That is all.
I wrote 15,000 words today, to make 50,000 in the month of November.
Let’s not do that again, kay?
And now, off to bed.
That is all.
I wrote 15,000 words today, to make 50,000 in the month of November.
Let’s not do that again, kay?
And now, off to bed.
Filed under Sewing
If I may steal a phrase from Elizabeth.
My goal this weekend is to see if I can, somehow, catch up on my much-neglected NaNoWriMo novel (if you scroll down to the bottom of my sidebar, you will see on my widget that I am sorely behind, while the month is nearly done. I blame this squarely on sewing. In my non-sewing (or at least, non-sewing-obsessively-except-when-thinking-about-sewing-obsessively) days I had no trouble pumping out my 2k words a day. This year, it’s been a struggle. Grr. Not helped by the fact that my main character has two small kids and over the course of the story so far has acquired a third, and getting your character to do anything with three kids under the age of five is almost as hard as actually doing anything yourself with that many small children. Who knew? Anyway. So I’m trying to not sew this weekend. Despite that, my brain is fluttering with things I’d like to make. In particular, this jacket-cum-sweater thing. I’ve been thinking that I love the idea of a blazer for everyday wear, but in practice I find them restrictive and end up reaching for my bunnyhug (hoodie to those of you who don’t hail from central Saskatchewan). It’s the bastard lovechild of the Lady Grey and the Kimono-Style Bunnyhug on Burdastyle. In particular, I want to make it out of sweatshirt-material,
with a shawl collar. Which will require—yes, you guessed it—drafting. Ulp. So naturaly, I spent a chunk of time yesterday when I should’ve been writing, looking up how to draft shawl collars. And then working up these sketches. And now, when I should be writing, I’m making a blog post. *headdesk*
I’ll get to it right away, I promise. No tea until I start writing. Ok, no more tea.
Also, my sketching is sooo out of practice. Not surprising—I’ve done very little figure drawing, none of it life-drawing, since Tyo was born—but painful, still. The side view above is decent but the front view is indifferent at best. Bleh. I always did like profiles (you don’t have to get both sides symmetrical! 😉 ). I’ve done scientific illustrations out the wazoo the last several years, but those don’t really use the same skill-set. I love drawing fabric, though. I love drawing clothes. I always have. My main annoyance with most of the figure-drawing I did in early Uni was that it was all nudes. Which are interesting in their own way—once you add clothes you are no longer drawing “a person” but drawing a particular kind of person; the figure acquires layers of connotation that were absent from the nude—but I wanted to practice drawing clothes as they fit around a person.
Anyway, I’m obviously stalling. Off to write!
Filed under Sewing
I pretty much finished the Businesswoman Pants back in October, shortly before I embarked on the coat for Tyo. And I was pretty happy, but after a day of wearing them two things were obvious. First, the little metal pants-hook and bar I had sewed were not in any way, shape, or form sturdy enough to keep these pants up (in fact, by the end of the day the metal bar was a twisted remnant of its former self). Second, the lack of belt-loops was driving me nuts, because they kept sliding down (increasing the strain on the hook and bar). I don’t know if this is a side-effect of the dropped waist or the slippery lining or just the generally rectangular shape of my hips, but it was still annoying.
Anyway, it was clear that the pants needed a button and belt-loops. And today,
while I waited for my laptop to defrag and otherwise soothe its booboos (it’s been cranky lately), I decided to tackle these minor finishes. So I made a button hole (successfully, by machine!!!! … on the third try. Fortunately this wool is highly forgiving of needle-holes), and cut, interfaced, ironed, and topstitched (as subtly as possible) the belt loops. I didn’t want to topstitch the belt-loops in place, either, so that took a bit more thinking. You can do this without too much trouble, I think, if you apply the belt-loops while you’re constructing the waistband, but once it’s done it takes a bit more finagling.
I ended up sewing the bottom ends, folding them up and over to the inside of the waistband, and hand-stitching there. Me and my hand-stitching, I know. Also, figuring out how to distribute your belt loops when none of your seams line up is a pain in the ass.
I was going to attach one of my usual jeans buttons, but (perhaps fortunately) I couldn’t find the little doohickey for hammering them on, so I went through my buttons and found this black plastic shank button with a rather battered “jewel,” that arrived in a small and generally unremarkable baggie of buttons from the thrift store a few weeks back. I’m not convinced that the plastic shank will be tough enough either, but it’s not as if it’s an overly precious button. But it’s cute, and where else am I going to use a rather tacky plastic-gemstone unique button? It will get scratched up and hidden by belts, but it’s already rather battered, so whatever :).
I’m not convinced that I totally love these pants—my hips definitely benefit from the pocket and yoke detail on jeans—but they’re warm (which sounds really good right now) and will definitely come in handy when, y’know, I don’t want to look like a total schlub.
Filed under Sewing
I’ve mentioned before I’m a self-taught sewist. For a long time I figured that anything I couldn’t sort out on my own, I’d ask my mom. This worked well when I lived in my home town, but started to become problematic when I moved out of province. Especially about a year ago, when I was starting to entertain notions of learning how to sew well. One thing I did was do some quick internet surveys of recommended texts on sewing. The idea of actually studying sewing had never occurred to me before, but since I’m a researcher by trade it really was a natural progression. And then, one day around last Christmas, I stumbled on a copy of the “Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing” at the thrift store.
This was on the short list of recommended texts. I snaffled it up, read through voraciously, and went on to make my daughters some coats. Then I discovered the world of sewing blogs, and the forums on PR, and Burdastyle.com, and, well, I was off.
Well, a few weeks ago, a number of volumes of the Singer Sewing Reference Library showed up at my local Value Village. And I resisted. Probably most of the information was already in my Complete Guide. Probably it was all super-dated, anyway.
And then Cidell went and reviewed one of the volumes. Interestingly, Carolyn also listed the series among her favourite sewing books, but none of the volumes she has are ones that were available to me. And there’s a whole one on tailoring, apparently. D’oh!
Anyway, yesterday I was feeling a little foolishly flush, and they were still there and, well, they’re only three bucks each, and it’s five for the price of four, and… well, I came home with five of the set.
I did not buy the home dec volumes. Sorry. Maybe I will be more interested in home-dec sewing when I a) don’t live in a bleak rental house decorated in a scintillating palate of cream, ivory, and ecru. And b) can afford to decorate with the kinds of sumptuous fabrics my imagination demands. In the meantime, home-dec sewing = meh (which hasn’t stopped me from sewing my own curtains, or curtains and bed-drapes for my kids, but I’m not going to spend money learning to do it.)
So… Cidell talked about the Activewear volume already. Sewing Essentials seems to cover the basics, which I think I mostly have down when push comes to shove but hey, pictures are always great. Sewing Specialty Fabrics has to be good to have on hand, and covers everything from silk to bouclé to gabardine to lace to fur (fun or otherwise). The Perfect Fit is considerably more detailed than the five or so pages on fit in the Complete Guide, and has a small bit on swayback alteration, although it’s in the pants section, which isn’t was usually gives me the most trouble. I was a bit concerned over Sewing for Style (which style? 80s?), but it’s got a large chunk on tailoring, so I decided to go for it (but see above about the actual tailoring volume). I’d still like to get a real tailoring book at some point, but every little bit helps.
And, there was about 2 yards (just shy of 2m) of this lovely wool tweed. Isn’t that a great heathery-grey-mauve colour? At least half the nice fabric I’ve ever found at Value Village has been lovely wools. I hypothesize that people buy them and then are too intimidated/lazy to actually make the coat, and they end up in the thrift store alongside the godawful polyester and that “what was I thinking?” print. I wish there was enough to make this my Lady Grey Fabric, but even if I used something else for the facings, collar, and belt, I think not. Maybe a nice little blazer instead.
Me and my fantasy blazers. /sigh.
In other news, Syo has been working hard on her hand sewing. She has now learnt to cut her own thread, thread her own needle, and even carefully marks out her stitches on the fabric beforehand. She has been putting these skills to good use creating an assortment of little pillows for the toys of the house.
Her knots, however, leave a little to be desired, as you can see.
We also (sigh) bought Tyo a “play coat” at the thrift store. It’s big, poofy, ugly, water- and wind-resistant, and most importantly easy to move in. Well, easier. There’s always going to be a certain amount of restriction when you look like a marshmallow. Ah, well. At least this way the Princess coat won’t be coming home soaked with muddy slush when the chinooks hit.
Filed under Sewing
The school bus schedule changed today, and according to Tyo the bus would be coming five minutes later as they are now the last stop to get on before the bus goes to the school. So we went out five minutes later than our usual time.
And, naturally, the girls missed the bus.
Now that the weather is no longer motorcycle friendly, we are back to being a one-vehicle family, which means my hubby takes off at 7:00 am with the car. Which leaves me with two kids and a complex web of public transit between us and the school. It’s not actually that far as the crow flies, but the buses and train just don’t connect well.
So we trudged off towards the nearest city bus stop. While I was inside the 7-11 getting change to get the girls on the bus (I have a pass as I take public transit to work), the bus came and went (not one that would take us right to their school, but within about a 10-minute walk at offpsring-speed). So, swearing quietly (me, not the kids), we trudged the block further to the train station. The train doesn’t go to the school, but it does go to a stop that has other buses that go by the school. We caught the train, although each of their tickets cost me extra because I still didn’t have quite the right change. We went to (what I thought) was the stop. We waited. Eventually the bus with a number we wanted came. We got on the bus.
The bus proceeded to toodle around in exactly the wrong area for about 40 minutes, before dropping us back where we started. Apparently it had the right number, but the wrong name underneath (usually this means that it’s going along the same route in the opposite direction, so it’ll still get you there EVENTUALLY. Apparently not in this case). It’s really embarrassing getting off a bus at the exact same stop you got on at. Ah, well. At least it gave us a chance to drill Syo’s spelling. She managed to score 0/10 on her last weekly spelling test. I think that takes talent, don’t you?
We started walking.
It takes about 20 minute to walk from the train station to the kids’ school. It only takes about 45 minutes to walk all the way from our house to the school. Granted speeds with offspring in tow are still a little less than optimal, but they’re not that bad. I got the kids to school an hour and a half after they first missed the bus.
Should’ve just walked the whole way.
So on the way home (walking) I stopped at Value Village to console myself. I staunchly resisted the several colours and weights of denims, and some rather interesting brocades. I did succumb to this rather lovely grey/cream wool (on the left in the top photo—would’n’t that make a lovely spring jacket?) and two packages of vintage zippers, still in their little paper cases. Including a bunch of invisible zips, which I don’t have any of. And a bleached old blue flannel duvet cover that will do nicely for the next round of muslin/underlining for Tyo’s coat (on the right).
Whenever I can get the pattern printed.
These zippers are really darling.
Most are in the 7 to 9″ range, good for skirts or pants. One’s a pink 14″ regular, and another’s a white 18″ invisible. I guess I need to make a white dress for it :).
And don’t they come in the most adorable little packages, complete with instructions inside?
I really do hope I can convince myself to use them. Something about that old packaging is so precious…
Also, it occurs to me that I somehow missed out on the obligatory “Hallowe’en Post”. So here’s a picture. The only actual sewing I did was Syo’s red gauntlets (well, and the jacket Tyo used, but that was last summer and thoroughly blogged already). Syo’s costume wasn’t really warm enough… I should’ve made her put another layer underneath the shirt, even with the very mild weather we had on Sunday. She was pretty cold and grumpy by the time we got home, which is when this picture was taken.
Filed under Sewing
So I figured out how to use Adobe Acrobat to tile the oversize pdf patterns properly. Apparently I am just “Acrobatically challenged”… there’s an option in the scaling box in the print interface. Beangirl, you have my permission to smack me upside the head about now (and any of the rest of you who actually know how these programs work). However, after tiling, the lines were too faint—they still showed up on the screen, but for some reason most of them weren’t printing. Fortunately I’m a LITTLE better when it comes to Illustrator than in Acrobat; it only took me a moment to load the original file in Illustrator, select everything, find the line width, and bump it up a couple of pixels. Â Probably too high, now, but anyway. Lovely clear lines. Back to Acrobat, tile again… print to PDF just so I can see what I’m going to end up with, all right, all set, print a test page to compare with the smaller version of the coat pattern, looks like it will be larger by about the right amount, start printing…
out of ink. And the take-the-cartridge-out-and-shake-it trick isn’t working. Nor can I convince the damn thing that because it has two black ink tanks, it really only needs one of them to be full.
So I guess the project is on hold until I can get more ink. Thursday at the earliest.
*head-desk*
ah, well, more time for writing…
Filed under Sewing
So I may have mentioned already that I bought some (other) fabric last week. In fact, it was a bit of a binge-week, fabricwise (gotta love payday), but this is the EXPENSIVE fabric. Not the random metres snagged at the thrift-store, but real, honest-to-goodness expensive bought fabric.
As a self-justification (can you tell how guilty I’m feeling about this?) I had a 50% off coupon for Fabricland (up to 5m of fabric) that expired at the end of October. My plan was to finally splurge on some wool melton ($16.50/m sounds much more palatable than $33/m, yes?). Red and a little bit of black. But there was this other fabric, a “boiled wool camry” (all “wools” at Fabricland, incuding the melton, are, in fact, wool blends, as far as I can tell). Its basic price was a little cheaper ($24/m), and it had a really interesting texture to the surface that the melton lacks. It had caught my eye before. It’s also a knit, which is interesting; it has a little give but isn’t what I would call stretchy.
And, this past week, it was on sale for $10/m.
That’s more than %50 off.
So I bought it instead. My precious 50%-off coupon will, it appears, expire, unused. 5m of red wool, 1 of black. The idea was to create something similar to my long-destroyed HBC blanket coat, with pieced-in or applique’d stripes, either for my long-neglected Lady Grey or even a rehash of my Winter Coat pattern (with the standard collar and lapel this time)
But…
But…
I’ve mentioned before that Tyo is in need of a new winter coat this year. And I’ve toyed with the idea of making one (provided I could throw it together quickly enough. But I didn’t think I had a good pattern handy, and am still worried  about whether my construciton techniques will be warm enough to get me through the winter.
Probably I should’ve spent that $60 on a coat for Tyo. Hence the guilt.
Then, yesterday, I stumbled again across this pattern. Cute, no? I originally downloaded it in September off the Lekala website when they were offering free downloads (in limited sizes); it came in a kid’s size 120, a bit small for Tyo.
But, many of the Lekala patterns are available, albeit in limited/fixed sizes, from M-sewing.com. So it occurred to me to check over there.
Now, I have to admit I’m pretty suspicious of these pattern companies. The few reviews of Lekala patterns have agreed that the instructions are useless and some of the measurements perhaps dodgy. More, I just don’t GET it. I don’t know where they come from, why a Russian site and an English-language one are offering the same patterns (albeit with a different sizing system), one for free and one charging. I guess basically, I don’t know where the money is, so I’m wary.
That being said, there are some pretty cute patterns on the sites, and I’m pretty sure I can throw a coat together without instructions at this point. I showed this one to Tyo and she said she loved it. Especially if it were in red. With, say, a black collar.
So I was able to download the coat off the m-sewing site in child’s size 134, which is Tyo’s

M-sewing pattern image
Burda/Ottobre size, and the measurements SEEM compatible (I should probably measure her again, however, to be sure). The other problem with the m-sewing (but not the Lekala) downloads is that the PDF isn’t tiled for printing at home. Apparently newer versions of Adobe Acrobat will tile it for you, but my archaic version won’t, and the built-in tiling software in my printer is limited to set sizes. I could print it at a copy-shop, but that would require spending actual money (as opposed to money on ink and paper, which doesn’t for some reason count), which I’m disinclined to do on a pattern I don’t trust. So I spent some time messing around with some equally archaic software, “poster printer“, and have what I HOPE is a reasonably-close printout.
Next step, of course, will be muslining. I figure whatever fabric I use for my muslin I’ll re-use for underlining, thus alleviating a) waste, and b) warmth worries. Unless of course it’s a total wadder, in which case, well, I get to use my red fabric for ME. Although with 5m of the red I really should have enough for a coat for Tyo AND one for me, even if I can’t use the Lady Grey pattern.
Of course one other big question remains: will I have time to get this done in November?
Filed under Sewing
Today I ran errands. This is always rather perilous, as it offers me the opportunity to pop into shops that I really should avoid. For example, while waiting for my husband’s prescriptions to be filled I could a) wander around the pharmacy fidgetting, or b) pop across the street to Value Village.
I don’t really need to tell you which option I pursued.
The mass of heavy denim I had spotted the other day was still there. It is now in my laundry basket awaiting laundering. What I hadn’t planned on taking home: a whole bag of random bias-binding, rick-rack, and piping, and another of shoulder pads. Those little mixed baggies are deadly, I tell you.
So, the tally? About eight packages of bias binding, three of which are in colours I would expect to use.
An four or five pairs of shoulder pads. All but one look like this:
They’re quite thick, but the open ends mean if I want to remove some of the padding it won’t be hard.
About four packets of seam-binding, mostly NOT in colours I use
Two little portable mending kits, including this rather cute one.
Two packets of small rickrack (although I’m charmed by some recent uses of rickrack I’ve seen, I still can’t get over the tackiness entirely. It’s an issue I’m working on.) Eaton’s was a long-time staple of Canadian department stores; it went belly-up in the 90s, but I couldn’t even tell you when they stopped carrying sewing supplies. Before my time, anyway.
And one rather grubby packet of piping in a lovely pale blue.
And a bunch of old cream lace with pink flowers. Like the rickrack, I’m torn between “quaintly charming” and “ugh-70s-tacky”. At the moment it’s in the “bag of Petticoat Stuff” in the fabric room. If I decide I can’t live with the coral flowers, perhaps I could find a fabric dye pen or paint them.
I’m not sure why I get such a charge out of these random binges of sewing acquisition. It’s got something to do with my stereotype of the proper stash, modeled on my mother’s long-gone sewing paraphernalia (most of which I plundered mercilessly as an adolescent). Some of these bits I’d almost be reluctant to use—they seem more like museum pieces, to be preserved for posterity. (snerk) I do have to be careful of this, as we’re borderline hoarders in my family. I suppose worst-case scenario I open an etsy shop ;). Except that would require (ulp!) MAILING stuff. (Sad but true… you’ll probably never see me host a giveaway. Not because I’m selfish or ungrateful or even don’t want to give stuff away… but because I’m the world’s worst procrastinator when it comes to posting stuff.
Anyway, Tyo has a presentation tomorrow on How To Make A Zombie. Her ingredient list included sage, bay-leaf, chili powder, red water, ketchup, mushrooms, and eyeballs. When I was out this afternoon, I looked for those round chocolates with foil that looks like eyeballs, but couldn’t find any, so we were forced to improvise. I’ll leave you with the result:
Tomorrow, pants update, I promise. 🙂
Filed under Sewing
I don’t have a nice grey metal zipper. Why do I give a flying fig about the colour of the zipper in these pants? I don’t know, but I want one that’s metal, either grey or black, and I don’t have one. The one metal zip I do have kicking around was purchased for my Jalie jeans and isn’t quite long enough. Grr. If I had thought about this I could’ve popped by the Sewing World by the train station on my way home from work today, because while they don’t have much that’s of use to me, they do have zippers (and needles… I need a new twin needle, too… my old one finally died, though it lasted much longer than any of its predecessors.)
While I’m wishing, I’d like some pinking shears too.
Anyway, as you can see, I have not made significant progress on the pants.
Filed under Sewing
Not necessarily in that order.
So this is what it feels like when your sewing mojo takes a break, eh? I have, honestly, been waiting for this (so has my husband… he’d been feeling rather neglected). I’m not gone, but I’m definitely not feeling the itch every spare moment. I tend to cycle in my hobbies… drawing, writing, sewing, dancing… so it was probably inevitable that the sewing would ebb at some point. I’ve been writing, a bit more, though I kinda feel like I should save that for NaNoWriMo coming up. At which point the sewing may really fall off ;). Mostly I feel bad for abandoning the Lady Grey sew-along, but at the same time I haven’t had the money for ANYTHING, never mind the kind of expensive quality materials I want for my Lady. At the same time, though, I won’t really need the coat until spring… so maybe I’ll get on it after Christmas. Broke-assedness really is our basic state of being, but it’s been even tighter than usual the last few months (going to Pittsburgh didn’t help, either… hopefully I can get reimbursed for the flight at least). So not only have I NOT spent my 50% off coupon for Fabricland (expires at the end of Oct.) on 5m of red wool melton (and believe me it’s been in my fantasies), I haven’t even been able to justify spending it on five metres of some comparatively cheap-ass fabric. /sigh. Maybe when my next paycheque comes in… (I’ve been saying that for almost two months now). Add to that, our printer has run out of black ink, so I can’t even print off free patterns at the moment lol!
Although it’s not precisely sewing (it could’ve been, but I resisted), we are in the throes of
assembling Hallowe’en costumes, natch. Tyo is being a zombie punk, while Syo wants to be a Fire Fairy. Today we went and blew the (small) Hallowe’en budget at Value Village: red fairy wings, a couple of wigs, assorted oddments, and skinny jeans for Tyo.
Tyo, bless her individualist little heart, is the only girl in her class (possibly in her school) who has not fallen for the lure of skinny jeans. I quote the following conversation from sometime last winter:
Syo (aged six at this point): I love skinny jeans!
Tyo: skinny jeans are ugly.
Syo: Mommy looks good in skinny jeans!
Tyo: yeah, but on everyone else they’re ugly!
However, Tyo wanted to be a punk last year, wimped out and did a pirate, so this year she was really set on the zombie punk. And while there MAY be punk fashion that doesn’t require skinny pants, that’s definitely the stereotype.
I’m not sure if watching a kid who hates skinny pants try on fifteen different pairs in the search for a set she can stand was hair-pulling annoying, or just amusing, but anyway, she finally found a black pair. They’re capri length but as she’ll be wearing her extra-tall high-top runners with them (see above), it’ll work. They weren’t plaid, but, well, you can only expect so much from Value Village. Especially the week before Hallowe’en. (Most stores do all their business at Christmas. I suspect Hallowe’en is Value Village’s equivalent).
Oddly, the fabric selection was better than I’ve seen in some time. I walked away with a mass of black sweatshirt material (something I’ve been looking for for a LONG time but was reluctant to pay $20/m for at Fabricland), and this peculiar tube almost-sweater-knit. It doesn’t feel super nice, but I’m thinking it could make a nice wrap/cozy—another Simplicity 2603 or similar. Â There was also a mass of nice sturdy heavy denim (non-stretch) that I’ll get if it’s still there come payday. I hate being broke. There was a bunch of other stuff there today that I need/would like to get (kids’ baseball bat, kids’ winter jacket, scarves and toques, skates for the winter…) but the budget just isn’t there. I hate not being able to afford the five bucks it would take, especially at the thrift store where you really can’t count on something equivalent being there in two weeks when I DO have money. Anyway, enough whining about cash. The end is in sight (or so I tell myself) and it’s not as if we’re going to starve to death or lose the house.
The patterned fabric on the left is actually one of Syo’s picks, bought to play with to replace the yellow border print I made into her sundress. It’s an awful poly-lycra knit, thin and slippery, with a crazy print (I’m not a print person, if you haven’t noticed)… and yet… and yet… I keep picturing it as a shirt. Something with a cowl neck or some fun draping… maybe ruching…
Maybe it’s just the lure of the forbidden. The one piece of fabric I’m not really allowed to use up for myself…
Anyway, I think I will sew something tomorrow. Not sure what. Maybe play with my new fabrics. I’m tempted to turn the sweatshirt material into a “kimono bunnyhug,” not least because those of us who actually know what a bunnyhug is need to stick together ;). Or I could try and make my wool pair of pants. That’s pretty tempting, actually. I haven’t done anything else (like put pockets on) with the ones I made last week, not least because Tyo’s preparations for her costume have involved a LOT of red paint which she managed to get EVERYWHERE… including on my new pants and and my hubby’s white shirt. Grr. So some quality time with the oxy-clean is in order :P.
We’ll see. Am I mentally ready for welt pockets? hmmm….
Filed under Sewing