Sew Distracted

Resorting and Restoring

I truly did not realize it had been so long since I had posted anything here.  October seems to have just slipped through my fingers, there was a luncheon I really wanted to attend but it came and went before I even managed to get onto Kayak to look up airfares.  Sometimes I think I need a minder.

Anyway, when life gets really really busy it tends to be my way to just withdraw into myself for a little bit and cut out all the extraneous communication.  Not that this blog is really extraneous, just that when "me" time is at a premium, those quite reflective moments get first dibs.  Otherwise all is well, just busy.

My clothes came back from the cleaners on Friday and they are NOT all put away.    Friday night I managed to sort and fold or hang the scarf and shawl collection because they had been piled on the bed and we were in danger of suffocating if I did not get the huge pile of dry cleaner's plastic, much less the scarves, out of the way.  It is amazing how in 30 years of collecting, even at an average rate of  only 2 scarves a year, a huge collection can be amassed. 

Today was reserved for getting the fabric out of bags and off the hangers so that I can then have space to hang clothes.    As I had previously mentioned there was quite a bit (although only a small portion of the entire collection):

This is a portion of the bill from the cleaners.  There were no blankets, sheets, or pillowcases.  What would I do with 32 pillowcases anyway? Although I suppose that they might have been appropriate for pricing some pieces of fabric although there were few I would consider as small as a pillowcase, well maybe a skirt length.   

We are actually most tickled by the idea of "Fabric, very Medium".

At any rate,  putting away the fabric seems to be a day-long activity.  I had all the fabric indexed on 3x5 cards.  But of course, it does not come back in the order it was sent out.  So first I had to pull out all of the cards for fabric that was stored in the Master Bedroom Closet.  This took a while as the index cards are stored in shoe boxes and sorted by color, requiring me to sort look through the entire filing system, looking for those pieces labeled with "MBxx".  This of course lead to a few delays as I was occasionally distracted by a particular piece of fabric and spent time revisiting fabric-shopping memories and dreaming of future garments.

Here are the cards and the  storage boxes that house the fabric collection master list.

Now, after arranging the index cards by color, I am pulling the fabric, removing it from the hangers, folding it and storing it in the appropriate box. This way a fabric will still be in the appropriate box when I go to try and find it, although there are a few fabrics I am rearranging as I see new possibilities for coordinating outfits, and as I see a few pieces that may want to be made up this fall.

Although this all takes some time, spending time playing with fabric is always fun.

Clean-UP

17 skirts
20 pairs of pants
90 tees and knit tops in various configurations

untold jackets, blouses, scarves etc.

166 clothes hangars, padded, skirt hangars, jacket hangars all lost.

We had a fire in my clothing closet.  The multi-plug that ran DH's bedroom stereo burnt.  Melted plastic, burnt carpeting, singed closet dividers.  One singed skirt..

Apparently wool does not burn well.  Wool carpeting and wool skirts helped damp the fire.  We are very lucky.

My hangars were mostly the kind coated in plastic or fabric and all need to be replaced as the plastic is impregnated with the acrid smell of burning plastic and airplane glue.  DH had the good wooden hangars.  Now I will too.

Actually the numbers are kind of embarrassing.  Although not the number of skirts, I think I am short of skirts, especially since some of those are only appropriate a few times a year. 

I haven't begun to count  the pieces of fabric that need to be cleaned.  I suppose I will be counting them as they come back and have to be put back in the closet.  Aack!

I haven't even begun the search for new carpeting and shades.  I suppose that is next on the list.

Sweaters and shoes are OK, they were in a different closet in a different room.  I consider myself very lucky for not having put away the laundry at the time of the fire.  The laundry room is on the opposite side of the house.

moving into fall

I have managed to unpack all the fabric I purchased in San Francisco and integrate it into my fabric collection.  At the same time I managed to move the summer fabrics out of the active stash and back into the collection, keeping some of the new fabrics, as well as some old friends, for more imminent projects.

One of the projects that has remained in my mind revolves around the green challis skirt made last year and reconfigured this year.    I still have the wool which was intended to be a coordinating jacket:

I believe the new silk band on the skirt really makes the reds in this skirt pop and the combination works even better with the jacket fabric now than it did before.  I am really looking forward to making up this fabric this season.

This second photo is the silk that I had put aside for the lining of the jacket.  You see that it also picks up colors in the skirt, but does not quite coordinate with the silk band on the skirt.  I may still use it as a lining, or I may put it aside.  I need to do a little playing around with fabrics and styles yet before I make a final determination on this. 

I do know that I want more of the silk charmeuse that I used on the skirt, and that I do not have enough.  I sent a swatch off to Britex last week and just received a call, after I started writing this post, that they do indeed still have that silk in stock and will be sending me some more.  I am thinking of using the silk to make a coordinating blouse to wear with the skirt, or even perhaps to use the silk as a part of the jacket as well, tying all the pieces together. 

Once I had the skirt and jacket fabric together and started thinking further about using the silk, I immediately recalled this Marfy jacket:

At the moment I am thinking of using the tweed for the jacket with the silk charmeuse for the trim.  I don't know if I will add an additional trim or not.  I had originally planned to make a longer jacket with the fabric and if I do not, I may have enough extra to make a simple pencil skirt as well.

AT first I wondered if this jacket would be a little too precious with this skirt, but I am inclining more and more toward going ahead every day.  I will have to make a muslin first, which will help me also check out the proportions and styles to see how they go together. 

Strangely enough I must have had wines and pinks on the brain because a fair number of the fabrics I purchased at Stone Mountain and Daughter also coordinate with the rose tones in the green skirt:

and I seem to have developed an entire rose/wine/plum/green collection for fall.

Most of the fabrics are fairly light-to-mid weight; cottons, rayons, and very light weight wools.  I am still anticipating that it will be a while before I will need to break out the heavy duty woolens.

In that vein I also put together a collection centered on blues, grays, and blue-teals.  This one is basically inspired by several Japanese cottons and then evolved from there:

As you see, there is plenty to keep me busy. 

And I still have knits on the cutting table that I did not finish this summer.  They are mostly long-sleeved tops so they still have plenty of wear opportunities this year.  So it is probably time to stop fondling the fabric and start cutting and sewing.

Green Skirt revisited

The first project I worked on during sewing week, was not a new project at all but a modification of an existing garment, on that I had, in fact, made last year at sewing week.

The first picture is from 2006 when I finished the skirt.   I loved the skirt.  I have other skirts that length which I also love, including a pleated wool plaid skirt this exact length which I wear constantly, but I don't wear this skirt.  Although this is my favorite Simplicity skirt pattern (the same one as the blue eyelet) somehow, it is a poor match of fabric, style, and skirt length.  It is exactly what I thought I wanted, but apparently I was wrong.

I took the skirt to sewing week in hopes of finding some way to make the skirt work for me.    We decided to add a band at the bottom of the skirt.  My guess, just from eyeballing the skirt and guessing what width of band looked good with the fabric, was  that I needed a 5 inch band.  Sandra's more scientific method, based on having me try on the skirt and then measuring where she thought the hem should fall, was for a 5 inch band.  Perfect agreement.

I like this skirt much better.  Technically, I think the length hits my leg at a point that is not the most flattering, and is more difficult to pair with the right shoes/hose.   But I like wearing the skirt much more.  I like the length, I like the way it hangs, I like the feel of the charmeuse hem band.  All in all I think it is a success., although not perhaps with the sweater set shown, for obvious reasons. (updated to add that I am reconsidering the sweater set.  I does go with the skirt, but I am not sure if it doesn't make me look curvier than my comfort level allows)

I think the skirt will be nice with boots in the winter as well.  I still have the fabric for the planned jacket, and now that I am happier with the skirt I have ideas for that as well.