Tag Archives: Self-stitched September

The Lake... we may or may not make it this far this year.

So, the sewing is about to take a break as we head off for the yearly “vacation” back home. I love going home—it’s way more exciting to visit than it was when we lived there! And I miss my kids. Older daughter is turning 10 tomorrow; she sounds so grown up on the phone. House is almost clean, laundry’s mostly done, keys are with the housesitter. No empty house this year—we learned our lesson (and you don’t ever want to wake up at one in the morning while camping, with crappy cell coverage, to a dropped call trying to tell you your house an eight our drive away has just been robbed. Thank goodness for tenant insurance. Anyway).

So, the sewing is going to be a little light for a while, but I hope to hit up the thrift stores in my home town (which tend to be a little more exciting than my local Value Village) so hopefully I’ll trip over some cool fabric or patterns. And when I get back—it’s time to prep hardcore for Self Stitched September!

On that front, a little bit of planning.

I’ve done not too badly on the tops front, assuming any of them are still wearable by then (the cowl-necks out of that really thin knit are not holding up well). I still need:

• at least one more pair of jeans (two if I get ambitious; I think I have enough fabric for two)
• something warm. My hubby has been trying to get me into one of those convertible cardigans that are basically just a big rectangle with sleeves attached. Actually, he’s been trying to get me into anything that isn’t a slouchy hoodie. The storebought ones always have too-short sleeves, but obviously I can fix that if I’m making my own. There’s a tutorial out there but I’m too lazy right now to track it down and link it—sorry.
• more tops. I still need a long-sleeved shirt or two or three or five. I foresee more experiments with the Lydia pattern. Will need to find more good knits for that.
• And lastly (and maybe not something I’ll tackle in time for September)—in my efforts to make myself a winter coat, I’ve been neglecting something. You see, I’ve made it through the last five years or so without a real winter coat. I had a long, black wool, fall-weight coat that I just stuffed layers and layers underneath. Not ideal, but it worked, especially after moving here three years ago, as the winters are not exactly severe by Canadian standards. But, as of this spring that coat has been declared dead, so not only am I out a winter coat, I’m out my fall and spring coat, too. I do have a backup that works in a pinch, a gorgeous flowing tan jersey trench-type thing, but, in its stylishness, it HAS NO BUTTONS. I understand why. They’d totally wreck the flow of it. But it does limit its utillity a bit (which is, no doubt, why I found it for a song at the thrift store ten years ago, and why it’s remained in largely pristine condition while I’ve worn my way through any number of other long coats). So, once it gets too chilly for my jean jacket, there may well be a period of time where it’s not yet cold enough for my uber-winter-jacket (even assuming I have that finished in September, which is a big if). Obviously, I need to make a fall-weight coat. In my ideal world, this would be a Lady Grey Hudson’s Bay Blanket Coat.

Hudson's Bay Company Point Blankets

Perhaps a bit of backstory is in order. The Hudson’s Bay Company started out at a fur-trade company across the Canadian Northwest, however many hundreds of years ago now. They set up trading posts across much of Canada, trading the highly desirable furs trapped and hunted by First Nations people for a variety of European goods. Including the now-famous Hudson’s Bay point blankets, heavy pre-shrunk wool creations. The most famous are cream with four coloured stripes across one end, and of course the black points. My personal favourites are solid red, with a black stripe. These blankets were valued for many things, not the least of which was making coats; originally of course, only the blankets were sold/traded, and people made the coats themselves. More recently, as the HBC expanded into one of the largest department stores in Canada, they began to sell coats made from the blankets themselves. Fast forward to the late 1970s, when my parents were first married; my father bought my mother a Hudson’s Bay blanket coat (if you knew my parents, you would understand this says a lot about them). A full-length, black-and-red, wonderfully warm blanket coat. I imagine my mother wore it, although not overly much.

When I was 17 or 18, I discovered it. It was my first full-length coat, and the first time I ever felt like anything other than a blob during the winter months.

A crappy picture of a gorgeous coat

People on the street stopped me and told me I looked like a movie star. It was awesome. I wore it to death (I still feel bad for that), until the lining was ripped (I patched it), the armpits were pulled out, and the back was almost worn through from my backpacks. That’s it on the right—the only picture I seem to have of if (a terrible one of me, by the way, but the coat still holds its own, I think). You can, however, observe the too-short sleeves. Yes, even my favourite coat of all time had too-short sleeves.

Anyway, I would love to have another HBC blanket coat. And I would love to have a Lady Grey coat. So wouldn’t it be awesome to combine the two? (The bonus—the shorter Lady Grey coat presumably wouldn’t require quite as much fabric as a full length coat. Those blankets are EXPENSIVE!). The only worry I have is that the blanket might be a bit too heavy for the pattern; it’s heavier than a standard wool coating, that’s for sure.

I don’t know if this will happen in September, or even this fall. I still don’t even own the Lady Grey pattern (I am promising to reward myself with it when I finish two of my current three projects at work, but it’s not going well). I certainly don’t have a HBC blanket or two kicking around, and they are not cheap as material goes.

But man, it would be sweet, sweet, sweet.

Anyway, until  next post, au revoir!

I’m thinking about doing it.

Zoe of So, Zo announced Self-Stitched September a week or so ago. I discovered Me-Made-May halfway through last month and it seemed like a really cool challenge. I’m not ready for the full version—no way am I going to have enough self-made stuff by September to wear it exclusively—but I think I could maybe pull off the lite version of one self-made item per day. Especially if I get a couple more pairs of self-made jeans done by then. I can easily rotate the same two pairs of jeans almost indefinitely (and have done, on the several occasions where I only HAD two wearable pairs of jeans to my name… but maybe that’s more about me than you wanted to know), though it’s nice to have a few more for variety especially if I miss a laundry day. But if I had two pairs of full-length Jalies, I could wear those most days, swap in regular jeans with a self-made top every now and then, and the weather might still be amenable to the capris I just made (and haven’t able to wear yet as i’s been $%&%$$#$ COLD and raining here all week… at least no snow this week…) from time to time.  But anyway, let’s face it, my typical “everyday” wardrobe consists of 3 pairs of jeans in rotation and about 5-7 tops (plus grubbies/slub wear for the weekend). That’s not that much to come up with, is it?

So, to be ready for Self-Stitched September (also my birthday month… I could make myself clothes for a birthday present!), I would need to make:

Bottoms:

• 2 pairs of Jalie jeans: plain dark jeans, maybe one stovepipe leg pair and one boot cut (since I don’t have any non-trashed boot-cut jeans at the moment… how did I end up with nothing but skinnies? I don’t even like skinnies that much except under boots!).
• Ellen trousers? (I have been thinking of them for this grey wool. Though given I have only 3 yards perhaps a pencil skirt and a blazer would be better? Would I wear a pencil skirt? would I wear any skirt enough to justify making it for Self-Stitched September?) I haven’t had a pair of non-jeans other than camos in… decades. Like, since I stopped wearing the pink corduroy overalls. There was that one pair of black slacks I bought for the job interview that one time, but they were too short and I never wore them again. And yet, a presentable pair of dress-trousers would be a good thing to have, especially for conferences/job interviews (which I will, presumably, be facing at some point in the next few years). Palaeo is a pretty casual science, and I don’t feel like skirts are appropriate for an interview for a job that involves working with pneumatic tools and tromping through the dirt… but jeans are still not really it for a job interview)… so I’d like to have something.
• Skirts??? See above. I like skirts just fine. Especially if they’re ridiculously long or ridiculously short. Neither of which are particularly practical… so they sit in the closet. I try them on once or twice a year to gauge fit—I can track my figure variations by where a skirt is sitting on my hips at any given moment. There was a period early in my Master’s thesis where I was over-dressing and wearing the long ones a lot, and it was fun, but I don’t seem to have that momentum these days. And my desire to show off my undies with the really short ones has waned over the years (though I did wear to death that one with the under-shorts liner… maybe I should make more like that)

Tops (Have to think about these… I think I have enough JJ’s, though I wouldn’t mind a white variation, maybe with a neck bow, though I’m not 100% about these paired with my wide shoulders)

• 3 JJ blouses. Even just the ones I have would be enough to spell the Jalie jeans for a day or two, paired with RTW jeans)
• Something knit? All my tops are currently knits. I’m terrified of sewing with knits… and I never seem to find any good ones in good colours, so I never have any to practice on, so I never get over my fear. Maybe if I can get my serger functioning over the summer? The Lydia pattern at Burdastyle is only a dollar, though I have a feeling I could trace my own off an existing shirt without too much trouble… Or maybe the free Batwing pattern, though it’s not a style I’d normally wear.
• Sencha-style blouse? I’ve been musing over trying to draft a pattern like this myself the last few days. Not that I don’t want to support Colette Patterns but the Ceylon dress and the Beignet skirt and the Lady Grey coat are way higher up the list.  And the blouse I’m picturing is a bit different… no tucks, just some side bust darts (very plain, actually). It would have to be in a really luxuriously wonderful fabric, too, silk or a really nice rayon. And I’m not sure how it would work with the rest of my wardrobe, since these blouses (IMHO) look best tucked into a waistband at the waist (on people with itty bitty waists who look good in such things). It would go great (in my head) with a Beignet skirt though…
• Danielle dress? I was thinking about the dresses in my closet (trying to justify adding this one), and remembered a certain pattern. A large majority of my dresses are short, spaghetti-strapped, empire-waisted confections. At least one I’ve had since I was 15. Aside from the spaghetti straps, the Danielle dress fits in nicely… and the big plus about these dresses is that they go over jeans well for everyday wear. Well, some of them do. The sparkly grad/bridesmaid ones not so much. Anyway, if I could put a Danielle into regular rotation, it would be a lot more justifiable than just making it for my friend’s wedding reception… depends on my ability to conquer my Fear of the Zipper, I suppose (which is almost as great as my Fear of Knits)

On an unrelated, parental sewing triumph note, my younger daughter wore her vintage A-line dress/shirt to school again today, without me even suggesting it. Considering how picky she is with her clothes, this is a major triumph (she also wore it for spring picture day). The only downside of this little dress/top (it’s really too short to be a dress) is that it needs ironing. I iron LOTS when I sew—and very rarely for anything else. Also the square neckline is fraying a bit at the corners after washing; I clipped too close to the seam when turning it, I guess. I should ask my mom if she has any tips or tricks for square necklines.

Anyway, what was that tag again? Ah, yes, too much talk…

Ok, you’ve talked me into it.

‘I, Taran of Tanit-Isis Sews,, sign up as a participant of Self-Stitched-September. I endeavour to wear at least one handmade item of clothing every day for the duration of September 2010′.

Now off to apply for the flickr group…