Tag Archives: too much talk

August 4, 2013 · 4:47 pm

Baby Steps

Of the organizational variety, that is.

In the wake of the Wedding Sewing Marathon, I’ve been attempting to regroup with a bit of tidying. I’ll warn you, this does not come naturally to me, and what with the inundation of my sewing space (the waters have receded but the entire area remains damp and untrustworthy) and the other upheavals of the last year, well, I can’t find ANYTHING. Or rather, I find it one day, nod sagely to myself and go “okay, there it is!” and then promptly loose it again. I even lost a sewing machine last week—you know things are pretty bad when. (Don’t worry, I found it.)

So, I took the plunge. Okay, maybe dabbled my little toes in. I bought a couple of sturdy, transparent Rubbermaid tubs. I wish I had the funds to buy a jillion more, but I’m hoping if I can buy one each time I’m at the grocery store, I’ll have enough to keep everything in by, oh, Christmas. /sigh.

One tub is already full of the fabric that had migrated up to the sewing room* during the wedding sewing. I want enough of those to sort my fabrics by type again—I haven’t had that since before we left Calgary.

The second tub, pictured above, is holding patterns. It’s not quite deep enough—a half inch more would be perfect—but I think it will do, at least for the regular-sized envelopes. The contents are sorted, roughly, by company. I’m pretty sure I can fill at least two or three more of these tubs just with patterns. My name is Tanit-Isis and I am a pattern-aholic.

While sorting patterns, I’ve also been working on transferring my pattern info, which I’ve been tracking in a phone app called Sewing Kit (as reviewed here), into a different app, MyStuff2 (as recommended by several commenters in my review of Sewing Kit). Although Sewing Kit worked fairly well for me for a long time, once I got to about 500 patterns I found it crashed more and more and more. It still has one or two features that MyStuff2 can’t replicate, and MyStuff2 takes some setting up to get the categories and attributes all the way you’d like, but if I can’t use Sewing Kit because it always crashes, it doesn’t do me much good. I don’t have MyStuff2 up to 500 patterns yet, but by all reports it’s a much more reliable program all around (people use it to categorize all kinds of things—it’s actually really awesome for books and movies because you can scan the barcode), so I’m hopeful that all will be well.

I’m going to need another shelving unit for sure, but I’m optimistic if I can get the fabric and patterns tubbed up, I can re-organize notions and thread and things into the other plastic-drawer-storage unit I already have and then maybe, just maybe, be able to actually find things. Of course, what I really should be doing is tracking the fabric stash, so I can paw through that digitally… but somehow it’s not as satisfying as tracking the patterns.

Of course, assuming I get everything organized, then there’s the task of KEEPING it organized. Which always seems to be the one that defeats me. Aiee.

*Formerly the computer room. My husband is not happy about this.

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Tagged as not sewing, organization, too much talk

June 28, 2013 · 10:15 am

Not dead.

Life.

Although that might be easier. Er, not. Quite.

Refugee serger camped out on the computerdesk. #sewdontclean

To start with the good news, the serger survived her little bath. I left it a week, silica gel-packs stuffed inside (although it occurred to me later that the key part is probably the motor, which is actually mounted on the back, not inside where the gel packs were. I tried to get the cover off the motor but the bolts holding it on were not cooperative and I didn’t want to strip them. So I waited.) Anyway, when I finally dared to start it up a day or two ago, after cleaning and oiling (although I really don’t think the water touched anything that actually moved…), she was fine. Aside from her recurring tension problems, anyway. (I continue playing with the bit of extra thread wrapped around the needle-thread tension disc.) The White (which is my main sewing machine right now despite being a little temperamental) has some rust on the foot pedal I don’t think was there before, but everything is working.

Wedding Dress Trial #1

Which is good because I have a month to finish Epona’s wedding dress and five bridesmaid dresses. Holy fucking cow. And work is likely to be at least somewhat insane during that time, too. On the up side, the wedding dress itself is pretty simple (the practice version took two days to sew up, obviously I’d like a bit more time with the real thing) and I could’ve had the first of the bridesmaids dresses finished last night if I hadn’t kept stopping to watch bits of “Oz the Great and Powerful” with the kids and hubs.

Bridesmaid dress bodice… in progress.

Which kids are done school now. so no peaceful days of working at home, unless I can manage to bribe my MIL to take them to the lake for a week or something.

Practice wedding dress back. I’m kinda stoked about how the lacing turned out.

Speaking of the children, it has now been over a decade since I was last pregnant. Happy birthday, Syo!

Syo is now ten.

And I have a late birthday dress cut out for the Waif, but unlikely to be sewn up until the wedding is done. DAMN.

Waif’s birthday dress.

Waif just turned five. It is a size 3 pattern. I added an inch of length to the bodice, but it will probably still be too wide. Going for the middle view, of course.

And as a result, I’m spending all my “free time” ogling corset forums and adding and removing things from my fantasy cart at Farthingales.

How’s your summer going, stitchers?

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Tagged as Epona's Wedding, in progress, too much talk, Wedding Dress, whining

May 7, 2013 · 3:13 pm

Me-Made-May: Week One

Oh what could that be…

This is the sum total of my sewing this week. Not enough to write about, frankly. Maybe I need to start writing about all my imaginary sewing. I do boatloads of that. It takes even longer to write about, though. /sigh.

So in lieu of real sewing, let’s have some Me-Made-May pics!

Starting it with a bang

Day 1: the red polkadot dress and my vintage shrug. Heads up: you are probably going to get SO SICK of my little shrugs this month. I have been wearing the snot out of them this winter.

Me Made Morning

Day 2—I’ve been having some leisurely mornings this winter—the kids have gotten much more self-reliant (they get up on their own! They make their own lunches!) and I don’t need to be on a train at 7:30 am. So instead of bouncing straight into my clothes, I’ve been experimenting with “comfies”… in particular my (still unblogged!) Jalie 3022 fleece pants. (It might be easier to get these blogged if I didn’t only wear them when I’m bleary-eyed and crazy-haired.) Seriously… I reach for these nearly every day. Just for fun, I decided to keep with the colour scheme and add in my cardi-wrap and red Jalie twist top. The twist top is a pretty-much-wadder (I did a bad job on the neck binding), so this is definitely MMM getting me to reach for something I would ordinarily pass by. The cardi hasn’t gotten much wear since I wore it while cutting out fabric one day and *snip* cut a little hole in the front drape. But it’s fine for bumming around in the morning.

Day 2, daytime

After I got myself together, it was not much more glamorous. Jalie jeans, Lekala knit top. Although I’m so enjoying the weather that’s perfect for my Springy Coat. (Can I just say, the timer app I downloaded to get delayed photos on my iPhone sucks?!? Anyone got a suggestion that takes photos at actual resolution, not this pixelated crap?)

Another morning shot

Day 3 morning: Those fleece pants again, Blank Canvas Tee, and Vogue muslin-cum-sweater. I swear I’m done with the morning shots, at least unless I get some different comfies into rotation.

Day 3—Water

Day 3 day—in honour of the Friday Theme of water, I got the last remaining snowbank in my front yard. I think it’s gone now. Four me-mades here: Jalie capris, Springy Coat, flutter-sleeve Blank Canvas Tee, and basic tank top.

A lazy day.

Day 4—The MMM must be getting to me, because I actually reached for my Jalie twist top again. And those same Jalie jeans again; they are one of my two staple pairs at the moment. This picture really shows how they’ve worn (not quite worn out, but getting there) since their first unveiling.

Out and About (NOT oot and aboot!)

Day 5—Sunday was full of family activities. Brunch with my dads, visiting Stylish in the afternoon, and then dinner at Crafty’s house in the evening for my father-in-law’s birthday. I wore Funnygrrl’s dress, which, yes, got very grubby with all the running around, and my cropped jean jacket. I also got my first sunburn of the year (blerg.) Apparently we did not stop at spring, go directly to summer. Not complaining, mind you.

Monday

Day 6—70s tunic and the other set of Jalie capris. Capris last a lot longer than jeans for me, since they only get worn a few months a year.

Another unforgivably pixelated picture.

Day 7. Not a glamorous day. Running errands and working from home. Yet another set of Jalie jeans, the cardi-wrap makes another appearance, and my quick refashioned Miocene Park tank. I didn’t get a picture, but I wore these pantaloons to my dance class as well:

Loons

Which brings us to the end of Week One. Here’s hoping for better photos, and more fun outfits in the future.

One of the big reasons for Me Made May is to help us identify gaps in our self-stitched wardrobe. Besides the obvious (I still have not conquered self stitched undies), some needs I’ve identified this week:

cropped, WARM jacket suitable for wearing with fluffy dresses. (warmer than a jean jacket, anyway.)
knit tees that aren’t ancient.
a new pair of jeans. The youngest of these is over two years old now, and only the capris are still darn-and-repair free.

It’s also highlighted to me how much silly sewing I’ve done in the past year. Very few of these me-mades are recent makes, with the exception of the fleece pants. I guess I can get away with it, though, right? I was so good and practical the first few years I was sewing.

Now, the next question is… what to wear today? 😀

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Tagged as MMM2013, MMMay13, too much talk

April 1, 2013 · 8:54 pm

Half-forgotten, long unfinished

Have you ever noticed how we create stories, even about our own lives? There’s a couple of different stories I tell about how I started “really” sewing. Often, I talk about my desire for a winter coat with sleeves that were long enough, and how I decided, after hunting in vain for years, to make my own. And that’s a true story. But there’s another story about how I started “really” sewing, that is equally true. Or equally fictitious.

I got into bellydance when I was sixteen, and it was a hobby-verging-on-obsession for years. In fact, from the age of eighteen to, oh, around when I started blogging, the vast majority of my sewing (such as it was) was for bellydance costuming. The patterns were simple and often improvised; there was a lot of hand-work and not a lot of technique, if you will.

When we first moved away from my hometown, though, all of a sudden I was no longer part of a performing troupe. For a while I carried on, making costumes just because I wanted to, contenting myself with student classes and the occasional year-end recital. But at a certain point I found myself frustrated. I had nowhere to wear the things I was making, and it was hard to motivate myself to finish them as a result. This was a major motivation for wanting to “really learn to sew.”

This costume comes from around that time. It’s half finished, the main pieces mostly together but lacking the fine details that would make it really stunning. I stumbled upon it today in a box that hasn’t really been opened through my last two moves. The vest comes from the Folkwear “Turkish Dancer” pattern, while the bra is a recovered, storebought one. The blue fabric is a slippery poly velvet I bought at the thrift store yonks ago, and is the single most evil fabric I’ve ever sewn with. Everything you see here was hand-basted before being machine stitched, if the machine was involved at all. Most of the trim was applied by hand. I had visions of seed pearls scattered through the folds of the ruching. We’ll see.

For the moment, it’s getting carefully folded back in its box. I have twenty three other patterns vying for my headspace, after all. 😉 And while we’re (slowly) getting settled in, my sewing stuff is mostly still in my mother-in-law’s basement. I found my dish-drainer today, though. That’s a victory.

(Oh, and these livingroom shots were taken back when I first made it—as much action as this costume has ever seen.)

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Tagged as oldies, too much talk

March 29, 2013 · 6:09 am

Moving day

In a couple of hours, here, I go to pick up the van so we can move our furniture into our new house.

Can I just skip to Sunday, when the worst is over?

I am so looking forward to the reunification of at least the majority of my sewing stuff (especially my serger!) though I will miss using my Stylish sister-in-law’s Janome Memory Craft as my main machine.

Just to celebrate (?) I went through the pattern collection and grabbed the images I most want to make.

There were twenty three that jumped out and screamed MAKE ME, and that’s not even sewing for anyone else, or counting projects I already have traced/fabric picked, or are otherwise under way.

And, of course, no sewing this long weekend, because moving. So I thought I’d share a few of the pictures, so you can share my frustration.

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Tagged as planning, too much talk, whining

March 15, 2013 · 10:02 am

Another Blogiversary

The dress formerly known as Simplicity 3965, alias the Star Wars Dress.

The Star Wars Dress, probably my crowning achievement of the year

My blog is three today! I had totally forgotten. It would’ve been so nice to make a pretty dress, too. I didn’t do anything special like make up a little pattern to share, and since I still can’t seem to manage to mail things (don’t ask about all the Christmas cards still sitting, in stamped envelopes, on my computer desk) I don’t dare even do a regular giveaway. In fact, the only reason you’re getting a post at all is that a) I happen to be off work today, and b) I am bumming around because I have a cold, and c) WordPress sent me a notification via the mobile app reminding me it’s the blog’s birthday.

A lot of things have been intersecting lately that make it harder to blog. At least, harder to blog well. I’ve never had a backlog of projects unblogged the way I do now—at least three or four items, although none are terribly spectacular. Winter, of course, is always a problem in the photography department, and I don’t have a good indoor photo location here. Having the family and old friends around is awesome, but it means we have more stuff to do and people to see than we ever did in Cow Town. My sewing stuff is scattered over three different locations, so when I do get a few minutes here or there, I am often stymied by needing this thing or that. Worst of all, my growing kids are no longer going to bed at 8:00 every night! I depended on that two hours of “me time” to do most of my sewing and blogging. (I don’t have my train commute to read blogs anymore, either, so I am way behind there as well.) Now, by the time they’re in bed it’s pretty much my bedtime. I rarely do any sewing on a weeknight, and if I do get some done on the weekend it’s usually a little bit stolen in the morning before everyone else gets themselves going. And I’m not a natural morning person, either.

This is not a goodbye post, mind you. I’m still a diehard obsessive. I fall asleep thinking about sewing at night. I wake up thinking about it in the morning (if not the middle of the night). My fingers itch with the desire to be making something, or talking or writing about it, pretty much every minute of the day. And there are lots of great things about sewing in my hometown, from meetups to ~~brainwashing~~ mentoring my sisters-in-law, to fun and quirky fabric stores other than Fabricland (even if they are small.) And I’ve been having a tremendous amount of fun doing the digital linework for Cake Patterns—almost as satisfying as making the patterns myself! I’ve mentioned on twitter that we’re moving again at the end of the month—I’m hopeful that I’ll have better photo locations, if nothing else, once that goes down, although the prospect of moving again, even just within town, is exhausting. I should be able to get all (most) of my sewing stuff back together, too!

And on that inspiring note, I think I’ll maybe go have another cup of tea and tidy my little sewing space. The fact that it’s always an insane mess probably doesn’t help my productivity one bit.

Want to cheer me up? Tell me about the most exciting thing in your sewing queue right now! 😀

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Tagged as Blogiversary, not sewing, too much talk, whining

February 18, 2013 · 9:31 pm

Where you at?

Tanit & Oona Meetup

As most of you know, I recently relocated from a major (for Canada) city to a fairly minor (even for Canada) city. In terms of family life, this is awesomesauce. In terms of feeling part of the wider world, maybe not so much. I mean, in Cow Town I managed to meet up with such sewing blog luminaries as the Selfish Seamstress and Oonaballoona (not to mention Funnygrrl). I don’t really see those opportunities presenting in Saskabush. Meanwhile, it seems like those New York bloggers are meeting up every other week, and even the GTO crew are getting their act together. /sigh. Jealous.

So now I’m kicking myself for never, while I WAS in a larger centre, trying to get the local bloggers together. I know there were at least a couple of others I never even met, and probably more readers that I don’t even know about. The odds of a sewing blogger meetup out here seem, well, slim, unless Zena dropping by for coffee that one morning counts.

Which is a long, rambly way of saying that, when there ARE other bloggers around, well, wouldn’t it be cool if we linked up more? And how to do that, hmm?

Well, Vicki the Sewing Scientist had a nifty notion the other day and set up a Google Map for anyone who likes to put up your (general!) location, in the hopes of facilitating future in-person networking. Because awesome as a blog is, there’s nothing quite like getting together in person to shop, swap, and squee. So far there’s lots of Canadian bloggers I hadn’t even known about.

I’m going to copy Vicki’s directions, just in case:

Here’s how to participate:

Open this link to get to Map the Sewintists

Click on the red Edit button on the left

Click on the blue pin on the upper left of the map

Click on your location to drop the pin

A box will open that will allow you to add your name or blog URL in rich text

Save et voilà!

I would strongly advise people to only pin their general location or closest city, since we don`t want creepers peeping in our windows while we sew in our unders, do we?

So, if you’re not in witness protection or otherwise hiding your location, I think it’s a totally fun way to get a sense of where we’re at—and how many of us there are out there! 🙂

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Tagged as Meet-Ups, not sewing, too much talk

February 2, 2013 · 11:24 pm

Those who can’t sew…

Buy.

Especially when certain crafty sisters-in-law suggest treks to new-to-us thrift stores. And then it turns out that said thrift stores are having ridiculous sales. Everything in the image above cost me about three dollars.

The rest of the day was spent scouting half the fabric stores in town for silk charmeuse (the score is 1 out of 3, though I suspect it will fall to 1/6, if I do make it to the others. And I don’t even want to tell you how expensive it is), and bravangelizing to my SILs. We have pretty much decided we all need to do a proper fitting at one of the really good bra stores in town. Of which there are rather fewer than fabric stores, frankly.

All of which was thoroughly enjoyable, maybe even as good as a sewing blogger meetup. But this has been sitting on my ironing board taunting me all week. Maybe tomorrow?

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Tagged as patterns, too much talk, whining

January 28, 2013 · 3:04 pm

Never enough hours in the day

I keep thinking next week, things will slow down.

The Top of the Queue

Since my mother has been saying the same thing for as long as I can remember, you’d think that I would have it figured out by now: life never slows down. No?

Anyway, there are three projects vying for brain-space at the top of the queue. I hate having multiple projects on the go, but for better or for worse I’ve made baby steps towards all of these.

A vintage Mail Order dress

First up is this vintage mail-order pattern (undated but my guess is 50s?), which I bought from New Vintage Lady last January. Shortly after Christmas I got ambitious and traced it, and did a quick muslin of the bodice. It’s about two sizes too small, but actually the only snug part of the muslin was the waist (big surprise). So I think I will make it up as is, with short sleeves, and adding about 1.5cm on each pattern piece at the waist. I want to use this aqua plaid cotton, which I originally bought for the Christmas Dress, but deemed insufficiently Christmassy. It’s perfect for the fun grain-playing in this dress. The skirt will need to be a good bit shorter, too. Speaking of vintage details, it calls for a snap placket at the side seam.

Oonapants in progress

Moving on, the dearth of warm tights in my winter wardrobe led to a wild urge to create some awesome Oonapants for myself. Unfortunately (or fortunately), my sensible side pointed out that I have nothing at all in my wardrobe I’d be inclined to wear with Oonapants, not being quite as wild and smashing as the Kalkatroonan herself. Obviously I needed a cute little black dress to showcase my crazy (future) tights. This had me pawing through my patterns feverishly for several hours before settling on the wiggle dress from Gertie’s book, (only shorter) which I bought back in the fall but haven’t actually used yet.* I have a lightweight black stretch twill that would be perfect, as well. It’s traced out and I had pulled out fabric for a muslin as well, but haven’t made it yet. I’m not allowed to buy any crazy jersey for more leggings until it’s made, though.

Vogue 7448 muslin-cum-sweater

And then, the twitter stitchers got going on the coats. I knew there was a reason I stayed away from Twitter for so long… 😉 And Oona (always the troublemaker) #sewingdared me to make a coat. And the next thing I know there’s a hashtag, #sewcoatbuddy, and, well, what to do but pull out the pieces of Vogue 7448, originally made up by Zoe of So, Zo, What do you know?. Which was probably the coolest giveaway I’ve ever gotten. I’ve had the fabric since last year, but finally got lining and interlining just after Christmas. So I guess I need to get moving on that, too, before I run out of winter. Although winter feels pretty endless here right now…

A Birthday Niece

I didn’t manage to get a lot of good shots of Fyon’s birthday dress… but it was well received, even if it isn’t QUITE the cutest thing I’ve ever sewed her. I do have to make a fluffy dress for her little sister, the Waif, now, though…

And I still need a new pair of fleece pants. But that’s a story for another day…

*If I had anything like the brain-space for making resolutions this year, I think I’d resolve to actually USE some of those pattern books I keep buying. I have the Colette book, Gertie’s book, Drape Drape 2, and got a few more for Christmas!

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Tagged as Butterick 3666, Gertie's Wiggle Dress, in progress, Kwik Sew 1288, Mail Order 2953, too much talk, whining

December 15, 2012 · 7:15 am

Update

So much to do, so little time. Mostly Christmas sewing.

Plugging away on my Uncle’s vest.

Cake Patterns Tiramisu came in the mail—yay! No time to make it up though. Booo.

Also, more annoying travel. 14 hrs in car in three days.

And there was the kids’ holiday concert. Tyo had lines, Syo was adorable as “Une rose dans une jardin magique”, but I was trying to video on the iPhone (fail) and my SIL’s camera died a few minutes in. So no photos. 😛

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Tagged as too much talk, whining