Tag Archives: too much talk

April 26, 2012 · 2:17 pm

Kachow!

My package from ElleC, won courtesy of her first giveaway, arrived today! Woot, woot!

Score!

Three gorgeous vintage patterns, in more-or-less my size.

And, because she is awesome and doesn’t hate me nearly as much as she claims, she threw in a mess of new & vintage zippers just for fun. Just when I was thinking I needed to hit the fabric store and pick up zippers. My hero! 🙂

Also, see that pattern on the left? Simplicity 3965? Not only is it Simplicity (so I might actually know my alterations already), it’s the very same pattern the Sewaholic has made up into so many awesome versions!

Of course, from what I can tell she started with a junior petite version. I should be so lucky…

I love that the Butterick pattern comes with the opera-coat pattern, as well.

In other news, after my big score of vintage patterns the other week, I’ve been stalking the pattern section even more religiously than usual. Sadly, that lode of vintage awesome seems to have played out… I’ve picked up a few patterns since, but they’re all of the slightly-dated-but-still-potentially-usable variety.

Thrift store patterns

Including a couple of Burdas. My ongoing weakness for jacket & coat patterns is in evidence (OK, the sleeves of that Butterick jacket on the right are crazy, but I’ve been wanting a basic raglan-sleeve coat pattern for a while…). Also my weakness for romantic sundressy things. And the cape pattern? Well, I’m bound to want to sew a cape at some point, right?

McCall's 7532

Of (perhaps) slightly more interest is this 1981 pants pattern. Holy High Waists, Batman. No, I haven’t completely lost my marbles (well, maybe)—it’s a Palmer & Pletsch pattern complete with loads of fitting tips & instructions. The view on the left, I gather, is meant to represent the gingham muslin they recommend you make. Will I use it? No promises. But it was the right size and too interesting to pass up. Those ladies definitely make high-waisted look good… just not convinced that I could do the same.

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April 25, 2012 · 10:57 am

Fantasy Sewing—Spring Dress Edition

I’ve been craving dresses for a couple of months, now. Something pretty that I can put on and not worry about pairing top with bottom. Something that would feel like Spring. So, I went through my folder of pattern pictures, and made a collage of all the ones I kinda-sorta-would-like-to-make.

This was the result:

Round 1

These are the dresses I’d kind of like to make right now—all the patterns in my collection that I’m going “oh, that’s pretty!” over at the moment. Well, not all, as it doesn’t include any magazine patterns, but you get the idea.

Round 2---Finalists

Fortunately, even just throwing this together allowed me to narrow down my focus a bit. From “things I’d like to make” to “Things I’d like to make in the next little while.”

Unfortunately, none of these are really pairing well with the Star Wars sheet in my head… I’m thinking that needs something more full-skirted, to show off the print without too much chopping and dicing.

I think the next phase is going to involve pairing with fabric. The Style pattern (bottom left) seems a bit wintery, so perhaps I should put it off until the fall… on the other hand real sundress weather is a ways off, as well.

Oh, and checking if the patterns are complete. These are all thrift store finds and may contain unpleasant surprises.

… and that’s just the dresses I want to make.

Confession: This post has been sitting in the drafts for a couple of weeks, to the point where a fabric and pattern selection was made, and last night I was finally able to wriggle in to this for a first try-on:

Winner #1, Simplicity 6710

I think I am going to like it, although those gathers below the underbust band/panel thingy are perilously maternity-esque (and I’m not far from looking four months pregnant at the best of times) and will require some taming. I am happy to say that my copious list of fitting alterations seems to have done the trick in that department, at least. My main disappointment is that the 2″ of extra length I added to the tunic, in the hopes of getting a mini-dress, don’t seem like they will be entirely adequate for real-dress wear. So I may have to just wear it with my short-shorts, come summer. Sort of like this.

In case you didn’t recognize it in the crappy iPhone photo, this is the same fabric as the Ruby Blue slip, a dusty-blue polyester crepe. This friggin’ fabric is lucky I like the colour so damn much, because in every other respect it is exactly what I detest in a fibre. It is also not significantly easier to handle when cut on the straight grain, and doesn’t press for shite.

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April 22, 2012 · 5:05 pm

I have two tailoring books…

Tailoring books

One is in print, bought from my local Chapters bookstore. I may even have had to have them order it in, but it seemed like the book to have. The other was picked up from the thrift store for a couple of bucks, and is part of the Singer Sewing Library.

Different title pages.

They have different publishing dates and different publishers. The ISBNs are different.

Hmm. Something strange.

I didn’t, in fact, get alarmed until I got to the cover page.

First page of content.

Wait, wait. This is the first page of text, of each book.

And this is the last.

Last page.

Yes, everything in between is also identical.

Did you know this? Is this something that’s obvious to everyone but me? Looking through the (very very) small print on the publisher page, the same editors etc. are mentioned as parts of the “creative team”. But they aren’t listed prominently like normal authors (as you can see from the covers).

I don’t think this is a copyright infringement—I’m sure the publishers of the modern version paid very well for the rights—but it does seem a bit sneaky from a consumer point of view, right?

Or am I on glue? Am I the only one who didn’t know these were the same book?

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April 11, 2012 · 10:07 pm

ZOMG Score!

Or, possibly, just a serious failure of judgment.

This is a first. Apparently this past weekend’s taunting envelope was actually a harbinger of things to come, rather than a cruel jest of the universe. Good things. I forgot the kids have no dance classes this week, so since we were already in the car we just had to stop by our friendly neighbourhood thrift store.

&*(&#&$&#!!!

Holy vintage patterns, Batman!

The only question is whether this means I need to go back every day this week and stalk the pattern shelf…

Yes, you saw it. There on the right, there.

Simplicity 2681. The very same pattern that taunted me with its empty envelope condition on the weekend.

Simplicity 2681 from 1958

I feel the need to emphasize, this is *not* the same pattern envelope with pattern magically restored. It is a size 14 (34″ bust), not a size 12 like the envelope-only teaser was. Not to mention the envelope’s considerably more beat-up. I’m going to suggest a new scenario: Mme X, circa 1958 (the year the pattern came out according to Vintage Pattern Wiki), picked up a pattern in her old size, 12. However, due to a slight weight gain, the pattern didn’t fit. In a desperate attempt to alter the pattern, she managed only to butcher it completely (you know we’ve all done it 😉 ) and finally, in defeat, goes out and buys the same pattern in a larger size.

I’m not sure why she held onto the original envelope, but, well, I’d be happy to hear your theories. 🙂

I like this

My fave is this Butterick sundress, though. Aside from the age old blousy-top issue. I really need to come up with a simple, fitted midriff-band-thingy I can add to patterns like these to make them wearable for me.

Simplicity 3400, from 1950

I’m also really loving the neat detail on this 1950 Simplicity blouse.

Lapse in judgment, you’re saying? What on earth are you talking about, you’re saying?

Well, look what else I got:

Oops...

I will point out, my youngest child will be nine in a few months. The largest of these patterns is a size 6 (and she’s tiny but she’s not that tiny. And, they’re so not her style). In my defense I do have littler nieces and my peers are finally moving into their reproductive phase (I’ve only been waiting for them to catch up for a decade or so), so there are likely to be plenty of other opportunities to sew for small people…

Hmm, yeah, sounds kind of hollow to me, too. But they’re soooo cute!

And, well, Strawberry Shortcake. I couldn’t resist. Be happy I didn’t bring home any of the Cabbage Patch doll clothing patterns. I know my mom still has my Cabbage Patch Kid in the basement somewhere…

Of course, then there’s the one, seriously unforgiveable splurge that I would have to agonize over if it had cost more than 49 cents.:

McCall's 4778

Now, that’s a dress that makes me want to forgive the 80s (even though it came out in 1990). It’s got a lot of features I like—princess seaming, sweetheart neckline, dropped-waist with the full skirt. It wouldn’t even be so unforgiveable a purchase, except, if you look, it’s a size-freakin-8. And I’m pretty sure it’s not drafted with typical 80s ease ;). My only hope is that Tyo will want something like it for her gr. 8 grad or something.

Yeah, not so likely.

Oh, and there were books.

Books!!

I could’ve bought at least three or four more, but I was trying to be restrained. And maybe find things that aren’t just a rehash of information I have elsewhere. And if you buy four you get the fifth one free.

So what do you think? Do I need to go back tomorrow?

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April 10, 2012 · 9:21 am

Sewing to Exhaustion

I have a confession. I was bad. I sewed yesterday—pretty much all day. This doesn’t happen very often—in fact, I think this is the first time in months that I’ve sewed to the point where I was tired of sewing. 

We had planned to spend the day at the river, but Syo wasn’t feeling well, so I wound up dropping Osiris and Tyo off and heading home with the saddest child to ever miss out on a day of fishing (Osiris caught his first fish last week, so it is officially Fishing Season chez Isis). The upshot was, I bundled Syo up on the couch with blankets, hot lemonade, and H2O (ugh) streaming on Netflix, and headed downstairs to sew. Anything to escape the Australian mermaids.

And sewed.

And sewed.

McCall's one-shoulder top

I finished off another version of the off-the-shoulder kids top (McCall’s 4821)for Syo—she had cut out the pieces (BY HERSELF) weeks ago, but I had black thread in the machine for stitching the Pink Suit, and then I was busy with slips. This version is from her pink leopard spandex, and fits much better than the ever-growing thin knit of the first version. Which almost makes up for the annoyingness of the pattern, and, y’know, the fact that it was cut out by a nine-year-old. The combination of leopard-print with the one-shoulder style does give it a distinct, mm, “Me Tarzan, you Syo” vibe… I used my “athletic stitch” to topstitch the elastic around the neck/armholes this time, just out of curiosity—it worked fine, although I’m not convinced it’s any better or more “professional” looking than the triple-stitch. The hem isn’t the prettiest—I didn’t bother using any steam-a-seam, just folded over and stitched away. Can you tell I really don’t give a flying f#&$ about this little shirt? On the other hand, I have every confidence that Syo will wear the snot out of it.

Coat---PROGRESS!

And then I worked on Osiris’s jacket. Yes, that long-neglected UFO that’s been hanging over my head since before Christmas. I finished the fusing and got the entire shell assembled. I even (ZOMG) stitched sleeve vents (now I just have to figure out how to line them). But I didn’t want to get ahead of myself before checking the fit, so I called a halt before cutting the lining.

Syo's Snuggly

So I moved on to Syo’s current pet project. She wants a new housecoat, reminiscent of Tyo’s. Except, not a kimono. But with the applique and stuff. Last time we were at Fabricland, she picked out a white, not-as-thick as-I’d-like, but inexpensive, fleece. After some discussion, we settled on the directions described in Sew What: Fleece (which I won in a giveaway from the gracious Clio) draft the pattern. And, well, I suspect she’ll be happier with the finished product than I am, but anyway.

In fact, I sewed so much that I’m going to milk it for the rest of the week and dribble out more detailed posts every couple of days.

One thing I did do this weekend was go through the jackets, boots, and other outer-wear—ousting the worst of the winter stuff (so if it blizzards, it’s my fault) and bringing in more of the summer stuff. Unfortunately, this also brings to the fore the more painful side of sewing for your children—what to do with the handmades they’ve outgrown. Now, I’ve said before that I have an excellent hand-me-down chain, and I do, in the form of two little nieces, but we really hit a lot of style issues going from Tyo to Syo. This jacket, my first “real clothes” make, is now too small for Tyo. In fact, it never really suited her, but for some reason it looks ADORABLE on Syo (I think it may suit her darker colouring and broad shoulders better). Syo, however, would rather wear a potato sack. Similarly, she is unthrilled with wearing the first pair of jeans I made Tyo, and the jean-jacket I made Tyo. Although I’m hopeful that practicality will win out in the last case. Which puts a big hitch in my hand-me-down chain, because my stylish sister-in-law gets a little annoyed when I send her stuff that she’s going to have to store for years and years before it’ll ever remotely fit.

But I sewed! Helped by the fact that Osiris and Tyo didn’t want to be picked up until 8:30 that night (after Tyo’s bedtime, I’ll add). And for once, I’m ready to do something else…

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April 8, 2012 · 6:45 pm

Ra to the rescue!

Ok, so if Osiris is my husband, Ra would be his father, right? Damn, now I gotta go check my Egyptian mythology. I was always more into Sumerian, personally. Ereshkigal FTW.

ANYWAY.

Kids at the zoo

My brother-in-law, crafty sister-in-law, their fourteen-year-old daughter, and my father in law, pulled one on us (this time) and showed up Thursday night unanounced to visit for easter (they live a good 7-hr drive away). Since one of Osiris’s favourite things in the world is to do the same thing to them, I can’t complain about this, despite the fact that I try very hard to keep my in-laws from seeing my house in its natural state (I probably needn’t bother, I think after this long they’ve figured out I’m not Martha Stewart). So we had a great, busy, albeit largely sewing-free Easter weekend, complete with creek-visiting, baseball, Bass Pro shop, zoo, Value Village, and snow.

Yes, snow. I don’t want to talk about it.

Moving on.

The White, which was not sewing.

Possibly best of all, my father-in-law—let’s go with Ra—is a machine guy (Well, technically he’s a retired auto mechanic, so something like a sewing machine is probably beneath him, but I batted my eyelashes), so I got him to look at my poor, no-zoom-go White.

He turned the fly wheel, and all of a sudden it worked fine again. This is, unfortunately for my pride, typical of the little mechanical problems I’ve brought to his attention over the years.

However, he explained to me that the source of the problem was apparently not within the foot pedal, but within the electric motor itself. And then proceeded to pull the works apart, show me the offending bit (a copper thingy that spins between two little brushes). We polished that up as there was some black gunk going on that might be interfering with the connection and put everything back together.. and still every once in a while it mysteriously won’t go, but a little twitch to the wheel gets it started again. And now I know that little bit more about the insides of my sewing machine. Unfortunately I was a little too wrapped up in remembering which teeny-weeny screw went where that I didn’t think to take pictures, and I’m not desperate enough to pull it apart again on my own just for photos.

There has been a little slip progress. I can’t go into specifics quite yet, but here’s a wee smidge of eye candy:

Teaser

And, since I haven’t much more to show, further zoo photos:

Syo, with plants.

She seemed considerably more enthralled with the plants than the animals.

Lemurs.

Notice how my photos are all of the green inside bits? SO DONE with winter…

Ok, here’s what outside really looks like right now.

ZOMG it's a giant kangaroo!

Hope you all had a great long weekend, and got to spend some time with family, if that’s your thing!

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March 30, 2012 · 10:48 am

In which I obsess some more over Square Shoulders

JJ Blouse Shoulder

Emily of Calico Stretch expressed some curiosity about the square-shoulder alteration in this post. A quick google search turned up plenty of tutorials, but none that actually square the shoulder the way I do.

Which may very well mean that I’m doing it wrong, but I figured I’d throw it out there, anyway.

If you look at the photo above, the need for a square-shoulder alteration doesn’t really jump out at you. I certainly never noticed. But see how high the collar sits at the back of my neck? The fabric is firm enough that it just pushes the collar up, but as soon as I move around it starts bunching and folding back there. I don’t always need it, which is confusing, but when I do, it’s a big (if subtle) improvement.

I tend to square the shoulder by dropping the mid-line—shortening the centre. This is much easier to show than describe, so here’s a quick diagram. The dashed lines represent where I would slash and overlap a pattern, although frequently I just try to incorporate it while I’m tracing off a pattern.

Square Shoulder Adjustment

Most of the other methods I’ve run across have you raise the outer edge of the shoulder, rather than dropping the inner edge (eg. Debbie Cook’s excellent little diagram).

So how did I start doing it backwards?

Well, it all goes back to Sherry’s fascinating sway-back analysis. Because while I managed to ignore my square shoulders for years,  the annoying lower-back puddling of *every* piece of clothing I have ever owned had always irked me. Anyway, Sherry does an excellent job exploring the ramifications of the sway-back adjustment (not to mention other fit issues that can lead to “sway back” puddling, of which I have at least two), and ends up, in the case of patterns lacking a waist or centre-back seam, basically adjusting the shoulder to shorten the centre back.

My very firstest Lydia, showing the weird tuck it developed above my shoulder. Some of this was armscye issues, but a lot was the slope of the pattern's shoulder seam. Note how the oogliness extends behind the neck. This shirt was one of my few instant wadders*. I gave it to the kids, who promptly "refashioned" it into shreds small enough that I could trash them without too much guilt.

I started out trying this alteration on my knit sloper, and was startled to find that, while it did reduce the swayback puddling a bit, the single biggest effect was to remove the little bulge of extra fabric I always tend to get behind my neck. I had always thought that the solution to this would be to drop the rear neckline (which is what this alteration does), but I had never related that to squaring the shoulders.

I think part of the reason this method works so well for me is I have a short upper body to begin with.  The last thing I want to do is increase the distance between armpit and waist, which is what the other method—raising the armscye on the side—would do. Obviously you could then compensate by shortening, but that would be two operations rather than just one. (Frankly, I usually shorten on top of the square shoulder, so I’m not actually saving myself time).

Of course, now that I’ve re-read Emily’s actual question, she was asking more about the armscye differences.

Knit sloper (black); Renfrew (red dashed line)

So here’s another diagram, showing (some of) the differences between the two patterns; I ignored the differences in armscye height and waist position/shaping. You can see that, for the same shape of sleeve-cap (which was almost identical between the two patterns), the Renfrew (red dashes) requires less height but more width towards the lower part of the sleeve cap. It would also produce a sleeve that angles down a bit more.

Please note that I am not criticizing Renfrew here—I have no idea which is “better”, if either. I’m just mentioning differences, which may or may not affect things like fit, range of movement, and wrinkling. For example, the downward-sloping sleeve has a somewhat more restricted range of motion than a more outward-pointing sleeve (not a big deal in a knit), but tends to have fewer wrinkles under the arm when the arm is lowered. I’m not even sure how or why the armscye curve on my knit sloper wound up being so shallow.

I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts about shoulder alterations and sleeve cap/armscye shaping. I’m no kind of expert—just noting my observations. 🙂

*It often takes me a while—weeks to months—to figure out if an article of clothing is a success or not. Many things I am initially thrilled with end up not being worn, or being worn but not liked, due to some minor quirk of sewing, fit, or styling that I just don’t appreciate right off the bat. I had no such issue with this one: it was awful from the get-go. It (and the four other versions it took me to get the pattern wearable) are the reason I went so hog-wild doing knit pattern comparisons.

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March 22, 2012 · 12:04 pm

Renfrew vs. Knit Sloper—Round 1

Some of you will remember my battles with Lydia, the $1 download from Burdastyle for a very basic knit pullover. The end of this process was my knit sloper, which, frankly, bears little resemblance to the original pattern.

Although for reference, the basic changes were:

  • going down two sizes to remove ease (Lydia, like Renfrew, was intended to be an easy pullover, which wasn’t actually the look I was going for)
  • petite-alterations to the armscye, sleeve-cap, and above the waist
  • square-shoulder adjustment
  • removing ease from the sleeve-cap
  • my ubiquitous lengthening of the sleeve

Once I had the knit sloper worked out, I traced it out on bristol-board so it’s a) durable and b) easy to trace and then hack.

Now, there is one MAJOR confounding factor for comparing it to other patterns, however. Which is that the sloper has no seam-allowances, while Renfrew and Lydia both have 1.5cm (which is way too much for knits, in my opinion—.6 cm is fine, although for slippery annoying knits I think I do prefer 1cm). So in the following pictures, you need to mentally add 1.5 cm to most of the borders.

So, first up—because this is what most of you may be interested in—Renfrew vs. Lydia. (And please do click through to see the full-size photos, because the details are not so obvious at blog-size. Although the full-size photos are fuzzy as crap, because I am still lacking the charger to my good camera. Sorry.)

Renfrew vs. Lydia

Now, *this* is complicated because I don’t have a pristine print-out of Lydia anymore, and I wasn’t in the mood to produce one just for the purposes of pattern comparison. On the other hand, both these patterns have the same seam allowance. Unfortunately, the bodice pieces are opposite sides, so it’s difficult to superimpose them, especially since this particular copy of Lydia is the one I hacked to make my mother’s (unblogged 😦 ) Christmas present. So pay attention to the lines of the smaller sizes on the Lydia pattern, not the cut outline.

As you can (hopefully) see, Lydia actually has more shaping going on than Renfrew. It’s also a somewhat shorter pattern (remember Renfrew has the band at the bottom to lengthen it). The waist is slightly longer in Lydia, and, most surprisingly, the hips are a little more generous (this is suprising because Sewaholic patterns are supposed to be drafted for pear-shaped women, so I was expecting Renfrew to have more width below the waist).

I should add that the shoulder height and angle in the Lydia you can see has been altered to match my sloper, since my mom and I share a short upper body and square shoulders—the original Lydia was rather longer through the armscye and had a much more sloping shoulder. So Lydia originally would’ve had a shoulder-slope similar to Renfrew, but a rather lower armscye, and a longer, somewhat more shaped, waist. I think the amount of ease each pattern was designed for would’ve been similar.

Sloper vs. Renfrew

Enter my knit sloper. This is when things get a bit wacky.

Like Lydia, you can see that my sloper has more shaping than Renfrew. The waist is slightly higher in my sloper, but not as much as I had thought it might be (I tried to align the bottom of the armscye, remembering that my sloper doesn’t have seam allowances. The armscye in my sloper is shorter, but again, not as much as I had thought it might be. The shoulder slope is hugely different, however. There’s a slight difference in ease (remembering that my Sewaholic size, 6 or 8, is the 4th or 5th line over, while the sloper needs 1.5 cm added to the edge, to be comparable.) I’d say at the bust, the difference in ease is about 4 cm around the whole bust, rather more at the waist and almost no difference at the bottom. There are also some differences in the shoulder-point position and armscye curve, but seeing as 1) my sloper has very narrow shoulders, and 2) I’m really not sure what to make of them, I’ll get back to you about it once it’s made up.

And, for your edification, here’s how the sleeves compare:

Renfrew sleeve vs. Knit Sloper

So I should really have set the knit sloper a little further down, to allow for seam-allowances. Sorry. Anyway. Sleeve cap height is actually fairly similar, however. Renfrew’s sleeves don’t seem to have much (if any) front/back shaping, and there’s no notching to indicate it, anyway. I know lots of knit patterns don’t, it’s not necessary, but I do think you get a slightly better fit when there is some. (You can see I have a little bit of shaping on my sloper—the front is to the left—although for the life of me I can’t remember if that’s original to the Lydia or if I added it as I was messing around.)

The original Lydia length is about where the knit sloper starts flaring out, so that length is very close (remembering that the sloper should be down another 1.5 cm, but on the other hand the Renfrew has the cuff on the end. So Renfrew sleeve is probably functionally longer, for your size, than the Lydia. I think the taper of my sloper is pretty true to the original Lydia sleeve as well, so the Renfrew sleeve also appears to be a little more straight overall. It also doesn’t appear to be drafted with sleeve cap ease, which is great in a knit.

So what does this all mean?

Sloper vs. altered Renfrew

At the end of things, I still wanted to be making Renfrew, not just another version of my knit sloper (but with sleeve-bands). So I opted to keep as much of the Renfrew shape as I could. For size, considering I like a little less ease in my knits (and I *REALLY* liked Seraphinalina’s Renfrews, where she went down a size), I went with the 6.

I “petited” the armscye sightly, by the simple expedient of using the size 4 rather than the size 6 height, and squared the shoulder by going over to the size 2 at the side of the neck. I also shortened above the waist, but by considerably less than the 2″ I removed from the Lonsdale—only about 2 cm, this time. And, because I wanted to keep the same overall length, I actually just “slid” the waist shaping up.

Since I’m making the 3/4 sleeves this time, I didn’t make any length alterations on them—I just adjusted the sleeve-cap height to the size 4 rather than the size 6. And it’s all cut out and ready to go, except that now I want to take a whack at adding Lisa’s hood. Which may not work (and I have enough fabric to make one go at it but not several), but requires a bit more thinking about matching the neckline that I haven’t quite gotten to. Maybe on the weekend…

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March 19, 2012 · 7:36 pm

Sunshine, lollipops…

La la… ladeeda… yeah, I don’t know that song very well.

ElleC (who’s been one of my favourite commenters for a long time but only recently started her own blog) gave me the Sunshine award. I’ve been pretty bad about awards lately (by which I mean the last year or so), meaning that I’ve gotten two or three I know I haven’t even acknowledged, or said thank you, never mind answering. Be assured, it’s all lack of attention and organization, never personal vendetta or even dislike of the whole award/meme idea. I know for sure one or two people gave me the Versatile Blogger award again, and Redbam Sews gave me a Leibster, which I don’t technically qualify for having more than 200 followers, but I really should’ve at least said thank you. Sorry, Redbam! Thank you!

Anyway, thank you all (and ElleC especially), and here’s my “Sunshine” Q&A. I’ll warn you, though, it’s not nearly as funny as Pretty Grievances‘, who ElleC also nominated. There’s links to the other “awards” posts I’ve done under the very-messy “Participation” tab up at the top.

Favourite colour: red.  Because it’s passionate, ambivalent, dangerous, sensual, right-wing, left-wing, intense, and, well, red.

Favourite animal:  Acanthostega. Coolest animal ever. Dude had gills, feet, and eight toes, and if I ever become a Furry, it’s totally going to be the basis for my Fursona. Even though it doesn’t have fur. Hush. Oh, also it’s been extinct for about 350 million years. It’s one of the first tetrapods (the group that includes you, me, your cat, your budgie, the Geiko Gekko, and Kermit the Frog), and represents a stage when shallow-water fish were just beginning to adapt to moving around on land.

Acanthostega gunnari

Favourite number: 7. It’s the date of my birthday, and “Sept” (my birthday month is September) is 7 in French, and I turned 7 in 1987 (not quite as cool as if it were 1977, I kow). And apparently when they’re looking to see if people have falsified their accounting, an overabundance of 7s is one of the signs they look for—people like 7s.

Favourite non-alcoholic drink: chocolate milk. I don’t like pop, or anything fizzy (yes, I’m a freak), so chocolate milk is my substitute. I know some parts of the world are chocolate-milk deprived. This is a tragedy in our modern age, rivaled only by the absence of “iced tea” in soda fountains in the US.*

Facebook or Twitter: facebook, but mostly for keeping track of the extended family and posting the odd school video of the kids; I like that it’s not the time-suck a lot of other online forums are (since I don’t play the stupid games). I have avoided twitter consciensciously, also for the time-suck reason.

My passion: Um, this is a problem. I have serial passions. Mostly I cycle between art, writing, dance, and sewing. Used to be sewing was last on the list, the last few years, it’s been much higher. Oh, and research and history belong on there somewhere. If I could just settle down and focus on something, I might be actually really great at it…

Getting or giving: Either, if it’s the right gift. Neither, if it’s the wrong one.

Favourite pattern: Jalie 2908. Duh. Although my favourite dress is this one.

Favourite day of the week: Hmm. Friday. I know, it’s the obvious choice.

Favourite flower: Crocuses. Because it’s March and there’s a vague possibility that they might actually be blooming. If you asked me at a different time of year, you might get a different answer. I’m not really a flowers kinda girl.

Favourite celebrity role-model: Um, celebrities are role models? Er. I do like it when they do good things, but I wouldn’t say there’s one that stands out.

Erm. I’m not going to pass it on. Because then I’ll be all worked up trying to figure out if someone’s got it before, or spazzing out if they don’t accept, or stressing, and, well… as I mentioned, I have Issues. Hmm, maybe I should just adopt a firm no-meme policy after all. /sigh. Whatever. If you want it, take it. 🙂

Jalie Yoga Pants, Renfrew-in-waiting

As for sewing, I did manage to trace out both the Renfrew top and the Jalie 3022 yoga-pants in (what I hope is) my size, and cut out the top. Although now I’m thinking about adding Small Things’ awesome hood pattern to the Renfrew. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Or would it just be overkill?

Some actual sewing will happen at some point…

*I know that my pre-packaged, highly-processed “iced tea” is anathema to many of you, for good reason. However, if there isn’t any crappy-mass-produced-iced-tea in the soda-fountain, then I have absolutely *nothing* I can drink there, which I usually discover right after ordering the obscenely-overpriced popcorn & pop combo at the movie theatre, and then I cry. And they never have chocolate milk, either.

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March 17, 2012 · 11:46 am

Comfies

Comfies!

When I first moved in with my husband, I discovered something that surprised me: one of his favourite things, upon getting home, was to get rid of the day’s clothes (be they casual jeans or the monkey suits he wore to work in those days) and put on his “comfies”. These could be an array of things—mostly flannel pyjama pants and a T-shirt, but really anything would do that was soft, unrestrictive, and, well, comfy.

The idea of wearing particular clothes for lounging around had never really occurred to me.  I mean, my day-to-day stuff isn’t exactly screamingly uncomfortable, for the most part. And the problem, the biggest single problem, for my poor little brain, was this: comfies aren’t sexy.

Hmm, didn’t Peter post about this recently?

Er, yeah. I have a hard time feeling comfortable—relaxed and happy—if I don’t also feel attractive. Feel free to dissect my psychological quirks if you like, but that’s just the way it is. This discomfort is waning a bit as I get older, but the fact is that I still don’t really enjoy “comfy” clothes if I don’t like how they look on me. So aside from the odd pair of yoga pants and a few fitted tanks and tees, I’ve never had much in the way of “comfies.”

But now (perhaps spurred on by the amount of time I’m spending in bed writing these days), I want to try to change that.

Comfy pants!

Step 1 was the arrival of Jalie 2033, the yoga pants*. I’ve been meaning to clone my favourite pair of yoga pants ever since they developed holes in the butt years ago, but since I haven’t gotten around to it yet, Jalie 2033 will be a good substitute, especially since I can barely get the shorts versions off my kids.

Comfy tops!

Step 2 was getting the Renfrew pattern from Sewaholic. It’s just that bit easier-fitting than my knit sloper—perfect for comfies, right?—and what better way to give it a trial run than to make something intended to be worn around the house? I’m thinking V-neck with 3/4 length sleeves.

Comfy Fabric!

Step 3 was the arrival of a package of knit fabric from Lady Katza of Peanut Butter Macrame (doesn’t that name suggest a story?), I believe salvaged from her late (and much missed) mother’s stash. Thank you, Katza! Included was approximately a mile and a half of awesome sturdy knit in a pretty, if slightly twee, peach colour. It’s somewhat sun-damaged as well, although given how much yardage there is that shouldn’t be too hard to work around.

All I need to do now is, y’know, actually do it. 😉

 

*not that I do yoga. I mean, I should, but I don’t.

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