading now.

As a quick recap, I (for better or for worse) came up with the idea that I would make some fun “winter” coats for my nieces (aged 4 and not-quite-3). Probably it had something to do with this sparkly black boiled wool being on sale at my local Fabricland… at any rate, when we dashed home at New Years I dragged (both!) my SILs to the fabric store and got some lush leopard-print fleece for the lining, and headed home with the aim of having at least this first coat completed by Niece #1’s birthday at the end of January.

McCall's 3374

And I did. And if I were a mature and responsible adult, I would’ve had it in the post for said niece to receive in a timely fashion.

Instead, I dicked around, forgot about it, and now winter’s pretty much done (despite its best efforts) and the coat is still hanging in my front closet. Erm. Well, she’ll have it for next winter, for sure. And I’d really like to give the two coats at the same time. Right. That’s it.

Despite the explosion of fun-fur on the pattern envelope, this is actually a really basic, classic A-line coat pattern, with nice collar,  hood, and cuff options. It’s not lined, but when has that ever stopped me?

I made the size 4 for my oldest niece, which as you can see Syo is modelling quite handily—it’s a bit snug but not problematically so—so I’m not too concerned about the recipient outgrowing it before next winter. I will make the size 3 for my younger niece, who is even runtier than Syo was at that age (I wasn’t sure that was possible, but apparently it is), and hope that she can wear it sometime before kindergarten.

And now, without further adieu: photos.

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April 10, 2011 · 4:57 pm

OMFG

Surveying the wreckage our children have made of the yard

I got pictures!

This shirt was finished at the end of February. And it’s taken me this long to wrangle him three steps out on the back deck to get something resembling decent pictures. Argh!

Anyhow. This was originally the muslin but (if you will recall), he was only willing to try it on for about three seconds and balked loudly at photos. But the fabric was nice—a flannelly old bedsheet—so I was able to convince him to let me finish it properly and photograph it. In theory. With promises of… well, I won’t go into that on a blog my mother reads.

So… the fit.

This is a “slim fitting” men’s shirt, with those interesting princess seams. I took the princess seams in each about 1/4″ around the waist (for a total 2″ reduction), since his actual waist is about 2″ less than the pattern’s waist measurement. This makes for a nice line that’s flattering without being overly tight.

Butterick 3364

I am actually squeeing a bit over how nicely the shoulders fit. No slope-shoulder adjustment required, apparently, which surprised me a bit since he’s plenty muscly in that area. Not going to complain, though.

I lengthened the sleeves by 2″. This was probably a bit much—I think 1″ would’ve been enough—but he, like me, is a bit ape-armed and thus prefers the overly-long sleeve to one that feels just not quite long enough.

Ma hunny!

I also omitted the pockets and collar roll, and just made the collar stand, as is his preference in shirts. The collar (stand) is in fact long enough to button up comfortably—I had to unpick the original and make a larger one—but between me buttoning up the shirt in the livingroom and getting him out to the deck he’d unbuttoned it.

A straight shot of the back to show the fit a bit better.

I wish I could say that this had become a go-to shirt, as I love the fit and how it looks on him. Unfortunately his main use of dress shirts is as comfy-lounging-around-the-house wear. The poet shirts I made him last summer are very well suited to this use, but a more fitted shirt like this is apparently a bit restrictive for such lounging.

I’m not sure when/if I’ll make another, not because I don’t love it, but if it’s going to be this much trouble to get a photo, AND he’s not going to wear the resulting shirt, well, my motivation is limited. I do have at least three fabrics in stash bought with a shirt for him in mind, though… I’ll have to think on it. One is a stretch linen, and I know he wears linen and the stretch might make it “comfy” enough to get some use.

Although when I tried to talk about the linen, he kept bringing up his lone, current, pretty-much-worn-to-death linen shirt, which has a camp collar and facing and back pleating pretty much identical to a short-sleeve Negroni.

So apparently I should’ve just made the Negroni.

I think I’ll go work on my springy coat now. Sewing for men seems to bring out my homicidal tendencies…

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April 9, 2011 · 9:41 pm

Itchy

What I Did Today

And twitchy. That inspired feeling where you want to madly do SOMETHING but aren’t sure where to put it. Which, considering I’m in the middle of a rather demanding sewalong, is ridiculous, but anyway.

Today, I fused.

And fused, and fused, and fused.

And then, when (almost) all of the fusing had been done, I cut my fashion fabric for the RTW tailoring sewalong. I am a good little sewist, yes I am. I’m still behind—I have to cut my lining, and I haven’t finished drafting my lining pattern yet (just need to do the pleat-less skirt lining). I should just do that, but I haven’t quite been able to bring myself to. Partly because the hubby and I spent half the afternoon nosing around a motorcycle repair/junkyard (I do love me an old, fugly motorcycle, even if I am far too chicken to ride one myself) and fantasizing about the near future when he will be able to ride his again. If it ever stops snowing, anyway. It snowed again yesterday. I swear if we don’t get a good, hot summer this year I’m going to run away to Australia. Argh.

Anyway, since I was feeling twitchy but unable to settle on what I should be doing (sewing-wise, anyway), I pulled out my new patterns. I was weak at VV the other day, and walked home with a couple of kids patterns (I know, what am I thinking?) and (yes, the End Times may be upon us) a home dec pattern.

An assortment of (mostly) unwise patterns.

For a kids’ stuffed chair.

I know, I know. Bear with me, though:

I have a house. (This is a fairly new thing for us). Said house has a finished basement, which is basically a large rec room in which the children run wild.

Despite having lived in this house for nearly two years, the only furniture in the basement is still the coffee table the TV is sitting on, one random (kitchen type) chair, and my ironing board. Well, unless you count the various plastic tubs the kids’ toys get shoved into at irregular intervals. We keep meaning to buy a futon, but haven’t found one we like (at least for a price we like), and so the usefulness of the space for anyone is kind of limited (although it’s excellent for banishing any number of visiting children to).

In addition to this un-furnished space, I have a lot of fabric scraps. Bags full. I’ve been thinking for a while that I should use them to stuff floor cushions. So when the chair pattern presented itself—well, I gave in. I’m pretty sure I have scraps for at least one chair already.

I’m not sure that squishy cushion chairs will actually make the basement more appealing to adults, but hopefully they’ll at least make the children more willing to watch movies down there (instead of, say, my bedroom).

I thought this Simplicity kids’ wardrobe pattern (bottom left) looked cute, too, and it was in sizes 8-16, which is a pretty nice range to give a try in the next few years.

Except that it’s not actually 8-16.

It’s 8 1/2 to 16 1/2

Man, I love these dresses...

Those would be, erm, robust sizes. My children, while not exactly string-beans, are really no wider than average relative to their heights. Heck, given the bust sizes on these patterns, I could fit a 12 1/2. If I were, y’know, 4″ 10″. (Which, given my success with the Junior Petite sizing, might actually not be that much of a stretch. And I wouldn’t have to do an SBA…)

Anyway, we’ll see; the kids are confident in my grading abilities; I am sceptical of my motivation. It’s still in its factory folds, too.

What I really want to make is hiding at the back.

Yes, my recent lovely addition to the “dresses I shouldn’t be sewing” list, another gorgeous 70s maxi-dress. I want to make the high-necked halter, and I will doubtless be seduced by the lure of the maxi-skirt even though the above-knee would be more practical. /sigh. I’m really going to have to make an effort to wear all these great dresses as the weather improves. And it will soon be joined by this pattern from Peter (squee!) So many dresses, so little time (and need!).

I did complete one (actually, two) finished objects today, though! Yes, Tyo and a friend need

Cave Girl

caveman (or cave girl, as the case may be) costumes for their spring choir concert. Fortunately for their theatrical aspirations, Value Village supplied a nice big piece of rather unglamorous fun-fur at just the right time, so I spent approximately half an hour with Tyo this afternoon figuring out the best way (or at least the way that meant the least amount of effort for me) to turn one very long rectangle of fur into two fur “dresses”.  So I got to photograph my very own Homo habilis. Although with that posture I’m not sure she’s even on the hominin lineage…

To prove that this actually is sewing (not just cutting and draping), there is actually one seam at the side. The shoulder is pinned together with sticks, pending production of some “bone” pins.

I really do prefer this picture, though:

 

Cave Girl Rock

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April 8, 2011 · 6:29 pm

Someone’s all that…

Babydoll

What an honour, to be present at the birth of a meme. Or, y’know, not.

The Beangirl, in her infinite wisdom, saw fit to make me one of the first victims, I mean recipients, of her brand-spanking-new blog award, the humbly titled “I Am All That” award. I think I’m running a bit low on the trivia, but fortunately, Beangirl also supplied five handy questions:

1) What size shoe do you wear?  If you wear a size 7, can I borrow your shoes?

2) 30’s or 60’s?

3)  Have you ever kissed someone you shouldn’t have?

4) Have you ever been poisoned?  Was it by the girlfriend of the person you kissed??  That isawesomely “Knot’s Landing”.

5) Who’s on your “Celebrity Free Pass” list (top 5)?

She also claimed you should pass it on to six people, and link back to the person who gave it to you.

So beginning with answers…

  1. 7.5, shading to 8… but if I fail to break in the size 7 biker/cowboy boots I got last month, you can have them. Well, no you can’t, they were freakin’ expensive… sorry.
  2. 60s, I guess (is she talking about decades? Why would anyone choose 30s? My grandma’s main recollection of the 30s is that they were proud they always had something on their bread for lunch at school (even if it was just lard), unlike many kids who just got bread for lunch—if that.) Also women’s lib, civil rights, and birth control are just a few of my favourite things that were around in the 60s but generally lacking in the 30s.
  3. Yes. Most recently my husband.
  4. No. Although the fallout can definitely be “interesting”… (what the heck is Knot’s Landing?)
  5. Hmm, technically I’m morally opposed to entertaining crushes on people I’ve never met and don’t actually know. That being said, I’ve had a real soft spot for Adrienne Brodie since King Kong, that has lasted right through Predators. Hayden Christensen was pretty adorable in some of his earlier work, too (albeit in an “aww, I want to drag him home and lock him in my basement” kinda way) but I haven’t quite forgiven him for Annakin yet. I’ll throw Hugh Laurie in there, too. Hmm, and I’ll round it out with Michelle Rodriguez, because she  just rocks my world, even if her character almost always ends up getting killed.

Now for the hard part, choosing five recipients. This sucks the most because I hate leaving people out. But, randomly and without thinking too hard about it, I nominate:

  1. Sherry of Pattern, Scissors, Cloth
  2. Kristin of Quiet and Small Adventures
  3. Don of Urbandon
  4. Patty the Snug Bug
  5. Ali of the Wardrobe, Reimagined
  6. K-Line

And if any of the rest of you want to play please do, because I would be glad to pick all of you! (Also, this is a brand-new meme, so almost nobody’s got it yet! Of course then there’s that wrenching “what if nobody plays?” dread…)

As to the photo at the top, I had to dig it out merely because Patty was talking up that 90s staple, the babydoll dress, and, well, memories came welling to the surface. That particular photo is from about 1996, but I hung on to that dress until well after Tyo was born. /sigh.  As to why I look so solemn, well, if I’d smiled you would’ve seen my braces ;).

(Incidentally, I was modelling hair for my hair stylist to enter in some provincial competition. We did not win.)

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April 6, 2011 · 5:19 pm

Confection

Lacy dress!

I do truly, truly love how quick knits can be to sew up (especially when I’m floundering for a blog post 😉 ). I made up the pattern for this after supper last night and had the entire thing cut out and stitched up before bedtime. Yay!

Last week when I asked about ideas for my lace, there were lots and lots of very good thoughts, including another one of my 70s maxi-dresses (which would’ve been divine) or a top-and-skirt combo (and some links to some really neat skirts, too…) but the t-shirt dress, a la Carolyn, seemed to win out overall, and, most importantly, to me.

So I made one.

Pattern adjustments

Patty made an interesting point on her awesome skirt post that self-made patterns can be frustrating to read about since you can’t go out, pick up the pattern, and make it yourself. I get what she’s saying—but not enough to give up making up my own patterns, which is SO MUCH FUN (regardless whether I know what I’m doing or not.) So as a compromise, I figure I’ll mention a bit more about what exact changes to my basic pattern I made. (This is also good because then I’ll remember them for next time when I lose the pattern pieces)

As with the great cowl adventure, this all began with my trusty “knit top sloper”, the pattern formerly known as Lydia. The changes this time were minimal—I made a square neckline (just by squaring off the corner of my usual scoop-neck) and lengthened the bottom; I just followed the angle of the hip of the sloper on down and out, which created a slightly A-line skirt. For length, I picked 20″ below the waist (I have a waist line marked on the sloper for just such purposes, although I was too lazy to include it in the diagram, sorry) as a nice, above-the-knee-but-not-dangerously-short length. (I feel like I should add that I have nothing against micro-minis per se, it’s just that sad experience has taught me that if a skirt is short enough that I spend a considerable amount of time worrying about who I’m flashing while I’m wearing it, I will end up just not wearing it. Sad but true. My micro-mini skorts, on the other hand, get worn to death)

Lacy Dress---Side

For the sleeve, I eyeballed a “nice, just above-elbow” length, which turned out to be about 18cm below the armpit. I added quarter-inch seam allowances, and proceeded to (ulp!) cut my fabric.

I think it’s worth mentioning a couple of things about the fabric. You all met the lace, a gorgeous bargain-bin find, last week, of course. What I didn’t mention is that one of the reasons I hadn’t done anything with it yet (other than the weather) was that I didn’t have the right underlay. So last week, aside from juggling children, schoolwork, and ER visits (no lasting harm done), one of my goals was to acquire said fabric. It had to be smooth, stretchy, not to heavy, and set of my lace. Syo and I wandered high and low through Fabricland draping my lace over every solid-coloured knit. We started in the bargain centre, but of course what I settled on in the end was a much pricier cotton-lycra blend, setting me back roughly $10/m. Not humongously expensive (especially compared to the bamboo knits or some of the other nice athletic solids), but considering this is going underneath a $2.50/m fabric… yeah. Well. Anyway, I bit the bullet, and I have to say I love the fabric—its feel, stretch, recovery—more than enough to pay that much again. After much hemming and hawing, I picked a bright white, too, rather than an ivory or cream colour—I like how it brightens the overlying lace.

Lacy Dress---Front

So, I had both my fabrics. I cut the bodice front and back out of both, but the sleeves only out of the lace.

Now, stretch is always the wildcard when it comes to knits. Depending on the fabric, my knit sloper can produce garments that are either tent-like or alarmingly form-fitting. I wanted the lace dress to be form-skimming rather than sausage-skin-like, so I had checked its stretch, in a very rough and ready way, by marking a length of the fabric equivalent to the bodice front across the bust and then stretching this on me to see how snug it was. If it was too tight I was planning to add a bit of extra ease to the bodice, but it seemed all right—yay!

I did not perform said test with the underlay, choosing to hope that it would be, at least, no more droopy, and hopefully just a bit more snug.

For once, the sewing gods were not vengeful, and that seems to have been the case. In another interesting observation of knit/stretch, I meant to trim the underlay shorter (since you wouldn’t want it hanging out from beneath the scalloped edge) but totally forgot. Once assembled, however, the lace naturally stretched to an inch or more below the underlay bottom edge—perfect!

Lacy Dress---Back

Construction wise, I pondered a bit. I knew I wanted it attached at neckline, shoulders, and arms, but I figured I wanted the side-seams of the dress to move separately. This took a bit of mental gymnastics, and some fudging, as I basically followed my usual construction order (one shoulder, bind neckline, other shoulder, set sleeves flat, sew underarm and side-seams in one pass, except it was two passes this time.), but mostly has worked out.

Now, in fairness, all is not perfect. There are any number of oddly-pulled areas, around the hem, side-seams, and shoulders; my neckline didn’t come out perfectly symmetrical (boo!), the lace tends to droop in one spot, which I can relate directly to the ends of the fabric piece being more stretched out than the middle when I was cutting. For the most part I’m not going to sweat them until I wash the whole thing at least once. I was at a loss as to how to properly bind a square neckline in a knit (google mostly pulled up stuff featuring woven bias binding, not at all what I was looking for), and the V-neck methods I was hitting on all seemed to have a much wider band than I wanted. I did toy with trying to use the scalloped edge on the neckline, but the scallop seemed a little big and floppy. So in the end I just bound it with a strip of the lace and a bit of clear elastic. As I’ve been doing with my more floppy knits lately, it seemed easier to just turn the entire band to the inside and topstitch… In the end this worked all right, although the corners aren’t crisply square any more. Meh. I was hoping to skip out on hemming the lining fabric, but it’s one of those knits that rolls like crazy so I will probably have to :P.

On the whole, I’m not bothered, though, because I have a great lace T-shirt dress!

And, even better, I still have over a metre of my lace fabric left… what to do, people, what to do?

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April 4, 2011 · 5:23 pm

Accessorial

Accessory after the fact?

In the interest of having something to talk about other than pattern twiddling (almost there… I think…) and tiny pleating samples, I thought I’d muse for a minute or two on something that came up a bit in the comments of my last post.

Accessories.

Yes, I know, this includes a fairly large chunk of things I can’t sew, so really has no place here, but bear with me, I just spent two hours trying to figure out how to rotate an undersleeve. (Thank you, Sherry, for responding to my piteous pleas… 😉 ). So, accessories.

I was a bit surprised to get compliments on my shoes and belts, of all things, since I generally think I’m… not rubbish at accessorizing, exactly, but I tend not to think about it much. I have a few go-to pieces that I use a LOT (like my belts) and then there’s the really costumy stuff (like the spiked belt in the foreground up there) that only comes out for special occasions. Which are few and far between these days, frankly. (Ok, I did wear the belt with the big spikes a lot at first, but it’s gradually shedding spikes so now I save it…)

I know a lot of people (*cough my mother cough*) who can do amazing things with accessories. Scarves, necklaces, bracelets, rings, hats, shoes—all can put an outfit from boring to chic, or from chic to out of the ballpark. But most often I don’t even think of them. I do up my game a bit for photo shoots (shocker) especially since I don’t need to limit my footwear to what’s weather-appropriate that I can put up with on my feet for eight hours. My usual accessorizing is a pair of big dangly earrings and maybe (maybe, maybe) a necklace. Once in a blue moon, a bracelet. The one big thing I really never, ever got a hang of is scarves (for decorative, rather than functional purposes… when it comes to wrapping up your face, I’m a champion scarf-wearer). My mom does amazing things with them. I just feel fake and showy.

The jewelry box

I have a mixed relationship with hats. Obviously they’re necessary for winter—I have a red velvet, vaguely turban-esque hat that I wear in the winter that is my “hat that makes winter worthwhile”, and it does admirably except that it’s not warm enough for the truly cold weather, so when it gets really grim I wear a toque, or my hoodie hood, underneath it. Not the best look, but fashion suffers all around when it comes to the deep minuses. Anyway, I like hats. I look good in them. But they don’t work well with my short, spiky hair. And since it’s very unlikely that I won’t want to take my hat off at some point, I never wear them. Sad, I know.

I am a big fan of the huge, dangly earrings. Unlike hats, they do go well with the short spiky hair. Although I do find my ears getting a bit sensitive now that I’m older (I fear the days of shoving a safety pin through the hole and calling it good are gone) so I don’t wear them every day.

Necklaces I’m fine with as long as they’re short, I prefer chokers or just a little bit longer… but I don’t really think of them for everyday. Same with bracelets, although these tend to annoy me, and don’t play well with long sleeves (or at least I don’t know how to make them play well)

A lot of my pieces in the shot above are, you may have noticed, a wee bit costumy? Most of it was bought with belly dance in mind, even the stuff that didn’t end up being quite over-the-top enough. Once in a while there’s a regular outfit or occasion where I get to break out this “good stuff”, but it’s rare. Too bad, really. I love these pieces. They may technically be costume jewelry—no precious metals or genuine jewels here—but they warm my heart.

What’s your favourite accessory? Are you using your accessories to the best of your ability? And most importantly—what am I missing out on?

Sample pleats. Interfaced version on right.

Now, so it’s not a completely sewing-free post, I’ll show you my sample cuff-pleats. After my musing the other day, I thought that I might try and just line my cuffs with lining fabric rather than fashion fabric, to reduce bulk. And I’m happy to say, I think this approach will work. The sample on the left has no interfacing, the sample on the right has, and really I don’t see any difference at all between the two of them once pressed. For each sample pleat I edgestitched one folded side but left the other (you should be able to see the difference if you click through to the full-size photo)… I will edgestitch the inner folds, but I’m kinda leaning towards leaving the outer folds alone. Thoughts?

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April 2, 2011 · 8:10 pm

Autopsy

A springy little pattern

So aside from Saturday’s various obligatory activities (cleaning, yelling at children, pouting at the 20-30cm of snow (that’s 8 to 12 inches) that’s already fallen today, and it’s coming down steadily), all I’ve been doing is messing around with paper as per the various instructions on the RTW tailoring sewalong (wowza, I think my brain broke—on the plus side Sherry’s walking us through making facing pieces etc. which is good for me since I don’t have any drafted yet!). While fun, this is not particularly scenic to share. Oh, and I lengthened the bodice front of my muslin, which will hopefully make up for the unevenness of the skirt.

Interfacing trials

I also trialled a couple of different interfacings on my fabric—I can’t say that I really noticed a difference between the two, although the fusing might be slightly better on the knit (right). I am a little concerned that either is going to be too thick for my pleated cuffs. Will the world end if I don’t interface my cuffs? My fabric itself is pretty beefy to begin with…

Out of curiosity (this is thrift store fabric, remember) I also tried my first burn test. The fibre doesn’t stay lit, melts into a smooth bead that’s either black or neutral depending on how much soot gets in it, and smells like plastic when it’s burning. I’m not sure exactly what that makes it (maybe polyester), but definitely man-made. Which is about what I thought.

I’m alternating between being overwhelmed by all the details to do for the sewalong and being impatient to get cutting fabric. Which probably means Sherry’s pace is just right ;). Especially since the kids will be done their spring break and I’ll be “fully recovered” on Monday, which means no more slacking from my real-life stuff…

 

Me-Made-March: the Autopsy

(Or, more than you really want to hear about my wardrobe for the last month…) I mentioned my big me-made lessons for the month yesterday, so I won’t belabour them much. Much greater selection of clothing this time, less helpful weather, crappy photos, yadda yadda…

A possible favourite, day 31

I was hoping to go through and pick my fave outfit (or five) but I’m really having a hard time. Obviously there’s the “dressed up” days, when I wore outfits that feel just dang costumey. Not bad, but definitely out there. Those would be day 3, day 12, day 15, maybe day 26, and, of course, day 31. Of these, day 15 (the “Ceylon suit” as I tend to think of it) and day 31 are probably my faves, but there’s nothing wrong with the others. Incidentally, I always feel a bit awkward wearing the pouffy circle skirts, and it’s not because they feel costumey. Rather, I feel a bit rude and obtrusive, as if I’m taking up too much space with that big skirt, especially if I wear one on the train or to the grocery store or a crowded waiting room. Weird, no? Come to that, I kinda feel the same way when driving a mini-van.

The rest of the month I would call “regular” days—my usual uniform of pants and a top. Mostly jeans; the skinny cargoes and the skinny jeans got the heaviest rotation, but the silver-topstitched jeans are still probably my favourite, even though they’re getting pretty ratty (pockets shredded, topstitching failing, and now a small hole at the crotch seam). I’m glad I got to haul out my first attempt at the Ellen pants, which I initially wasn’t sure would ever get worn, but apparently I’m a lot more into white pants in March than in October. My fave top of the month probably wound up being the fluttery cowl, despite my initial dislike for the flutter sleeves, although I’m still quite enamoured of my Stegosaurus top and the blue raglan top. Not sure why, since they both photograph as BORING, but something about that thick, slightly scratchy knit just feels substantial and cosy. And much as I was trying to feel spring this month, I needed cozy.

Which brings me to my big me-made fail: toppers.

A me-made topper.

This would be that nebulous category that includes sweaters, hoodies, bunnyhugs, shrugs, cardigans… the stuff worn over your shirt to keep me warm. At this stage I have three me-made toppers, which you’d think would be adequate… the Kimono Lady Grey, the Simplicity Cardi-wrap, and the 50s shrug. I did wear the KLG several times, but a) it completely hides the shirt underneath, which makes me sad if it’s a cool shirt, and b) is so distinctive I don’t like to wear it that often (well, except for the first month after I made it when I wore it every day). I wore the shrug once, and the cardi-wrap not at all (although I did wear it yesterday just to prove something to myself, I guess). The shrug would get more use but for two things: 1) it’s not really warm enough, and 2) I don’t quite like the fit. I need to tweak the pattern a bit—narrow the neck, shorten the whole thing, maybe shorten the sleeves a tad as well, and narrow the waist. It’s a bit big, and even the original shrug was a bit too long in the back—it would probably be cropped on someone with a normal torso, but on me it reaches my waist, which is not the best look. It’s comfy and I do like it with a bright-coloured top, though. The cardi-wrap… well, again there’s two problems. The first is that I snipped a hole in it accidentally back in November. Although it’s usually hidden in the folds of the drape, it still annoys me when I notice it. I should stitch it up and call that good, I guess. Then there’s the colour. Not that I don’t love it. But it doesn’t coordinate at all well with the “springy” colours I’ve been sewing lately, I’m bored as hell of my basic black tops, and I don’t like the red-on-red look. Maybe I just need to be more bold and creative in my colour combos, I don’t know… So the upshot is that time and again, despite these options, I retreated to my lone, boring, black, workhorse RTW hoodie. I guess the moral of the story is that I’m still not quite sure what I’m looking for in a topper, so it’s hard to know in advance what I want. Although I need to try to remember pockets. Pockets are very, very good.

Some other things that didn’t get worn:

the Kasia skirt. Partly the weather wasn’t overly condusive to skirts, but also me and pencil skirts don’t get along terribly well. Everytime I wear this I rip the back seam up about three inches, which then needs to be repaired and re-topstitched. Meh.

A lot of my knit tops. Some of these I love to bits, and some I’m just not overly thrilled about, and it’s hard to predict before hand which will be which. A lot depends on the fabric—not just how it fits initially, but how it launders later on. Also I’m always more excited about my newer tops than my older ones. Hmm. Have to think about that…

Two of my JJs. Although I did wear the other two once each, so I guess that’s something. Not sure why, except that they feel more summery, and I wasn’t desperate enough to do a whole lot of layering-over-a-long-sleeve-top this time around.

Fun!

Anyway, I am happy about the days that I did get to wear exciting outfits, and even some of the days where I didn’t—there’s something very satisfying about even my more unglamorous days, as long as it’s a garment with construction that feels solid and satisfying. Which isn’t all my pieces by any stretch ;).

I think I’ll stop boring you with my wardrobe details now… I can’t imagine they’re of great interest to anyone else.

I am a bit torn about one thing—what I am “aspiring” to in my wardrobe. The people whose style I most admire—who are most amazing every day in their outfits, are, I’ve noticed, the ones who’ve purged the ordinary from their wardrobes. All they have is nifty—so their outfits are, by necessity, nifty. And I love the idea of that. But how does that mesh with banging off another round-necked, long-sleeved top, or another pair of jeans (even if they do have a nifty topstitched pleat in the back)? While I love wearing the odd circle-skirt or 70s dress, I don’t really want that to be all I wear.

 

Oh, I know. I have to leave you with a shot of my back yard. Because some things are too depressing not to share.

April 2nd, people. And what’s worse, at this time yesterday less than half the back yard had snow on it.

Somebody pinch me, this must be a nightmare, right?

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April 1, 2011 · 9:35 pm

Springy Little Coat—Muslin edition

Hip hip hooray for the RTW sewalong kicking off! … once I got over the shock of realizing (silly me) that it was starting a day earlier than I had thought, on acount of being run from the future, aka the other side of the International Date Line.

Those of you on flickr may have seen this image a couple of days ago, but I thought I’d share it here for (I hope) a wider audience. (No hope of taking outside photos today, it’s dreary and with the winter storm warning in effect it’s not a matter of if we get snow, but when)

Coat skirt muslin

This is a muslin for (most) of my Springy Little Coat. And overall, I think it looks pretty good, although I must admit, at this stage it looks remarkably similar to this. Perhaps I could’ve saved myself some pattern-drafting time and just swiped the skirt panels from the dress? Ah, well.

That aside, the skirt hem is pretty level, the width is nice, the pleats seem to fall relatively as-they-should. I think I want it a wee bit shorter (say, two inches), but that’s why we make the muslin. I was quite chipper.

Then, yesterday, I was looking at my pattern pieces, and I realized… my front skirt piece is more than an inch longer than my rear skirt piece.

This is disturbing on two levels. Not that I would manage to measure them the wrong length—I know that kind of drafting sloppiness is well within my capabilities, and I hate walking seams so I’m not surprised I didn’t catch it, either. No, what have me flummoxed are 1) how I actually managed to sew those dissimilar lengths together and have them match up perfectly (with no visible puckering, although obviously a crapload of bias easing was involved), and 2) oh crap, that means that my skirt front probably does need to be longer than the back… at least at the CF. Which makes sense since I know by under-bust seam isn’t perfectly level—it runs straight around my body, but straight around my body is at an angle to the ground, as my entire rib-cage is tilted—part and parcel of that weird postural thing called a swayback.

So I should really probably modify my skirt lengths to reflect the uneven waist—basically what I did here by accident, but on purpose, with pattern pieces that actually match up. /sigh.

In (final) MMM news,

Cowly Jacket and 70s Dress!

At long last, I managed to wear this combo yesterday, for the last day of Me-Made March. Hooray! I’ve been waiting for the weather to warm up enough for a decent photo of this combination ever since I finished the jacket. Yay! Of course, my backdrops can’t quite compete with Debi’s, but, well, that’s life. There’s a few east-coast places that can compete with Europe for architecture, but nothing this far west. And miracle of miracles, the outside photos seem to have finally captured the fact that this dress is purple, not black! 😉

I’ve actually worn this dress three times this month, which is pretty unusual considering the weather and the dressness of it all. Yesterday, for a plus, I wasn’t even staying home all day—I had to drop the car off at the shop, pick up the rental, and then, as it turned out, pick the hubster up at work and drive him to the ER since the silly boy put something heavy and metallic through his finger and needed a number of stitches.

I may do a MMM-wrap up post later in the weekend (depending on how much real sewing I get done 😉 ), but for now just a couple of thoughts.

  1. It was a lot easier than SSS, in terms of variety of items (especially pants!)
  2. I still wound up wearing my RTW hoodie… I guess I should break down and make a me-made version. More warm things!
  3. But they need to be in neutral colours—I don’t think I wore my red cardi-wrap once, not so much because of the hole I accidentally snipped in it back in November (although that didn’t help), but because it doesn’t go with any of my new, springy-coloured shirts. And I am thoroughly bored of my black knit tops by now…
  4. my photography this month was not great—worse than last time 😦
  5. I am a little relieved to get back to not-quite-posting-every-day. Much as I love it, it’s a bit much to maintain with everything else in life.

I’ll go into what I didn’t wear, and why, a bit more comprehensively later. For now, I just want to toss this out there, with maybe a link to the full flickr set of Me-Made March (missing, I think, only one day)

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March 31, 2011 · 6:23 am

The Lace Conundrum

The lace in question

A while back, I posted a teaser comment on Carolyn’s blog saying I had a question for her about lace. And then I got distracted. But finally, here it is, and I’d love to hear opinions from all of you—I singled Carolyn out merely because, as we all know, she’s the queen of using lace without it looking frilly or juvenile.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with lace. I am not (certain evidence to the contrary) the frilliest person in the world. And while I like the idea of lace (I am, after all, a sucker for texture and lace is pretty much texture distilled), I often am underwhelmed by the actual trims and fabrics available.

That being said, when I found this 4-way stretch (or is it 2-way stretch? Can someone with an industry background school me in the correct usage?) lace in the bargain bin at the Fabricland in my hometown at new years, I had to snaffle it up. (I think it was $1.50/m). The colours are perfect, it’s got the depth of texture I love—I love everything about it. I scooped up everything that was left on the bolt, just under 3m, although it’s only about 90cm (41″) wide. And now that spring is edging around the corner (it’s supposed to actually rain!), I’m itching to use it.

I just don’t know for what.

It’s got that great scalloped edge along both sides, which clamours to be worked into the hem of a skirt, but I don’t do dirndls particularly well. I’ve thought of a form-skimming t-shirt dress, sort of like this one Carolyn made her daughter. But is this really the best use of the lovely drape this has?

Help me out, people! What would you do with this?

UPDATE: WTF, it’s snowing again?!?

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March 30, 2011 · 10:34 am

Sticks and stones may break my bones…

But internet views will never hurt me.

Ok, I think this is my first official bandwagon post—you know, when a topic takes blogland by storm and for a week or so everyone’s covering the same theme? Well, in last couple of days the Sewaholic and the Slapdash Sewist, among others, have covered that ever-present internet boogie-man (bogey-man? 😉 ), the creepy-picture-viewer. And, well, aside from opening my big mouth in various comments, I guess I’m feeling the need to throw my opinion out there “officially”.

In short form, my opinion is this: I refuse to let the existence of pervs out there control my behaviour, whether in real life or on the internet.

To expound a bit, any time we put any bit of our life out there—by posting on the internet, or even by leaving our houses—we are exposing some aspect of ourselves to other people, some of whom may, in fact, be thinking things that would, if we knew it, make us uncomfortable.

This tends to come up in the context of Flickr, where (unlike our regular blog posts) we

may actually find out if a creep is perusing our photos, typically when said creep favourites them. Doubtless the exact same thing is happening with our regular blog photos on the hardrives of pervs (or just horny young men) around the world, but since we have no way of knowing that, we can remain blissfully ignorant.

My central thesis, I guess, is that while I have no control at all over what the creeps of the internet do, I do have control over my own actions. In this case, over whether (and what) photos I will post, but also in how I choose to react to the fact that the nasties are, in fact, out there. I wrestled with this a lot when I was first creating online personas—I even toyed with the notion, at the beginning of this blog, of keeping it head-free. That lasted all of about three posts.

Because here’s the thing. What they are doing doesn’t affect me unless I let it. Like a kid calling you a name in grade school, it only hurts if you allow that person to have some power over you. Even less so, because most of these creepies I will never even know about. And I would much rather create an open, authentic blog, that shares my life—the sewing parts of it, anyway—honestly. Because I value the connection I have with you, my readers, the ones who participate, comment, and put up your own blog posts in turn—far more than I dread the occasional creep using my photos for his own personal gratification. None of the photos on this blog are anything I would hesitate to own up to in real life—even my vagueness about my name and location have more to do with fending off google searches from my regular “career” than a desire to keep you guys in the dark. Nothing here is an embarrassment to me. (Well, except perhaps some of those sewing disasters…). I want my blog to have the features that I look for in other blogs, and openness, honesty, and, yes, faces, are some of the things I look for.

Actual "creep-favourited" photo

This is not to say I don’t take basic precautions. My comments are moderated (though I don’t think I’ve ever had a really nasty one, just spammers),  I keep tabs on my flickr stream (and always have) and don’t hesitate to block the odd creep. I like how nice and safe and friendly the sewing-blogland is, and I certainly want my content to reflect this. Because that’s what’s real, in that that’s what forms my experience. The phantoms of nastiness may exist, but they don’t form part of the regular give and take that is the blog community. And as long as what I’m posting is content I’m happy to own, what someone else might do with it is something I’m not going to waste my time worrying about. I have sewing to do, damn it!

(Naturally, your mileage may vary, just as your tolerance for that kid calling you names in third grade may have been different than mine. Everyone should, of course, take the route that makes them comfortable—much as I enjoy reading others’ blogs, the fact is that blogs are ultimately by and for the writers, and you need to do what’s right for you and permits you peace of mind.)

Cuff mock-up

Speaking of sewing, I did manage to make a mock-up of the inverted-box-pleat cuff for my springy coat. And I think I’m happy with it. I’m thinking I will edgestitch the pleats to keep them sharp, although not in a contrasting colour in the final project (but the red was still in my machine from the jean jacket).

A better view of the pleat.

In Me-Made March news,

MMM day 30

gee, where have you seen these items before? I keep planning to wear something fancy, and then wimping out. I’ll doll up tomorrow, I promise…

Cowl top
skinny jeans

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