Sew Distracted

Patrones

It was just another day and another stop at the post office.

But I got a slip to stop by the desk.  I had registered mail.  Who would be sending me registered mail?  I wasn't expecting anything.  I have a Container Store order on its way, but that will come to the house via UPS.  I am expecting some fabric from the SG Benefit Auction, but that is not going to come registered mail.  My curiosity was piqued, but I figured it was just some boring office-related document.

But no.

This is what I got instead:

As soon as Laura brought it up to the counter and scanned in the label I started to smile.  An involuntary "Oh wow!" escaped my lips.

I almost danced to the car.

Unfortunately there were a few more errands before I returned home.  I managed not to rip the package open in the car. 

I managed not to rip it open the moment I walked in the house.

But eventually I did, and this is what I found:

My Christmas present from G was a subscription to Patrones, airmail from Spain, but he didn't fill out the on line subscription form until after Christmas, even though he told me that was what he was getting me.  We thought it would start with the February issue.  Usually subscriptions take longer than that to get started in the good old USA, but then Spain is a little different apparently, and the January issue arrived, and it is still January, although just barely.

I'm glad I hadn't bought it on ebay yet.  But then I hadn't seen this issue on ebay yet.

There are lots of cute patterns and I fully intend to make good use of this lovely and thoughtful gift.

But now I have to go ogle cute patterns and dream of things that may soon come to pass.

More inspiration

The spring Marfy Catalog came!

Although spring is not usually my favorite season, there are still a couple of things I am interested in ordering.  Unfortuntely I am not particularly interested in the free patterns this time, but that is always the chance one takes. 

I never order as much in spring as fall, I think I am just more oriented toward fall clothes, perhaps part of why the thought of moving south has never appealed to me too much. I don't like being cold, and too much winter is a pain, but I can't imagine life without warm snuggly sweaters and coats and lovely warm woolen things.

I suppose for every sun dress goddess in the world there needs to be some polar bear who loves to snuggle up like me .

It was pattern inspiration weekend, because not only did the Marfy catalog come, but I got the December Patrones that I ordered from eBay:

There are definitely some interesting patterns here, so I need to get to work tracing and working on muslins so that I can have NEW CLOTHES!.

But Marfy first.  I still need to do that Marfy muslin and I may not be ordering many spring patterns but there are still several from the fall catalog that I need to order so I need to get a move on now.

In the meantime however the weekend was successful in that one new closet is completed.  I finished the shoe closet and I am very happy.  All of my shoes are in one place, and I can see them all and reach them all -- well the evening shoes are up pretty high and I need a step stool for those, but it is not like I wear them every day. 

It is strange because I am using the same shelving system I used before, but in a different closet, which fits better, and I got more shoes on the same shelves than I had before?  I have no idea how to explain that, except perhaps that I am not reaching around dark corners into hard to reach places.

And I am thrilled that I painted the closet.  Opening up the closet in the bedroom and seeing all my shoes lined up against the soft taupe background I painted the walls is such a joy.  The taupe goes perfectly well with the wallpaper in the bedroom and sets off the white shelves nicely.   

I am afraid I can't get far enough from the door to give you a full view so I a pretty one with the more extravagant shoe colors will have to do instead.  Most of my shoes really boring old black and brown.

It will be a bit before the other closet is finished because I can't devote as much time to it all at once, and besides, I have not even ordered the new shelving unit yet.  But it will be nice, and I will have more room than I had before, and some storage issues that had been hanging around my neck like lead weights have been solved.   But more about that later.

I've been Tagged!

Well, I originally got tagged over at my other blog, purlsandmurmurs  and I didn't notice that I subsequently got tagged here.  Since I am not creative enough to combine my thoughts into one blog, it seems only fitting that I should answer the tag again.  Now I have to think of 5 things I haven't told you about myself already, not easy as I think I have talked about everything that I am willing to talk about.

1.  I love color.  In my first apartment I had a tiny bedroom, about 8 x 7 feet.  It held my bed, a desk, and a file cabinet, no dresser. I had a tiny closet, abut 2 feet wide and I hung my underwear, socks and pantyhose in one of those tiered wire baskets that people use for onions and other kitchen produce    After my landlord said I could paint it any color I wanted I painted the entire bedroom deep, intense cobalt blue.  I kept asking the guy at the  paint store to add more pigment until it was really really intense saturated blue.  On one wall I painted a giant geometric mural on top of the blue background using a deep brick red, bright grass green and yellow paint.  I painted my file cabinet brick red to match.  I loved that bedroom, it was like a tiny jewel box and I was happy whenever I was there.

2.  I love food and cooking but my favorite food in the world is something I had as a child and still adore, Chicken Paprika.  For years, when my DH had dinner meetings, I would take advantage of those evenings to make myself chicken paprika as it is one of the few foods he is distinctly not fond of.  Since he doesn't go to dinner meetings anymore, I don't get to indulge very often.  Perhaps I should make chicken paprika and serve him chicken fingers and tater tots.  We would both be very happy.

3.  I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Book 6 of the Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser. 

4.  I was hired for my first computer job because the man who owned the company was an amateur Spenser scholar and he said "anyone who can read Spenser can program a computer".

5.  When I was in my middle 30s I had open heart surgery to repair a hole in my heart (atrial septal defect) that had apparently always been there but had just started getting worse.  I later found out that I was very lucky it was picked up as early as it was and I had no significant permanent damage to my heart.   When it was repaired, the hole was the diameter of my thumb. This whole thing forced me to begin what became a rather long process of rethinking my priorities.

and, just because I feel like it,

6.  I am a hopeless romantic.  I always cry at weddings, love songs, and the sappy bits of books and movies.  Even if I think the movie is terrible, I will cry during the romantic sappy bits.

Everyone I know has been tagged.  If you are reading this and you haven't yet been tagged, or responded, consider yourself tagged now.

Delays

It has been what, 2 weeks since I finished the black and white jacket and no further sewing progress has been made:  nothing, Nada, zilch.  And this despite the best of intentions.

I have been thinking about sewing, that's for sure, and as the world seems to get crazier around me I think about sewing more and more.  I really want to crawl into a hole this weekend, finish a few projects (non sewing but related), more about those later, and cut something out, perhaps make a muslin. 

But we have social obligations this weekend, including a day in NYC, that will limit progress substantially.

So what has been happening?

1.  I ran out of muslin.  I did go to my local Joann to buy a bolt but they didn't have any whole bolts.  I could have bought a piece of muslin to get started and ordered the bolt.  But I didn't.  I don't know what I was thinking.  The muslin was half price if I ordered it (and I had a gift card if I purchased a certain minimum amount -- the bolt qualified) but even at $2 - $3 a yard instead of dollar, it would have been a worthwhile purchase, just to keep me at my machine.

2.  The muslin arrived and I was filing some new fabrics on the shelves after I had taken some out to put up for auction.  On Saturday morning I climbed up on the stepladder to put some items on the top shelf and discovered the fabric was jammed somehow.  When I started to pull the fabric out, I discovered the entire shelving system had pulled out of the wall, and was only still upright (marginally so) because it was leaning on the 6 foot tall cabinet that holds my sweaters.  I realized that I needed to empty the shelves, which mostly held shoes, with fabric only on the top two shelves.  A lot of fabric can sit on two six foot shelves, each shelf piled about a foot high.  That fabric went on the cutting table.  Bye bye cutting table for a while.

3.  The shoes went on the floor of the sewing room between the cutting table and the wall, where the ironing board normally resides.  They take up that entire half of the room.  I know I have too many shoes, there are about 120 pairs of shoes and boots piled on the floor of my sewing room.

5.  I decided to move the shoes to a different closet, one that has been little used in recent years, since we built new closets in the master bedroom.  So I cleaned out and dismantled that closet.  Some of the contents of that closet will go in the sewing room closet, which I am now in the planning stages of reconfiguring. 

6.  I repaired the wall in the sewing room closet, which required some structural repair behind the wallboard, where the woodpeckers who infested our house in December had apparently pecked away parts of two support beams to make a nest, hastening the collapse of the wall. And I repaired the wall in the shoe closet to be ready to paint.

7.  In the meantime, I have been planning a new storage system for the sewing room closet.  This requires sorting and actually measuring the space required for the various things I want to store in that closet. It will still provide sweater storage and I want to make sure that I actually have a place for everything before I commit to the new plan.

8.  Driving home from the paint store today, someone made a right-on-red directly in front of me.  I slammed on the breaks and we only had a minor fender bender.  The other driver was yelling at me because I went through a green light and hit her  when she had the right-of-way because of the "right on red" rule.    When I got home I discovered that the gallon of paint in my trunk had apparently flown across the trunk and come open and the trunk and groceries were covered with paint, luckily water-based.  The eggs also flew across the trunk but were unscathed.  About half the groceries were lost.

6.  Now that I have spent a couple of hours standing out in the cold and snow scrubbing out my car, I get to start the day over and go back to the paint store and the grocery store.

I sure will be glad to stay home and sew again, one of these days.

New Vogue Patterns part 2

To continue the previous chain of thought.....

There are still more patterns.  I am pattern crazy this month.  What can I say.  I think it is partly that there are some nice designer patterns and some lovely suits, as there are in general this year.  It has been a good year style wise with more suits and more tailored sportswear which looks a little more polished and feminine.  This is the part of the 80s style I miss, not the oversized shoulder pads, the giant shapeless sweaters and many other looks, but what I like about this season is the way feminine tailoring has worked its way back into clothes, and I love that masculine/feminine juxtaposition that good sportswear and suits can do so well.  There are nice dresses too, but for the most part it is not the dresses that are thrilling me with this batch of patterns (except for that DKNY dress I posted about the other day).

But on to more patterns:

This is another one of those patterns that I almost passed by, and I should know better.  It doesn't look that special at a glance, and they do show the back view on the pattern envelope, but I don't think it is all that flattering on the model.  But still, it definitely grew on me.  I know that it is easy to say if it looks bad on the model how will it look on a normal person?  But that is misleading because I am convinced this pattern has potential.  I  think the back with its draped and laced pieces could be very flattering on some people, especially those with shapely rear view.  And if you have a bit of waist definition and a shapely or trim bum, it can also hide a bit of tummy action in the front.  The more I think about this I think it might be better looking on "normal" people than on the model, who might not ha ve what it takes to show this pattern off.  I am suitably intrigued.  But then, I am always intrigued by different ideas and new ways to play with seaming.  I am also intrigued because it looks like such a boring conservative suit until you turn around.  Now THAT can really turn heads.








This is another classic suit.  These Anne Klein patterns are usually such versatile classic shapes.  It is a pretty timeless jacket that comes in and out fo style, and is pretty much always around because it looks good on a lot of people.  It can also be easily varied by fabric and details.  But it is the skirt that caught my eye here.  Look a the details on the skirt, the pleats in front and in back.  Notice how the pleats go from the outside facing the center of the skirt, not from the center of the skirt facing out.  Look at the back.  Notice that once again the pleats are not lying quite the way one might assume.  I am not saying that you can't duplicate this look with any other pattern, in fact it would not be difficult, but it is definitely an interesting idea and a really nice skirt with its combination of front and back pleats.  I love patterns that do something a little differently and make me look at things in a different way.  It is always good to get shaken out of my old rut a little bit.














This is another pattern that I had  a strong reaction to the instant I saw the pattern even though it is not a pattern that I would automatically assume might look good on me.  In fact my first reaction would be that it would not, but I have been wrong before.  Besides there I am possessed of  a strong stubborn streak which often takes the opinion that anything can look good if I just get the proportions, and fabric right and tweak the design just a little to fit me, not the model.   I know that it doesn't always work out that way, but certainly there is a lot of entertainment value in giving it a try.  The cost of pattern and muslin  are probably worth the entertainment I will get (and possibly frustration) from trying to make it work.  Sometimes the exercises prove to yield wonderful results, sometimes not, but I can't say that I haven't learned something, and I can't say that it has been a waste of my time, probably less a waste of time that collapsing in front of the tele and watching whatever happens to come on.

Besides, I have a weakness for designer patterns just as design inspiration and this pattern certainly inspires me.

I don't like the pattern envelope on this pattern.  They make it look like a jumpsuit. Heaven forbid. 

But I do like the pattern pieces, a short, waist-length bomber jacket and nice pleated pants with a waistband.  I like pants with a waistband.  Always have, probably always will, when you have a long torso, that waistband provides a welcome break across the long expanse of body.  I can see these pants in a soft wool, or a lovely silk.  Yes they could look too baggy and even sloppy but they could look so nice and even a little soigne if done correctly.  This look isn't for everyone, but it is all over the fashion magazines and runways (in several variations) and both the pieces are good for me.  One of my favorite suits had a short jacket cut much like this one and soft pleated pants.  Too bad it is a size 4 and not likely to find its way back onto my person.

Now this is another great Oscar de la Renta Suit.  So flattering and nice and the pants have a high waist but are not so full as the ones above.   Too bad the picture on the pattern envelope doesn't  seem to look quite like the original Oscar de la Renta in last season's runway photos:

Here the jacket seems more closely fitted and the pants seem to ride a little lower on the hip.  No matter, it can be adjusted either way.  It could be a difference in models as well I guess. 

I like the pleat at the back of the jacket.  The way the jacket stands away in the back reminds me of a Perry Ellis suit back from the 80s.  Of course that jacket was gathered and the pleats in this are much easier to wear.  The shaping on this jacket is completely different. Great pattern, however you make it.

I

like this one too.  The jacket looks like some things I have seen in the stores recently, the skirt is flirty and nice, and the pieces all work well together and I can imagine several people I know who would love dresses and outfits made from this pattern and I can imagine places to wear it.  But I am undecided. It is nice.  It will look nice.  But it doesn't make my heart go pitty pat.

I do however love this suit.  I don't know who designs these "Divine Details" patterns but they do seem to have so vintage or retro touches without being retro patterns.  The shape of this pattern is both modern and retro.  Certainly the bodice shaping on the jacket is not new.  Yves Saint Laurent played with this theme. I had suits from Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana with very similar variation on this cut, although the fuller sleeves are more Yves Saint Laurent than Thierry Mugler. Mugler and Montana often had that strong woman/bondage, love/hate kind of thing going on in the clothes, and this doesn't seem to have quite those conotations.  The peplum can be very flattering on a lot of people as long as you ar careful not to make it too "Designing Women" if you know what I mean.

I'm throwing this pattern into the mix because I like the more rounded opening and the addition of the organza ruffle inside the neckline.  This is a nice touch, and I just want to save the idea.  I think some variation on this idea can be created from any fitted jacket pattern that looks good on the individual sewist.  Again this is one of those vintage-inspired details that the "Devine Details" line seems to specialize in.  The little lace pleat at the back of the jacket is not for me, that is a little too much detail.  But I still like the idea of the neckline for my ispiration file.

My last pattern is another dress:
I just love this dress, even without the insert lace panel above the hem.  That is the kind of detail I would not particularly have thought of unless I had seen it somewhere, and truthfully it was not the first thing I noticed about the dress.  I like the pleating at the waist.  I like the neckline and the cap sleeves.  This is the kind of cool summer dress I can just see myself living in.  It is probably a little old-fashioned, and not at all cutting edge, but  in my mind's eye I can already see myself swishing around in it on a nice summer's day.

New Vogue Patterns part 1

Well, the new patterns have been up on the Vogue Patterns website for several days now and I am still working through my thoughts.  Generally, I have been happy with this collection and I see a lot of good things here; that is precisely what makes it difficult to write about, because there is SO much I want to say.

You know, when you have been sewing for a long time it is very easy to get jaded about patterns.  I suppose it is easy to get jaded about clothes to, but this comes more quickly to sewists because I think we notice the shapes and seam lines and basic construction details of a garment more than the average shopper does.  What happens is that when you have been sewing a long time, and buying patterns, you come to a point where you have seen most everything before; you have probably worn it, and you might even have a previous version of the same basic silhouette in your pattern stash.

Styles get recycled.  This is not unique to sewing patterns of course.  Styles get recycled in the store as well and certain garments never really change that much.  Look at jackets.  There are only so many shapes for jackets that will fit a human body.  Even among the high-end fashion houses, there tend to be several shapes and cuts that are standard.  The details might change season to season, but Chanel, for example, always has a series of jackets in a certain style.  The changes are variations that could be made on any basic pattern.

Of course we might or might not want to make that pattern.

And of course, we also always want something new, so it is hard to ignore that little devil on our shoulders that says "I wore that in 1991" or "i have a pattern just like that from the 80s".  So of course, in the new crop of Vogue patterns, there are patterns that I may have seen before, and some that are variations on things I have seen before.  But even that is not all bad, because just because I sewed style X in the 90s doesn't mean that everyone else who is sewing today was sewing in the 90s and remembers that style.  Let the younger sewists have their chance too.  I always remember when I was in college, and I was reading some book or another that was popular among my classmates, and my father said "I read that when I was in college" as if to imply that he was surprised that anyone would still be reading it.  Of course, my classmates and I were reading it at the same age that a previous generation read the same book.  I think the continuity in that is pretty neat.  Think of what we might have missed had the book gone out of print, or a pattern not be re-issued just because something similar had been in the catalog 10 or 20 years before.  That said Vogue Patterns does seem to have a history of issuing a pattern for a style a year or so after it was "new" then leaving it in the catalog for years, and jerking it just before it becomes "new" again.

But on to this crop of patterns.   Thee are quite a few nice patterns, some I have seen before, some that are interesting new variations on old classics.  I think there are 15 patterns that I find interesting.  I won't buy them all, they wouldn't all look good on me, and some of them are really close enough to previous iterations existing in my stash that I don't need to purchase them again.  They are still interesting.

I really like this Donna Karen dress and jacket.  The dress is interesting and I think the jacket looks great with the dress.  I also like the cut of the jacket and looking at the line drawings I think this could be really attractive on.  This is one I might consider buying.  The empire line is something that I can sometimes wear and sometimes not.  The more I think about it I am sure it is a proportion issue and if I get the proportion right it looks really good.  For example I look good in a long empire line evening dress because it masks the fact that my torso is long and my legs are short.  I think the same effect can be worked out with a shorter dress, but in this case, getting the length just right would be critical.  In my case that would mean definitely below the knee and a dress to be worn with heels.  Wearing the dress with the jacket will also make a difference.  Notice how the jacket si short and echoes the empire line.   The jacket also reminds me, in spirit of some things I saw at Chanel this spring.  The cut of the Chanel jackets is somewhat different, but the impression is similar and I think this cut would be far more flattering.

This is another style that keeps coming back, with good reason, because it can be quite flattering.  I have an old Yves Saint Laurent pattern for a blouse in this shape designed for a woven that I mad many times in silk.  I have another knit pattern (this one is a knit) from a few years back as well.  I also have several tops that I got at Banana Republic this fall in a fine silky knit that I think are cut more like this pattern than the one I have.  This one has that squre neckline under the drape which constrains the drape a little bit.  My older pattern is fuller and lies different, not at all like my Banana Republic tops.    At this point, since I haven't actually looked at the pattern pieces I don't know if this is cut differently from the previous pattern, but it does look like the neckline is slightly different and this might be worth looking into further.

As I mentioned earlier, I still love this blouse.  It is a must buy for me, even though I think I am much more likely to wear it tucked in to my skirt or pants, and I might make the sleeves less full, so I can wear it under a cardigan or jacket, although I can also see it without the jacket with a fabulous pair of man-tailored style pants and stilettos.  The sleeveless versions are not for me, unless I am going for that under jacket look perhaps.

These pants are nice and the fit is good.  Style-wise they appear to be a variation on a pant pattern Sandra Betzina had out a few years ago.  That one is discontinued now but it was a great pant.  I know the pattern company discontinues patterns regularly, and there is a limit to how many Sandra Betzina patterns can be in the catalog at any given time, so things get discontinued.  I suppose then that variations on successful themes are inevitable.  I like the pant, I have seen it on, it is a winner if you like her patterns. It is enough different from the previous pant I might get it as well.  Sometimes it is just easier to buy a new pattern than fiddle with changing an old one, especially since the old one is no longer my current size anyway.

I love this pattern.  I loved it when I saw it on the back of the Vogue pattern magazine.  When I look at the line drawings I love it even more.  I have the perfect fabric in my collection, a fabric I bought for something else (probably some other company's variation on this shape as it seems to be an eternally popular design idea) but which is now going to be used for this jacket.  Now, as I said this is a shape you see around a lot.

It is said that all these patterns are inspired by this Vogue pattern, which I have and have made several times in a couple of different types of fabrics.  The look is similar, yes, but if you look at the line drawings you will see that the pattern pieces are entirely different and that the new Sandra Betzina pattern is going to drape entirely differently than this original Geoffrey Beene jacket.  I would use fabrics for the Betzina that I might not have used for the Beene.  I am, in fact, looking forward to exploring this new variation on a theme.

This is a great little jacket and a great little suit.  I am not going to buy it because I already own multiple varations  on this theme.  I have made jackets like this and I have purchased suits with this cut.   I like the shape of the princess lines, the darts, and the two-piece sleeves.  If I didn't alreay have several versions of this jacket  I would certainly consider it.  But then I have a weakness for this kind of feminine yet tailored dressmaker suit.

This is one of those patterns that I looked at originally, said "meh" and almost passed right by.  Then I looked at it more closely and realized it was worth a second look.  Yes, at first glance it looks like a rather boring suit.

But look at the drawings:

First look at the skirt:  I have similar skirts, they were popular a while back (80s or 90s).  It sits higher near the waist and it has fullness that can help if you have a bit of a tummy.  In fact this skirt can give you a waist and mask a bit of roundness through the middle.  I loved these even when I was young because even though I had a small waist, I always had a round tummy, no flat tummy girl I,  and this kind of skirt was always flattering.  Now it can accent my waist, making it look more defined that it is, and still hide some of that tummy bulge.  Might not work for everyone but it does work for me.  It is also a flattering shape if you have a bit of hip, it doesn't hide the fact that they are there, but it accents the curve in a flattering way.

Now look at the jacket.   Boring right?  You've seen it before, right?  Well, yes, that is what I thought too, but look at the line drawings.  Look at the way the jacket has a square shoulder and a set in sleeve in front and a raglan shoulder in back.  I see all kinds of fitting possibilities here and think it would be a lot of fun to fit this jacket.  I might end up cursing myself later, but perhaps not.

Now, as I am going on and on, I will end this post and continue my pattern ramblings in another post, I'm sure this one is going to be slow enough to load as it is.

Fabric Purge

Well, I have had every intention of posting my thoughts on the new Vogue patterns and I have also had every intention of starting a muslin of a marfy blouse pattern.  But, well intentions aren't good enough are they?

Instead I have been playing in my stash.  After the Monday cleanout, I carried everything a step or two further.    In that box in my closet,  I found this knit, and much as it initially pained me, I realized that I am just not going to sew it up.  I know what I wanted to make but it will not look good on me so the fabric sits, and sits and ...., well you know how it goes.  And yet I hadn't been able to bring myself to let it go.

But then I was reading several threads on Stitcher's Guild about stash storage eliminating dead wood from the stash and this made me think about some of these fabrics that are just sitting here, fabrics in colors I once would have worn, but probably won't any more, and I thought that perhaps they could find better homes.  And then I thought about the Artisan's Square Marketplace and and the benefit auction that Marji  so generously set up, that I thought this might be a good place to offer up a few fabrics.

As I looked through the index cards that summarize my fabric collection I immediately latched on to a collection of camel fabrics.  Now camel is not a color I am going to wear.  For years, when people thought I was an autumn I might have worn camel, but I never really did, only as a neutral and then I mixed other colors with it.  But I thought I "should" wear camel, and I had been well brainwashed into doing what I thought I "should" be doing.  It was not hard to find beautiful camel fabrics which I loved, still love in fact, even though I will not wear the garments made from them.

So I offered up a few.  For the most part they are fine European Wools, but there are a few other things mixed in, mostly camels and beiges but again, I have had my misguided plans as well so there is a piece of polar fleece that took up a huge space on my shelf.    You can see the goods here: Mardel's fabric auctions.  Take a look, it is for a good cause, and the fabrics are nice too.

And the nice space cleared by the polar fleece alone has given me space to store the fabrics I bought on sale from  Lucy's fabrics  and Textile Studio over New Year's weekend.

I promise to discuss patterns soon, because I think this is a good crop. 

Operator Error

I have a system for storing fabric.  Well actually I have systems for storing most things.  Occasionally those systems fail, not so much because there is a problem with the system, but because of operator error.  In short, lazy creature that I am, I don't always do what I am supposed to do. Now if I never did what I was supposed to do I would obviously have a bad system, but this is not the case.

Therefore there was no excuse for today.

There was a box of fabric in my closet.  Fabric is not supposed to be in my closet.  I originally put it there thinking I would move it there temporarily as I planned on using the fabric right away.  4 years later is not right away.  In the meantime I had emptied out part of the box, and I had added more fabrics at various intermittent times when I was to lazy to index new purchases and incorporate them into the proper storage area.

Most of these fabrics were indexed with the exception of a couple that were large remnants from other projects.  (maroon linen in the upper right corner and the gray wool below it). I suppose I thought that since I already had a garment, I did not need to re-index the remnant. Short-sighted don't you think?

Other fabrics had never been indexed at all, although I do remember buying them, I would have been hard pressed to find them using the "system".   There was more fabric than I had anitcipated because I had forgotten that I had sureptituously added pieces here and there.  There were fabrics that don't belong in the fabric collection at all.  There were several pieces of bemberg rayon lining, and a few lightweight silks that were meant to be linings.  They should have been stored separately.

There were UFO's hidden in the box, where there should have been no UFO's.  Obviously I was trying to take "out of sight out of mind" to new levels, hiding the UFO's outside of the UFO storage area.

The beige texture knit is stable and not too stretchy.  It has been cut; the pattern pieces are still attached.  I had planned to make the Sewing Workshop's San Diego Jacket.  I cut a size extra-small?  I recall it is fairly oversized.  Is it so oversized it will still fit? 

The green silk matka was supposed to be a suit.  The pants have been cut.  Again the pattern pieces are still attached (along with a sizable portion of my pin collection -- I wondered what had happened to all my pins.).  These I know are too small, I haven't work the previous pair of pants made from that pattern for over 3 years.    But I love the fabric and still  have enough to cut a jacket, or another pair of pants. 

What to do?  What to do?

I think I am going to cheat a little on the UFO front.  The San Diego Jacket may fit.  I know I have some navy wool suiting cut out for a jacket that may or may not fit.  I will check and put the fabrics that are cut but two small in a rubbermade bin and set it aside for a few months, until May or June.  If they don't fit by then, out they go.  If they do fit, they get made.  No more excuses.

And I think I better pull those pattern envelopes and put them with the respective UFO's, or remove the pattern tissue from the fabric and file the pieces.

And I found this lovely piece of linen which I had completely forgotten.  Well, I recalled purchasing it when I saw it, but prior to that, I had no memory of it at all.  Isn't that terrible?  I usually have pretty good recall about what fabrics are in the stash; I might need to look up precisely where they are stored or how much I have, but I remember what is there.

It is definitely time to sew more.  And this piece should go on the list for spring.

Vogue Patterns is here!

The new Vogue Patterns magazine arrived yesterday and it was a welcome treat after a couple of long days with no further opportunity to work in the sewing room.

  I have to admit that I was thrilled from the moment I saw the magazine and it took some discipline to put it aside and wait until I had finished with the day's tasks before losing myself in its pages.

I am afraid it was rather late by the time I got to the magazine, after 10:30.  Although I had taken a break to eat dinner, I wanted to finish my various accounting tasks before the weekend officially began and I still had a few bills to pay.  Friday had been supposed to be my day to close out the 2006 office accounts and finish up the payroll and payroll forms for the year, and it was estimated tax day at home as well so I was busy just doing general end-of year accounting as I went along.

But the daytime hours ended up being occupied with a plethora of conversations with carpenters, contractors, and the engineer, as I learned that a few things hadn't been communicated to other parties involved. we were behind on an inspection, the blueprints hadn't been updated to show the new changes even though the contractor had told the carpenter to go ahead with them, and the engineer did not approve the plan. Something that had been in the plans didn't work with the aluminum substructure for around the pool, in another area the deck was going to end up being 1 inch higher than the door into the house because we had to raise one side of the pool to level it. It all seems to be standard little problems that no one thinks about until it bites them, and then no one is responsible and no one is at fault. Meanwhile it was getting on toward late afternoon and I needed a new set of blueprints that matched the actual job before the building inspector comes on Tuesday or Wednesday, and it was looking like there would be less and less chance of an agreement and time to draw up new blueprints over a long weekend.

What a headache.  Even paying taxes felt like a relief after the afternoon's negotiations. I was very happy to curl up with my magazine and a glass of white wine for a bit before rolling off to bed.

And the verdict is......I love the magazine.  Oh I have subscribed for years, although for a while there the magazine had gotten pretty boring.  I would look at the patterns decide which ones to buy and toss the magazine.  But recently the articles have been more interesting and more informative.  And the styles and patterns pictured look very intriguing as well.

First off, there is that blouse on the cover.  I have been thinking about a ruffle front blouse, somewhere on one of the smaller back burners, for some time now, but I haven't found quite the pattern I wanted.  I am behind enough that I didn't want to draft my own either.  Voila!  Pattern found! Just in time for spring as well.

Then there are several intriguing looking new patterns coming out; a couple of them already have me reassessing a few fabrics in my stash that might be slated for spring sewing.  I will have to wait for the patterns to be posted on Vogue's website, then I can let you know what interests me, but at the moment I am still in the "everything" stage.  I like everything, I want everything.  I want it all.

Siimplicity4047 - Jacket

The black and white jacket is done (finally).

The pattern is a reprint of a vintage style swing jacket with cut-on kimono sleeves.

The pattern seems to be well drafted and went together well.  The only tricky part is the way the neckline is designed,  where the collar is cut in one with the front, involving a right angle pivot.  I found one of the illustrations confusing here, although the directions were perfectly clear.  For me it was just easier to look at the garment and the pattern and it made sense.

The jacket turned out nicely, I like it, and I will wear it. 

Here are a couple of detail photos of the back:

I originally planned to use the same black and white trim I used above the peplum between the facing and the lining of the jacket, but when I started to put it in I felt it was too busy with the checked jacket fabric and the print of the lining.  In the end I left that transition unadorned:

Although I love the jacket, and am happy to be done with it, there are a few things I think I might do differently if I were to make it again.

To begin with, I have two basic fit issues:

First:  after making the muslin in San Francisco we decided that I needed to lengthen the peplum by 2" but not the bodice of the jacket.  Now it looks OK as is; it fits correctly and I tend to be short from shoulder to bust-point, so even though I am tall I don't usually have to lengthen patterns in that area, but the seam might look better a little lower.  I think a lower seam would reduce the appearance of length in the lower torso, especially when wearing pants.  After making another muslin, I would check the final length as I might lengthen the peplum as well.  I am not yet convinced this is the best length on me.

Secondly I added shoulder pads to the jacket even though they were not called for in the pattern.  This was another design decision based on the muslin.   My shoulders roll forward, one more so than the other.  On the muslin I had deep creases running from the shoulder line of the jacket.  I originally thought I could recut the bodice, redrawing and reshaping the darts to accommodate my personal fit anomalies.  Sandra had the brilliant idea that I could probably use the pattern as is and use shoulder pads to even out the inconsistencies in my own frame.  This does work well and the jacket looks good.  I used almost twice as much shoulder pad on the right as on the left, and it was a little tricky getting it positioned just right, but it makes a big difference.

BUT I am still not perfectly happy with how the shoulder hangs.  The collar does not lie symmetrically (because I am not symmetrical, and one side of the jacket is too big.  If I make this again I would cut a smaller size on the right front and have to do some finagling to get the sizes to match and reposition the darts.

The last problem I had with the garment is with the collar.  Oh it works well and was easy enough, I just have a design issue, which is of course compounded by the unevenness of the fit on me as discussed above.

In the pattern photograph shown above you see how nicely the jacket is shown with the collar turned up partially.  I had a good bit of trouble getting my collar to achieve this effect and lie smoothly.  I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, or if it was created merely by the addition of shoulder pads and my own asymmetrically, but I don't think this is the case.

Look at the line drawings:

Notice that in the sketch, the collar lies flat and is spread rather widely.  My jacket did that quite well:

But I didn't like the way it looked on me.  I liked the way it looked much better when I tried to flip the collar up more, but when I did so , the collar and front facing piece buckled and left rather unsightly wrinkles and bumps, quite visible to anyone standing within about 5 feet.  This was not acceptable. 

I checked reviews on pattern review  and noticed that there are a couple of reviews by more accomplished seamstresses than I, neither of whom mentioned having any problem with the collar.  But then, when I looked at their photos, I see that they both showed the garments with the collar down flat, as shown in the line drawing.

Either I messed up the construction, my fabric was not particularly suitable to the jacket, or there is a problem with the way the collar and facing go together if one wants the collar to stand up more.

Luckily the wool was pretty amenable to shaping with steam and although I did not get the collar I wanted, I got a pretty acceptable alternative.  I spent a lot of time at my ironing board with the jacket on Matilda, a roll of wool, a pressing roll and my handy silicone Orka oven glove, steaming and shaping the collar.  I eliminated most of the wrinkles and got the collar to stand, forming more of a roll than a jaunty angle, but it was enough.

Despite this, and despite the fact that I spent a lot more time on this than I originally planned, I am pretty excited about the jacket.  It was supposed to be a quick jacket to wear while I lost weight.  It still is; it is not perfect but it is good enough.  Someday I will learn that I am really happiest when I spend the time to make separate pattern pieces for left and right side, and spend more time altering and perfecting patterns.  But I, like most of us I suspect, sometimes just want to sew and not have to fret with pattern making.    The problem with coming back to sewing is that I have to make a whole new set of base patterns and that is a lot of work, work I usually, but not always, enjoy. 

Finally, here is a picture of me in the jacket.  I am not sure it is the most flattering thing I have ever made, but I love it anyway as does G, and in the end, I suppose we are the only ones whose opinions matter:

One of the good things about going to sewing camp is I learn lots of new ways to "get by" and pull a project out of the fire without going through extensive machinations.  And the results are often good.  If I hadn't started this under Sandra's watchful eye, I would have struggled much more with the fit, and I am not sure I would have been happier with the final result. 

A success!