Sew Distracted

There's No Place Like Home

Danger, no sewing ahead, only distractions!!

It has been so long since we had a weekend at home with no plans, well except for Friday, but that still left three nice, long, unencumbered days.  What a pleasure.  I had almost forgotten how nice it is just be able to relax and putter about the place; even doing necessary tasks seems enjoyable.

I was terribly behind on garden work, but then, since I hadn't had a free weekend since early April, that is probably not surprising.  The maple has been very prolific and there are thousands of little seedlings to pull.  Luckily I genuinely enjoy weeding, and the weather was glorious this weekend with the exception of a couple of thunderstorms.  Luckily they usually came at the end of the day and saved my having to water newly planted plants.  Sitting in the yard, looking at the flowers and the various textures of the greenery is such a joy, rooting delicately among the leaves, uprooting the undesirables, while the breeze gently blows... well, it is all an almost zen-like experience.  What a lovely way to welcome summer.

Of course there was harder work, lugging bags of mulch, digging and planting, dragging the hoses out of the basement and installing new hose reels.  All of those tasks have served to make my arms and shoulders, not to mention my back, a little more tired than usual.  It is a good tiredness though, a tiredness derived from a job well done, somehow far more gratifying than the exhaustion that comes from wrangling with recalcitrant computers and annoying phone calls.

The irises are blooming:

I just love seeing them.  Even though the season is short, it is worth every moment.  Last year I had the Dahlias in the iris bed as well and the color was wonderful.  The yellow irises re-bloomed last fall, but the purple ones did not.  This year who knows:
I have to rebuild that bed once the blooms are finished and there is no point in planting the dahlias until that task is done.  I can't see uprooting them twice.  The plow  pushed up one side of the bed into a mound, and the winter lake that forms in the neighbor's glade drains right through the middle of this bed, washing the soil away.  I need to put in a drain channel.  If I dig up the irises, even relocating them into a temporary bed, I am not sure if the second bloom will be affected. 

The other major distraction of my weekend, has been cooking, which is always one of my favorite tasks anyway.  The farmer's market is open for the season, as is the Migliorelli farm stand so cooking is getting fun again.  Late winter is always so depressing because the produce is less than stellar.  I was away too much of the spring and was afraid that I had missed all the wonderful early spring produce.  I needn't have worried:  produce abounds and I had a wonderful time in the kitchen. 

The asparagus is up in the garden and the mushroom man had morels:

You probably have to be a mushroom lover to appreciate this photo, but here is a plate of about 50 morels waiting to be transformed into tonight's dinner.  Cornbread and a bowl of oven braised morels in broth is not a traditional Memorial Day dinner, but it is great comfort food for weary bodies after working in the yard, getting the pool open, and various outdoor tasks.  A salad with roasted asparagus and shaved Parmesan will round out the meal.  We did give the grill its inaugural fun  run for lunch though.

I have had so much fun cooking, I have not even had time  or energy for sewing.  If I was lucky I would get a little knitting done in the evening, but last night I was too tired even for that .   Housecleaning is the recourse of the body and mind struggling to stay awake.  My sewing room is still piled up with booty and detritus from my various trips.  The kitchen island was fully occupied with food so cutting out was impossible.  Do I care?  No.  Cooking and eating are such pleasures.  We had fresh bok choy cooked Thai style with pork and wide rice noodles, Chicken with asparagus and morels, risotto with veal and morels, fresh tiny Japanese turnips stir-fried with beef and the wonderful turnip greens. 

Do I know how I managed to gain weight the past few years?  Of course I do.  I enjoy the pleasures of the kitchen far too much.  Sometimes I envy my friends who don't enjoy cooking, or even eating all that much.  But then I just take a bite of something wonderful, savor the sensations on my tongue, and know that it is all worthwhile. 

If only I had more time to indulge in everything.  I really do want it all.

Skirting the issue

Ahh, the famous headless shot...

Not that you really need to see my head anyway.  Besides I really wanted to show off my cute new shoes, purchased just because I was making this skirt.

I actually saw the shoes the day I bought the fabric for the skirt, but was too tired to buy them then.  I had to be back in NYC a week later, the shoes were still there, and I knew that it was fate that brought us together.  They actually go with quite a few things in my wardrobe.

Note the cute yellow heel, that's what really brings a smile to my face and a little skip to my step.

The skirt is probably a little loose for a pencil skirt, but I am still trying to work out the fit-when-I-am-sitting issue.  A narrower skirt looks great standing and walking, but since I bend funny due to the fused back and lack of lower lordotic curve, I need extra room to sit.  Now I personally don't mind just hiking my skirt up to my hips, especially at home when no one is around, or in the car when I am squirming around, but it is not something that is generally done in polite company.  Actually, if I sit in a short, meaning knee length or above, skirt that is at all fitted, unless it is very roomy, it hikes itself right up there anyway.   Good thing I have nice legs.

I am going to continue to mull over the purple top options a few days longer but all the wonderful comments are really helpful.  I am leaning toward greater overlap and still torn over short or long.  I may just have to make another one in different fabric.  The long version will certainly take better advantage of the water repellant treatment on the fabric.

Dream On

One of the pieces of fabric I took with me to San Francisco was a beautiful piece of mudcloth I had picked up several years ago at a sewing expo in Baltimore.  I love the fabric but had never made it up because, although I had a vague image of what I wanted to make in my head, I was not sure that the fabric was my best color and I was therefore not sure how to pull it off.  I took it to San Francisco with a vague idea that I might be able to use a new pattern of Sandra's for it, but that did not pan out, and also thinking that I might be able to find some coordinating fabric to use with it.

Well I was successful in finding coordinates and I am very happy with the results:

The grayish fabric on the left with the yellow pattern is the mudcloth, I have about 4 yards and it is 30" wide.  Although you can't see it here, there is a greenish cast to the gray, that is the problem shade.  On the right are two Japanese cottons I purchased to go with the mudcloth.  The lighter blue/gray one will be lining and perhaps carried up onto the collar to frame the face.  I was originally planning the black one with the taupe squares to be cut as a bias binding between the lining and the mudcloth, but I bought extra to use as a top to wear with the skirt I plan on using with the bottom fabric, which is an upholstery fabric, silk and rayon that I plan to cut on the bias for a skirt to wear with the coat/jacket.  I will probably also use it somehow in the jacket but that is still rather vague.  The top fabric picks up the beigy-yellow of the bottom upholstery fabric and the grey of the mudcloth and will be incorporated somehow, probably as trim.  This is all still rather vague in my mind; all that I know is that I like the way the fabrics work together. 

This is a close-up of the texture of the bottom fabric with just a corner of the black and taupe Japanese cotton.

I envision the whole jacket as a kind of coat or topper, roughly 3/4 length although that may not be possible given the yardage on the mudcloth.  I would like some kind of standup or dramatic turned back collar.  The day after I bought this fabric Sandra came in with a coat which is a draft for a swing coat pattern she has coming out for Vogue in September.  I tried on the model, which is a size D, and it fit me very well through the shoulders so there is little I would have to do in the way of alterations.  It is basically the style I am after so I will wait until that pattern comes out. 

In the meantime I want to put these fabrics where I can see them and let them inspire my sewing fantasies.

Help Me if You Can

I took the plunge and opened the box I sent home from San Francisco.  I knew the purple silk top/jacket was in there hiding after I banished it from my sight the last sewing day.   Happily it is not as bad as I remembered.

Here it is in its current (unfinished) state:

It is not bad but it does look a little better on me than on Matilda here.  However it is much easier to photograph her.  I am not usually fond of drop shoulders but I decided to keep them here because I was not sure how easy the laminated silk would be to sew.  It is easier than I thought and I can even manage a little easing, but not much.  Of course drop shoulders look even worse when you have no arms...

I still don't like the way the front hangs.  It looks more like it was cut incorrectly or is too small, neither of which is the case.

I tried moving the button over, not fastening it at center front as specified in the pattern, and there is plenty of room to do that, as can be seen here:

If I did this I could not use the pretty butterfly button because it looks best in the center and I really don't think a large butterfly perching on the center of one's breast is all  that attractive.  In fact the bust point centering issue is the main problem with this plan.  The closures for the two sides would end up being right at the bust points.  Now I forgot when I cut this that I usually have to take fabric out of the center of my garments, from between the bust points and move it to the outside.  I guess that means that my bust points are closer to the center front line than most patterns.  Given the slanted fronts, I am not sure how I would have done that anyway.  It is also possible that moving closure to provide more overlap throws off the hang of the sleeves.  I can't tell that on me because my hands are busy holding the top together so I can't look at how the sleeve hangs, and Matilda, well she doesn't have arms anyway so it is hard to tell.

The other plan is just to shorten the top:

As you will note, I just folded the hem up, and not all that evenly either.  Still the point gets across and I think the top is much nicer in the shorter length mostly because the opening is not so wide and does not look so much like a mistake.  When I tried the top on over pants it also looked nicer short, trust me on this.

Aside from the fact that this is the much easier fix, I really think I like this better but I am going to think about it a few days.  If anyone is reading this, please tell me what you think.  Any help really is appreciated here because I still alternate between loving this and hating it.

Of course, no matter what happens, I really enjoyed sewing the fabric and the pattern anyway.

San Francisco Skirt

Here is a skirt I made last week in San Francisco.  I was inspired by a Max Mara skirt in the May Vogue Magazine, although that skirt is really more ornate than mine and is made from a more summery tweed.

I purchased the feather trim at MJ trim in NYC and also bought the matching ribbon trim. The feathers and trim are deep brown with a deep violet/purple/fuschia color.  The color of the wool is much more fuschia/navy than it appears in this photo, giving the overall cast of the skirt a deeper, red-purple hue.

The feather trim came sewn to a tape which inserted between the bottom of the skirt and a hem facing.   The ribbon trim is machine sewn  to the skirt, anchoring he hem in place.  The skirt is lined and has a petersham ribbon faced waist with no band.

My next project was not as successful.   I was working with this silk fabric from EmmaOneSock.com.  I have never worked with a laminated fabric like this and thought it would be an interesting project.  The fabric was part of a bundle I purchased and although I think it is quite pretty there is no great emotional investment here. 

I decided to use this pattern:    which is still available from Vogue Patterns. 

Everything went together well but I was just not sure I actually liked the garment.  My friend Mary says it looked very good from the back but in front it looked like it just didn't fit, almost unfinished like it was buttoned in one place because there was not enough room although I actually had lots of extra ease in the front of the garment.  I was thinking that the silk was just too light.  I had originally thought of lining it but had not felt like adapting the pattern to that or doing the extra work.  I am not yet sure what I think, I packed it up and sent it home.  We are going to Knoxville next weekend so it will be at least anothe week before I get it out and take another look.  I think that I like the pattern and I like the fabric, but it was not a good marriage between the two.

Saturday is shopping day for the Power Sewers and Sandra's husband Dan spent the day driving 9 eager shoppers around the bay area.  We went to STone Mountain and Daughter in Berkley and Thai Silks in Los Altos and I purchased fabric at both places.  Those packages were sent home and I will share the goodies when they arrive.

We also went to Poppy in Oakland.  Poppy has great trim and great upholstery and home dec fabric and a few other unusual things.  I bought a bolt of fabric to upholster the conversation pit in my living room there a couple of years ago.  This time I was very moderate and only bought once piece of trim, shown below:

It is really just a piece of flat binding with buttons sewn down the center.  Each button is topped with a tiny bead.  I think I will use it as trim on a jacket but it also inspires me with ideas of how to use old buttons, old pieces of bias binding and many other things.

Biased,part 2

My first project in San Francisco this past week was to work on the blue linen pants I had abandoned before the Amazon trip.  Admittedly I was not sure whether the problem was a fitting issue or a construction issue and I tended to assume that the problem was caused by seamtress error, namely that I thought I had cut the right leg off grain.

On Monday I tried on the pants and asked Sandra (Betzina) to mark where the seam lines should have been on the right side.  I explained that I was going to take them apart and use the markings to draft a new pattern or at least cut new pieces for the right leg.  I had extra fabric and the existing right leg could be sacrificed.

She drew two new lines in beautiful fuschia chalk and I took the pants apart; the results are shown here:

Reassuringly, I learned that in this case the problem was not caused by an error on my part, just an asymmetricality in my basic architecture.  As you can see by looking at the red lines I needed to move the inseam forward to the front of the pant and move the outseam toward the back of the pant.  Note that the angles were not the same.

I pinned the pants together along the seam I as working on for each piece, lay my old pattern pieces over the flat linen pant pieces, and drafted new patterns to match the actual lines drawn by Sandra.    When I looked at the pattern pieces, they looked perfectly normal, but when I pinned them to the fabric, aligning the grainlines, it became evident that for the pants to hang on grain, the side seams were definitely not in the same line as the grainline of the fabric.

The new pants went together perfectly well except for a little trouble with one seam lengthening a bit because I was actually sewing a bias seam and not a straight-of-grain one, something I knew in an intellectual way but had not accomodated in actual practice.   I finished the pants on Monday and new they looked good and hung straight.

Tuesday I finished the pants:  I cut the lining, constructed it, and attached it at the waist.  I used petersham ribbon to face the inside of the waistband.

As this particular linen is rather ravelly I also felt it was better to completely attach the lining at the hem, something I often prefer to do, even though almost every sewing book I own and most instructors have not recommended this technique.  After attaching the lining I hemmed the pants with two rows of hand stitching to be sure they were well anchored.

The white layer is the fusible wigam that I used to line the hemline and add weight to the hem so the pants so they would hang well and add strength to the hem.

Finally, here I am in the finished pants.  They are really simple, and I think I will be using this pattern quite a bit.  But I seem incapable of whipping out a simple pair of pants without doing all kinds of extra work.  Pardon the wrinkles.  I had been sewing on my next project for a couple of hours by the time this was taken.

Thank you, Karl Lagerfeld

Sewing week has ended but I am still in San Francisco and have a computer connection.  I also have a little bit of spare time to catch up with everything that has been going on here.

Here is a top that I made the morning I flew out to San Francisco, May 7th.  I cut it the week before and had every intention of finishing it before I had a major computer crisis at work and managed to squeeze in no more than 15 minutes of sewing time a day.  I woke up early Saturday morning obsessing about the unfinished top and got it made in time to wear that day:

The top is inspired by a Chanel top I saw at Neiman Marcus when I was visiting my Mom in early December.    The original was wool jersey with silk tweed at the bottom and on the bottom of the sleeves.  What really inspired me is the way it was sewn.  The silk and the jersey were just overlapped and stitched with a straight stitch and then fusible interfacing was fused over the seams on front and back to frinish the seams and keep the silk tweed from unravelling.

This is my version.  The black knit is a wool/poly jersey and the white/gray and black is a silk suiting; both are from CandleLight Valley Fabrics.     I used Kwik Sew 2900, the same pattern I used for a periwinkle top in March.  I changed the neckline from having a band at the v-neck to a facing with a triple row of topstitching around the edge to add stability.

I originally wasn't sure about the finished length and ended up pinning on the fabric and adjusting the length just before sewing.  The silk tweed was just stitched to the jersey with a straight stitch.   I cut separate pieces for the outside and inside pieces of tweed, using the seam as the hemline.  After attaching the tweed to the knit I fused So Sheer on both the inside and outside.

    It is hard to see here, but the so sheer reflects the light slightly differently than the knit.  The interfacing extends about equally above and below the line between the knit and suiting.

Here is another picture:

This one shows the inside of the hem with the hem facing and another layer of the so sheer.

I like the way this top has turned out.  It is attractive and light; the interfacing keeps the silk from ravelling and the idea of having something that is usually part of the inner construction of the garment as a design detail.  I think I would use it again.  It would be really cute as a short, high hip or shorter top, perhaps a shell, with a short cardigan with the same treatment on the bottom.  I would be limited in choice of colors,white or black, but white knit with one of the pretty pastel silk tweeds or white tweeds with brighly colored flecks which are available now would be very pretty.

Sewing Week

Here I am at the Marines Memorial CLub in San Francisco for Sandra Betzina's Power Sewing Week. Just the name power sewing is encouraging and I am ready to jump right in and have a lot of fun.

Yesterday was the first day and Sandra had a lot of garments to show us, including her new patterns and some glimpses of things coming in the future. We got fitted and each got to work on our individual projects. I started with the blue linen pants which were giving me problems.  I had Sandra draw lines on the pants illustrating where the side seams should have been and I cut them apart and used the pant pieces to draft new pattern pieces for the right side.  I still used the same crotch and waist shaping  that had been previously perfected by Monica (the pattern drafting expert).  In that pant lesson she showed us where to place the grain line, 1/2 inch outside the center of the pant leg, and perpindicular to the crotch line. When I look at the new pants leg  they look normal,until I look at the grain line as compared to the waist and side seam shaping. Definitely some bias going on there.

I do hope to have pictures to show you all later.  The internet connection in my room is down and I cannot upload my photos through the internet  connection in the business center here. 

Today I will line the linen pants and then start something else.  The pants look really good and I can't wait to show them.