Tag Archives: too much talk

April 27, 2011 · 5:13 pm

That horrible sinking feeling…

Simplicity 6023

You know, where you start sewing something together and it’s just not quite right. Your fabric isn’t behaving the way you envisioned. You mess up a seam and don’t notice until it’s graded. You begin to suspect that your arbitrary alterations weren’t the right ones after all…

Erm, I’m not the only one who gets this way, right?

I have gotten the front bodice constructed for Simplicity 6023. After experimenting with knit interfacing, I decided to use an extra layer of the black linen (actually a linen-cotton-lycra blend, really quite yummy) for interfacing instead. And I decided I would make piping (from one of my scant scraps of the plaid) to edge the neckline and cuffs. Then I sewed the three layers of the front yoke piece together (one half, anyway), notched, graded, and realized that I had forgotten the piping. Rrrripit. Add in the piping. Flip around, and realize that the linen is quite a bit sturdier than the plaid fabric and really doesn’t need the extra layer for interfacing.

Use the pinking shears to remove as much of that extra layer from the middle as I can, because I’m way too half-assed to unpick again.

Manage to trim the piping too much at the corner, so it’s fraying a bit when clipped.

Fuck it.

Anyway, it looks cute. I have a sinking feeling I should’ve raised the armscye without raising the neckline, and shortened the bodice lower down. Or perhaps left it, as it’s designed to hit above the natural waist (which probably means it would hit right at my waist).

Argh.

Probably, it will all be fine. I like piping. I like plaid. I have a great excuse for not even trying to match my plaids. The black detailing looks pretty sharp. The neckline may be higher than I wanted, but that’s hardly the end of the world. At least I’m pretty sure this one will be large enough (if not a bit too large, given the stretch in both my fabrics)

After all this self-drafted stuff with seam allowances of 1cm or less, the 1.5 (5/8″) regular seam allowance seems positively excessive. Especially in nice, minimally fraying fabrics like these.

Springy coat---now with shoulder pad!

On the subject of the Springy Coat (may I just say that working on two projects at once, when you only have one sewing machine, is REALLY ANNOYING? I have spent way too much time re-threading in the last three days) I put my shoulder-pads and sleeve heads/wadding in as per the latest installment of the RTW, and am HAPPY. I love how it just ups the look that little bit. It was kinda a pain since I’ve already (contra the sewalong) stitched my lining to my facings (I did this before sewing the facing on to the main coat, as I didn’t think I’d be capable of getting the piping right while wrestling the whole coat), but I managed. I will take a moment to note my jealousy that Steph has already finished her jacket.

New Coating

Oh, and while I was at Fabricland picking up the black linen, this coating followed me home. I’ve been keeping an eye out for something with a good drape for Simplicity 8613. I was thinking either cream (I know, I’m making an off-white coat right now) or blue or coral, and this combined two out of three.

I think a fabric diet is in order. I seem to binge every few months, and then fast for a while, but I’m not getting stuff sewn at quite the rate that I’m buying. I’m not anti-stash, mind you—I especially like to have on hand various “basic” fabrics, like denim, plain-coloured knits, lining—but I also don’t want it to get out of hand.

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April 26, 2011 · 9:13 am

Jonesing

Springy coat---now with collar!

So yesterday I took the opportunity afforded by my kids’ last day off school to sew shamelessly. I caught up on the RTW Tailoring sewalong. I washed most of my new finds. I played with my buttonholer, and I traced out Simplicity 6023.

Springy Coat---cuff

It is by dint of great restraint that I am not showing you full, modeled shots of my springy coat, as I am loving it. But I am determined to retain some elements of surprise, so you will have to subsist on teasers for the moment. The sleeves went in well, although my princess seams don’t line up with the sleeve seams as well as I’d hoped (sniffle). There was a bit more ease to the sleeve cap than I might have liked, although it wasn’t a problem with this particular fabric. Denim would be another story, I’m sure. I love my buttons, too. I forgot to add a hanging-loop and my label before sewing in the facing, maybe I will just have to do that by hand…

The buttonholer is fun to play with. I sat down and read through the manual. I oiled in the spots that said “oil”. I twiddled with the adjustment knob until I figured out how to crank the template around (not without some moments where I was convinced it was broken and/or seized. But, with much reference to the manual and a little bit of blind faith—it works! Gorgeously.

Buttonholes

Now I want more templates. 😉 The keyhole template is 1 1/4″ long and I stitched it at the widest available width. The little tiny buttonhole on the right is 1cm long (the smallest template that came with) and stitched on the narrowest option. Both of these are stitched along the seam of a scrap of denim left from some child’s pants that became shorts; they’re stitched along the seam, so through four layers of denim plus serging. For some reason I really want the eyelet template, now. There’s a video of the same sort of thing on youtube here, by the inimitable BrianSews. You can see the Greist starting about 1:00 in. I initially thought the stitch-length was a bit long for my liking, but you just keep going around and around your buttonhole until it looks the way you want. Fun!

Dress!

I decided, after much wringing of hands, that Simplicity 6023 would be next up (it’s still a little too cold to think about wearing the runner-up, McCall’s 3415.) Unfortunately, when I started trying to lay out my pattern, I realized that my fabric is only 45″ wide—which means I’m about a metre short (especially since I’d been wanting to do some of the plaid on the bias). D’oh! I think I can do it by using a contrast fabric for the collar, yoke, and cuffs. I have some black stretch linen that’s about the right weight and stretch (the plaid has stretch, too) but it’s earmarked for a shirt for the ungrateful hubby, and I don’t think I have enough to do both. So I’ll check at Fabricland to see if I can get any more. If only I’d realized this last weekend during the 50% off sale… I also need a zipper and dark knit interfacing.

As to the pattern itself, I pulled out the pieces from Simplicity 5728 (apparently 1973 was a good year for Simplicity—both these patterns are from it), which, as you may recall, fit me remarkably well for being a size 11 Junior Petite. Now, 11JP has the same bust measurement as Misses’ 12 (and is a measurement I can reach with a good, padded bra), but is drafted for someone considerably shorter. Despite that, it fit me amazingly well through the upper body, although I added a generous amount of length to the sleeves and skirt.

More Jacket fun!

Upon comparing the tweaked 5728 pieces to the Misses’ 12 6023, I think I can get much the same fit just by reducing the length through the armscye by about 2cm. I also did the same little swayback adjustment. If these are my “standard” Simplicity adjustments, I’m excited, as it will give me more confidence going forward with, say, Simplicity 66o2, which also walked home with me from the thrift store on the weekend. Doesn’t that look like fun? (my camera ate the photo I took of my envelope, so I nabbed this one from the Vintage Pattern Wiki entry—my pattern is in fact a size 12. I have some robin’s egg blue stretch corduroy that I think strongly wants to become this jacket—and possibly the entire ensemble.

It is just possible that I might be a jacketoholic.

Oh, in other good news, the missing fabrics I was moaning about have re-surfaced. They were stuffed in various boxes in the kids’ playroom (which is adjacent to my “sewing room”). The fact that my children, who had tidied the playroom days before I discovered the absences, denied any knowledge of the contents of their toyboxes continues to rankle.

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April 24, 2011 · 8:30 pm

Whew!

Five days of blog silence, haven’t done that in a while. I don’t think I even went dead that long at Christmas…

Dashing home is always hectic, and for whatever reason this time was even more so—but despite a lack of both sewing and blogging, there was no shortage of sewing-related talk and, more to the point, fabric shopping. In particular, thrift-store fabric shopping. My mom took me to her favourite little thrift-shop, which seems to have a particularly large fabric section (not sure if the fact that it’s run by Mennonites plays a role in this or not…)

Thrift store fabrics

And, well, I went a little overboard. BUT, I stuck to my “palette” and came away with mostly springy colours, mostly in lengths that should be large enough to make at least some of my dresses. Of course there were a couple of heavier plaids that snuck in, but I did resist the 4m of lavender coating/upholstry fabric (virtually identical weave, though not colour, to the stuff I’m making my springy coat out of… otherwise I’m sure it would be with me now. I’m actually kinda regretting letting that go… I might have to send my mom back for it…)

More patterns than are good for me (but at $.50/each, how can you resist?)

They also have an entire pattern-cabinet, which I dug through meticulously, and came home with probably more patterns than I should have. But I was good! No more dresses! There are a few more skirts than is probably wise, though, and I won’t get into the jackets yet…

But aside from all that yumminess (which I can’t think too much about as I have to catch up on my coat and do a couple of other things before I can think about ANYTHING else… I’ll rhapsodize in more detail later), I have to show you the bestest of all finds.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before, but everything I know about thrifting I learned from my mommy. She was thrifting back in the 70s when you actually could find real antiques for a buck or two at a yard sale…

And a few weeks ago, she found me a Greist buttonholer attachment.

The Buttonholer

I haven’t actually used it yet. It’s possible it’s completely non-functional. But it’s pristine, still in its box, with five templates, manual, feed-dog cover—and it fits on my machine!

Buttonholer contents

And it cost her  $1.99.

’nuff said.

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April 19, 2011 · 4:44 pm

Goodie, goodie gumdrops!

I got a present in the mail!

A Pattern from Peter!

Yay! Thank you, Peter! This is, of course, the pattern I won from his giveaway a few weeks back. Sweet and super-duper-uber cute.

Of course, now I’m in a quandary. Which yummy 70s pattern to make next? This new one, or this…

Man, I love these dresses...

Or this?

Simplicity 8613, from 1978

And Joy thinks I should make bellbottoms?

What to do, peeps, what to do?

Eaton's Jersey

And, I discovered this rather yummy jersey at Value Village yesterday while cruising with my mother-in-law.

It feels like wool, I thought to myself.

But it’s at Value Village. It’s probably some nasty mystery synthetic you really don’t need, I responded.

Then I discovered these little original tags, still on. 100% wool.

It went in the basket.

Originally purchased at Eaton’s Department Store.

This was a Canadian department store that went out of business when I was in high-school… but I have absolutely no recollection of them ever carrying fabric. Any Canadian readers remember when they stopped?

So, despite still not finding my little-girl-coat-fabric, and having to unpick and re-adjust the entire back of my coat (sniffle), life is not entirely bleak.

Now if it would just warm up enough, I could actually justify sewing some of these crazy little dresses.

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April 16, 2011 · 9:35 am

The Crazy Quilt

A tale of two quilts.

All my ambitious plans for world domination, I mean extreme, productive sewing, this weekend were brought to a screeching halt last (Friday) night when my mother-in-law called to let us know that she and her husband would be arriving in town sometime Saturday. I have to Clean House.*

The Crazy Quilt

So instead of making a second coat for a niece (yes, I was planning to interrupt the Springy Coat since it appears we’ll be dashing home over Easter so I may actually have an opportunity to deliver said coats), I’ll be cleaning madly. I wonder if I could convince my MIL to help with the coat sewing… hmm…. Anyway, to spare you a play-by-play of scrubbing toilets, I thought I’d share (quickly) a bit about a quilt.

I didn’t make this quilt. I don’t quilt (even less than I houseclean). Although this quilt almost makes me wish I did. My grandmother (who quilts) didn’t make this quilt either, although she did give it to me a few years back when she was moving from her house on the farm to a senior’s complex in “town” (town in this case not having more than a few hundred people, but at least she’s not alone in the middle of nowhere if something happens). I love my grandmother to bits, but this is not the sort of quilt she would ever make. I’m actually a bit surprised that she allowed this sort of quilt to even stay in her house—my guess is if it ever was used, it was tucked under a much tidier coverlet. My grandmother’s house was always immaculate, tidy, and scrupulously modern (scrupulously updated, too). Her quilts are rather similar; she made the one on the right in the topmost photo for me when I was two or three.

No, this quilt is the product of an entirely different mentality.

Piecing closeup

The pieces aren’t square. They certainly aren’t even. They appear to have been pieced together into some large, haphazard rectangles, from a variety of sources that have little in common except being made of a variety of light-weight cottons. If there’s an overall rhyme or reason, I haven’t detected it.

This is a hand-made quilt. I don’t mean made on a machine in a home. I mean, I don’t think a sewing machine ever touched this quilt. Every single stitch, from piecing through embroidery, binding, and quilting (or is it quilting and then binding?), it’s all hand-stitched. A couture quilt, if you will.

Hand-stitched binding

Once the blocks were made up (quilters will have to forgive me for my imprecise use of their terminology… did I mention I’m not a quilter?), the quilter embroidered a feather-stitch ( think) along the seams between patches.

Inside the quilt---frayed edge binding

There’s no batting within the quilt; instead, a couple of layers of loose-woven cotton are sandwiched between quilt top and backing. I suppose this was intended to be a light summer quilt. Or maybe it was just what the quilter had on hand. You can see them because the backing has frayed at the edges and there are a few places where the quilt’s interior is exposed.

Quilt back, with seam and pattern-matching

The quilt back is made out of this lovely print, pieced together with a seam to make it wide enough for the whole quilt. There even appears to have been an attempt at pattern-matching along the seam, although it’s not overly exact.

There were a lot of hours, love, and crazy creativity poured into this quilt.

I love this quilt, but it lives a hard and wandering life in our house, drifting between the upstairs hall closet and the basement depending on where it’s being called into service. It’s not likely to be called into service as a bedspread (my huband’s tastes being rather akin to my grandmother’s in this regard). It needs a wash badly, but I fear the fate of the fraying edges from callous laundering, and I have nowhere to hang it to dry—at least for a few more months. (It’s snowing again, by the way, although today’s accumulation isn’t expected to be more than a few cm)

I’m tempted to bind over the fraying edges. This treatment wouldn’t work on my grandmother’s neat, patterned quilts, but I think it would go very well with the spirit of this quilt. The only question is whether I have the patience for that much hand-stitching.

*My mother-in-law is the sweetest lady on the face of the planet, and would never say boo about my miserable housekeeping. She might, however, very sweetly and politely and without making any kind of a fuss, set about tidying things up herself, and then I would die of embarrassment.

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April 14, 2011 · 6:45 pm

Yay, sewing!

All the bits.

We got to start sewing today! YAY!

First, of course, I fused some more. I cut lengthwise strips of more of my white armoweft and fused the edges of every single piece of my fray-prone fashion fabric.

Trial buttonholes

Yesterday, I spent a few minutes messing with buttonholes. I used Sherry’s tutorial (might as well be consistent, right?), and it worked much better in this fabric than the super-duper thick boiled wool of my last try. Unfortunately, even with the use of felt marker to draw on my fabric, I can’t seem to get the buttonholes to come out straight. As usual, my precision falls short of Sherry’s.

I did some samples with my machine’s indifferent buttonhole function, the one that tends to choke on anything thicker than shirt fabric. It actually made fine buttonholes (remarkably). The lower one is corded (I used dental floss) which is a lot better looking than the regular one. I would prefer the bound buttonholes, but that’s pretty darn slanty :(.

Sherry made a comment in her post today about efficiency in stitching. I must admit I am not a terribly efficient sewist. Most notably, my ironing board is on a different floor (not room, but floor) than my sewing machine. I also tend to migrate where I cut things depending on who’s home and what surfaces are free of clutter at a given moment. All of which contributes to my husband’s general exasperation with my sewing hobby. For whatever reason today was particularly bad—I couldn’t decide which pieces I wanted to stitch, then when I did one had invariably gotten left downstairs at the iron board, or I needed a pattern piece to re-mark a pleat, or…  well, you get the idea.

Facing and back lining (not stitched together yet, mind you)

Despite the fun of actually getting to stitch (YAY!), there’s still a long way to go. My favourite touch so far is my piped facing, which I think will be such a nice, fun, secret peep (since I don’t have a fantabulous lining like Patty’s spring coat). I’d just like to point out that I am NOT knocking off Patty’s coat. We came to our (very similar) inspiration entirely independently, darnit!  Also, hers is made out of wool and silk, while mine is mystery synthetic fabric and known synthetic fabric. I’m not going to do uber-crazy covered buttons, either.

I didn’t like how the CB pleat in the lining of my 30s knockoff jacket fought with the pleat in the fashion fabric, so for this go I moved the pleat to two side-back positions. Hopefully that works out.

So far I have most of the “bits” together—princess seams stitched and pressed, pockets attached to skirt seams, pleats marked and stitched (where appropriate) and pressed. But skirt pieces are still separate. Somehow I don’t really feel like I’ve accomplished anything until I have side- and shoulder-seams stitched. Also I’m a bit scared of my sleeves (well, the cuffs). And the collar.

In an interesting construction note, I was dissecting my old winter coat (in an effort to copy its minimal shoulder pads), and noticed some nifty construction details. Aside from fabric strips linking the hem and lining hem, it also had strips of raw lining fabric anchoring the lining above and below the armscye (stitched to the sleeve seam allowances) and a similar attachment holding the mess of thin interfacing and foam that was the shoulderpad in place. Unfortunately, the shoulder-pad was so messed around and deformed that it was impossible to get much info out of it, so I had to wing my own—I’ll try to remember to photograph them next time. They’re just two layers of felty interlining, cut to a vaguely half-moon-sorta-shape with a small butted dart for shaping. Hopefully they’ll provide a reasonable compromise between smoothness and bulk…

Outfit!

Although I have no intention of turning this into a style blog, I felt like doing an outfit photo today, as I’m combinging my Businesswoman Pants, 30s Knock-Off, and black JJ blouse, which I think work quite nicely together. I seem to get really good customer service when I wear this jacket, or perhaps they’re just staring. At any rate, Hubby and I snuck off for a lunch at A&W (classy, I know) and I don’t think I’ve ever had such good service at a fast-food joint.

I have to take my joy where I can since this was the scene we woke up to this morning:

My back yard. Again.

Actually, this was mid-afternoon, when a fair bit had melted. The accumulation this morning was more like this photo.

Fortunately, it’s not actually any colder than yesterday, when it wasn’t snowing.

Did I ever mention that children are crazy?

Nuts, I tell you.

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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 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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