Sew Distracted

Home Again, Home Again

Marji reminded me how much I enjoyed being "Sew Distracted".  

I always knew I would sew again.  But I believed, erroneously, that I would not get "it" back.  I'm not there yet but I may have been wrong.  In many ways I was the backward member of this class, even though I once thought I could sew pretty well.  Even then I never had confidence.  Working on muslins and learning a lot about fitting me, and watching experienced people working on their projects was very inspiring and motivating.  It was a perfect opportunity to begin getting myself back into some kind of sewing shape. Sometimes I felt panicky and doubted my abilities, sometimes however my doubts were proved wrong and I learned to trust my judgements. Sometimes I learned that I really need more practice, but I know I'll get there -- perhaps not sewing as beautifully as Marji, who will always be leagues ahead of me, but I will get better. 

Kenneth King made fitting and pattern alteration seem perfectly logical, whereas I used to think it was some kind of voodoo black magic.  Susan gave me confidence to take my time and take control.

Anyway.  This blog is back.  And I have linked to the missing sewing posts to provide continuity.  

More to come.

Sunday night, Penn Station

I'm sitting in Penn Station waiting for the train to Boston.  My head is still reeling from the fabulous time I have had over the last four days.  

Of course there was the dinner, and the photo you've probably seen by now.

Then there was the entire muslin process which was entertaining and incredibly informative.  I finished the pant muslin yesterday, and last night in the hotel room Marji and I continued sewing and I started altering my original shirt pattern so that I could produce a second shirt muslin today.  It was a busy busy day as there were several fabulous lessons and demonstrations as well.

But I did get the shirt muslin finished.  I will need a third, but I believe I understand what needs to be done, it is something related to what I had to do on the pants, moving the center fronts so that they don't twist and I look all straight and even.  I am tremendously excited. 

I have so much to thank Kenneth King and Susan Khalje for:  I learned so much, their enthusiasm was infectious, and I cannot wait to keep sewing and learning and finally producing all the things that are floating around in my head.

The second pant muslin

Once again I am here in my hotel room in NYC with a big happy grin on my face and my poor tired feet propped up on the bed following another fabulous day.  

I've just come in from a wonderful dinner that Marji arranged with a group of charming and very talented sewing bloggers.  Marji has a great group photo so you really need to go over there and check it out.  Of course Marji and I were both there as were Carolyn, Robin, Claudine, LindsayT, and NancyK.

T he sewing class has been also been very productive and a lot of fun.  We were the first of the students to arrive in the classroom this morning and we got right to work.  I finally threaded up a machine and started stitching up my second pants muslin, and Marji continued to work on her jacket.  There were also brief lessons from both Susan Khalje and Kenneth King.  Then I got my second fitting by Kenneth, which was very interesting.  

On the first pant fitting Kenneth had only marked changes to the right leg, and on the second fitting there were more changes to the right leg as well as a few changes to the left, but not necessarily the same changes on the right and the left.  A second fairly good size tuck was folded out of the right rear pant piece, and you can see the two folded pieces in the photo at right and again below.   The second tuck folded another 1 1/2 inches out of the inner seam just below the crotch curve as you can see in this close up of the same area.

On the right front pattern piece, where a significant tuck had also been previously taken in on the first fitting, Kenneth had pinned out another small dart, this one shown with the red line formed by a tracing wheel .  This little dart was translated into an equivalent move in the shaping of the front crotch curve and seam as shown in this picture.

The center back seam was also moved to the right at the waist.  Shown in this picture is the corresponding left back piece which had to be extended the center back waist to accommodate the move, after which the darts were repositioned so they are balanced on either side of the new center back.

Very few changes were made to the left leg of the pants muslin.  A large tuck was taken out of the back, similar to the one on the right, and a small tuck was taken out of the front, but not nearly as significant as the corresponding tucks on the right.  The hip curve on the left was pretty much left alone, unlike the one on the right,  where the front hip was pretty much redrawn as a straight line down from the waist (the straight black line in this photo).  

T hen the curve of the corresponding back piece was extended at the hip making a much more pronounced hip curve on the back piece, which you can see in this last picture.  Of course the point is not how the final pattern pieces look, but that the final garment looks straight and balanced and symmetrical on me when I am wearing it and we seem to be making good progress in that direction.  

Tomorrow, pant muslin number 3.  I hadn't anticiapted that the pants would take so long.  Do I mind?  No.  Getting a great muslin is worth the effort.  Once that has been accomplished, the pants are easy.

Perhaps with luck I will even get started on that second blouse muslin. 

First Day

It has been a fabulous first day.  Actually it has been a fabulous first day and a half, as Wednesday evening I arrived in New York and finally met Marji, although if feels like I have known her a long time.  We chatted and had a lovely dinner and stayed up far too late.

Today  I got to meet Robin! 

The first day in class was a dream.  Kenneth King and Susan Khalje are such warm, encouraging, knowledgeably instructors it was  a joy to be learning from them. 

In class we mostly did muslin fitting although several people moved beyond muslins and actually cut fabric or at least underlining.  Marji's jacket muslin looks really fabulous on her (as does her dreamy fabric).  And I swear I wanted to steal Kenneth King's jacket all day.  It was just so cheerful.  Marji is probably actually thinking she would rather be running down to the Starbucks on the corner, and I was probably thinking the same thing when I took that picture but since I was standing waiting for  a muslin fitting in my pants, with a zipper that was refusing to zip, neither one of us was really quite geared up for a coffee run.

I did get both my shirt muslin and my pant muslin fitted and I am still working on the pant muslin this evening.  I should be ready for second fittings of both pieces tomorrow.

Kenneth complimented the pant muslin and said it fit pretty well and then proceeded to pin out a huge diagonal tuck which looked more like a geographical mapping of the grand canyon than any pant dart I have ever seen, and then he showed us the magically simple way to correct it on the actual pattern.  After years of fretting, the charming, skilled, and talented Kenneth King has probably solved my diagonal slanting side seam problem.  The proof will be in tomorrows fitting and the final pants, whenever they appear.

After a fabulous and tiring day, Marji and I met Carolyn for dinner and had a wonderful evening filled with good food, laughter and much talk about fabric and sewing.  Thank goodness for fabulous friends, friends I wouldn't have made were it not for the internet and sewing.

New York: We have pants

I got the pant muslin done and, wonder of wonders it worked on the first try.  There are bits of tweaking to be done, but over all I think I am close, very close.  

I started the muslin at 4:00 yesterday afternoon.  There are actually two patterns I wanted to work with and I started with this one mostly because I thought it would be the easiest based on the old pant muslin I had as a starting point.  Besides, it is a style that has historically been very good for me.

Pattern:  style 105 from the October 2006 Burda WOF magazine.

I traced the 44, which I actually thought might be a little small and I was right.  Bummer that.  Then I laid my old pant muslin from 2005 over the pattern to see what obvious adjustments I might need to make.   The left front was perfect (so does this mean I am 25% a size 44?).

The right front needed an inch at the waist going straight down and tapering to nothing at the hip.

The back needed more work.  I needed to raise the waist about an inch, and add more width at the waist too, tapering down.    I did not need the same amount of width on the left as on the right, nor the same taper.  I also needed to change and lengthen the back crotch curve.  None of these things surprised me.  My back is flatter and long than my front.  

I tried the Burda pants first because in the past I have grumbled that Burda patterns are often short through the torso for me, need a lot of alterations but I hadn't tried pants.  I had assumed I was long through the lower torso as well, until I did that body mapping earlier, when I learned that I was actually pretty short from waist to hip.  I thought it was possible that the Burda might work, and it does.  I need more room at the high hip because I move from my waist measurement to my hip measurement very quickly.

After tracing, marking and cutting the pattern I was very very tired.  After making dinner I just sat and watched television with G, drinking a glass of wine and catching up on email.  I figured I might not get to the muslin last night, but I was too tired to care.  I was also annoyed with myself for slacking on the exercise front.  If I had continued with my exercise regime from August and September I might have fit into the size 44 pant or smaller.  Vanity, vanity all is vanity.  I thought I would work out late, when G went to bed.  Instead, at 9, feeling refreshed I started sewing.

Really the hardest part of making pants is the fitting.  Once you have a pattern they are quick to pull together.  Despite getting my zipper discombobulated again (invisible side zip on these pants) and discovering that I had marked the seam lines and darts on the front side of the front pant pieces rather than the back side of the fabric I had them finished by 10:30.  The fit, in a dark mirror in a dark house was good enough for class.  

Now the question.  I plan on making these out of black wool crepe.  I have to wash some bemberg today to use as lining.  I would have sworn I had washed black bemberg, but I don't.  I also have some brown wool crepe that I could use for these pants and I could take that.  I have no brown lining fabric so that will have to be dealt with in NYC.

Or I could take the gray flannel and the other pant pattern I intended to make, the pants from Vogue 2922.  

If I take the brown I need to steam the wool crepe but I can do that this afternoon.  If I take the grey I just need to wash the bemberg.  If I don't take the grey I can continue looking for the Alice and Olivia pattern I originally intended to use to make the grey trousers and do it at home later.  

I'm not sure it matters which pants I make.  Once I have one pant muslin fitted, everything else is just variations on a theme, or at least so I think.  

Today I have to figure out these packing issues, get packed, and exercise.  I need to find a new way to get the workout back into my routine.  I miss the early morning workouts before breakfast.  But the current reality is that I can't get up early enough to get up before G.  Anytime after 1 AM, if I get up he will be up with me.  I have to go to bed before midnight also or G will be up and keep me up, so that puts a quash on working out late.  If I work out after 9, no matter how tired I am I can't go to sleep before midnight and I'm doubly screwed.  

This will be my goal for December:  working out a way to get reasonable amounts of sewing time, knitting time, and workout time.  It is a tall order.  It is also all I want for Christmas.

And because I promised a friend, here is a picture of the blue cotton fabric I am using for the princess shirt.  It is a lovely shirting recently acquired from Michael's in a lovely shade of blue.  I don't have appropriate shirt buttons either, so although I 'should' spend all my time sewing, I will also be spending some of my time shopping.  I hope Marji wants to shop too, we buy so many of the same fabrics it would be really fun to go to a fabric store with her.

Pattern Weights?

Here are my sewing assistants:  Sam and Moisés.  They seem to think their primary role is to hold the muslin in place on the cutting table.  

There is activity in the Sewing Room

I think I mentioned that I have begun working on a sewing project and I've been working steadily all week although I don't have anything I am ready to show you yet.  This is because I have spent most of my time on tracing the pattern, marking the seam lines,  and making a muslin and am not yet ready for the actual garment, although the further along I get in the muslin process the more excited I am about the project and sewing again.  

To my mind the results of the slow start bode well.  I had forgotten how much I enjoy all the steps to making a lovely garment:  the tracing, the marking, the cutting, the pattern alteration, even the muslin process as well as the sewing.  And it is good that I am enjoying all these things because we all know I have only sewn simple simple things in the recent past and I want to make and wear much more interesting things, but since I have no TNT patterns that fit me now it will be a slow process.

It struck me today that I have spent more time "sewing" or at least working on a garment, in the last week than in the entire past year.  And the more time I spend the more determined I am not to lose this again.  

It feels good.  Damn Good.

I am terribly slow.  And I have lost much in terms of skills.  I forget things.  Sometimes I have to do things over and over before I get it right.  Already I see improvement though.  I do better if I am not sewing late at night, but that can't always be helped.  I also remind myself that not only did I sew more often before, I was also less distracted when I was sewing.  But distraction is a part of my life now, a part of life for anyone who is living with and caring for a partner with some form of dementia; the trick is finding ways to keep working on things you love, and learning to just let things be.

This is what I'm working on:  The Plain and Simple Princess Shirt from Hot Patterns.  There was no particular rhyme or reason to my choice, other than wanting to make a fitted shirt and that the pattern just arrived in the mail. 

I am going to be going to  a "sit and sew" with Susan Khalje and Kenneth King next week, where I will also meet Marji, and Robin and I am very excited even though I am also very nervous because I am just out of practice.

To tell the truth I was a little panicky when I started. Because I was panicky I just decided to take it slowly and work through things one thing at a time.  To that end I didn't do much in terms of flat pattern adjustments, just tracing the pattern according to a comparison of my measurements versus the sizes on the pattern.  I did not do a FBA, even though I knew intellectually that I needed one, because the bust point wasn't marked and, although I can figure it out on a princess seamed shirt, I was a little confused about how the alterations for the bust relate to the alterations for the upper chest and armscye and sleeve cap.  So I decided to start from the top down, realizing full well that I would have to take the muslin apart and probably add a piece of fabric in to the muslin as I went along.

So as I said, I decided to plunge ahead.  I cut a 16 through the neckline which sounds big but makes sense since generally men's shirts fit me better through the neckline than most women's blouses.  Then I cut a 12 at the shoulder seam, cutting an 8 at the front armscye seam tapering to a 12 at the back.  Of course I had to adjust the sleeve cap accordingly and this was the part that worried me a bit.    And it seems to have worked well.  I can see how I needed less fabric at the underarms than I would have from cutting a bigger pattern and yet I need much more fabric near the center front, over the bust seams. Somehow, by not doing all the alterations the first time I can see more clearly what needs to be done and why, which is good because there is a lot more to do.

But I'm not working on it now.  I've decided to save the rest of the muslin for class.  Hopefully I will get the muslin done and get the shirt made.  Today I did a little work on the muslin, but then put it aside and selected and pretreated fabric and started getting stuff together to pack.  I also started rooting about for a pants pattern and prepped a piece of wool crepe to take with me, assuming that I get the pants muslin made before I go. 

Monday and Tuesday are busy days but I think I can still get  a pants muslin pulled together, perhaps not as nicely as the blouse muslin I worked on with the stitching lines all basted in black thread, but functional.  Besides I've made pants before but I've never made a fitted blouse that actually fit.  

Sometimes the only thing to do is jump right in.

I have nothing to show yet, but I have started sewing again.  Or at least I have started on a project.  I am still doing the pattern work before I cut the muslin and I really have no idea how this is going to work out.  It has been so long; it has been too long.

After checking measurements against a multi-sized pattern and a bit of wild panic, I figured I wanted I wanted to combine three sizes and make a few adjustments to the flat pattern.  As I calmed down I remembered that I have done this before,  that my plans make sense from a historical perspective.

As I started working at the cutting table I remembered how much I love this, not just the sewing but the pattern work, the planning, the drafting. And I have even threaded my sewing machine yet.   But I will.  And eventually I will get my groove back.

I'll let you know what happens.

Catch Up

It has been a busy, busy week and I intentions and even ideas have fallen by the wayside.

We had house guests for a couple of days mixed in with a bunch of other excitement (we lead a pretty quiet life and it doesn't take much to count for excitement around here. 

And we have certainly done our part to support the recovery this week as well, starting locally with a crew of tree cutters, a bucket truck, a huge chipper truck and a trailer for the logs as we finally took down the big cotton wood tree by the house, as well as a hemlock tree that was almost as tall as the cottonwood, but bare of leaves for all but the 8 or 10 feet which rose above the shade of the cottonwood and other trees.   There were 6 trees total, two of which were dead and posed a threat to our power lines in the next ice storm and it took the crew about a day and a half to get everything cut down and cleaned out.  Unfortunately none of the trees were particularly desirable as firewood so everything was hauled off.

The washing machine also sprang a leak about a week ago and the repair person was here on Friday AM and told me I needed a new pump and a new motor, to the tune of something like $500.  Now that amount of money would buy a new top loader, but I don't intend to replace my top loader with another of its ilk as I see no point in investing in the old technology.  Even so, it was too much to spend on an 18 year old washing machine as well, so off we went to the appliance store.

A new washer and dryer are set to be delivered this afternoon, probably in about an hour (which may be when I finish this post) and I am very happy not to be contemplating a trip to the laundromat.   The original plan was not to get the dryer, although the dryer I have is 16 years old, and the enamel is chipping off on the drum so I have to be very careful about rust spots on the clothing if things are left to sit in the dryer.  But I quickly realized that the front loaders were just enough larger than the old machines that it would be a pain to work around the washer to get at the dryer, so we got the set and I am happy and even eager to run some laundry.

Best of all, I purchased what is my new favorite concealer, even though it is almost as expensive as sin.  You need the teeniest, tiniest little bit, it blends beautifully and covers even dark circles well without slipping, sliding into the wrinkles and creases around the eye or looking like you have applied a layer of spackle.  And it lasts all day.  

I say "almost" as expensive as sin because it is actually $5 cheaper than my previous favorite concealer, the one I thought I would never abandon until someone sent me a sample of this one,  Cle de Peau's concealer.   The only think I don't know is if a container lasts as long.  The Cle de Peau stick looks bigger, and it would usually last me a year or a little longer.  The La Mer looks like it holds less, quantity wise, although I also use far less, just barely enough to be visible on the brush.  Only time will tell. 

Oh, and I did some clothing shopping and found out I could go down a size in a favorite pair of pants.  I also rediscovered a few old favorites that I had been saving and which now fit again.  I was so excited after a few weeks of no progress that I thought I would go public and add the little "weight loss ticker" that I have seen a few places around the web.