Sew Distracted

Next up: an actual garment

Yesterday I finished the skirt muslin.  Not much work was needed.  I sewed the darts, mostly as they were in the pattern, although I moved one to make them appear more symmetrical on the back of the skirt.

When I held the skirt up to look at it, after sewing the last dart, I thought: "It looks so small".  It wasn't.  In fact the fit was almost perfect.  The waist was a little snug.  I no longer have the waist I had 5 years ago.  When I looked at the skirt in the mirror I realized that I did not need to let the skirt out all around, that it was snug in front, and that the side seams were being pulled out of alignment by the front.  I released two of the front darts, giving myself about an inch and a quarter.

It was almost perfect. I marked the correct waistline on the muslin as the original skirt pattern extended about 2 inches above my natural waist.  I wondered briefly if I ever wore it that way, but I seem to recall that I did.  It seems that I was a bit of a fuddy duddy in my youth.  I think I am much younger now, but perhaps it is merely that I am more confident now although that may be merely self-deception.  

I also pegged the skirt a bit. The board straight seams were aging and the tapered shape seems much more flattering.

I regret that I did not take a picture.  I was pressed for time, having only about a 90 minutes during which time I hoped to finish the muslin and seam and block the body of a sweater.  

Inspired by yesterday's success, I blocked out two hours of sewing time this afternoon during which time  I dismantled the muslin and used it to create a new master pattern.  I finished out my allotted time by gathering together the materials necessary for a skirt so that I would be all ready to begin laying out the pattern and cutting.

The last two days have been so successful that I decided to try to schedule sewing time regularly, if not every day, at least 5 days a week, in 2 hour increments, for now.  That is the plan anyway.  I don't quite know how it will go over, it being a unilateral decision and all.  It seems to be a commitment I have been reluctant to make, not because I don't want to be sewing, but because I have had trouble giving myself permission to make it a priority.

 

I'm going to take my time with this.  The print is rather large and I want to spend time playing with placement of the pattern.  I'm in no rush after all.  I although I feel in a way "desperate" for pretty new clothes, I don't need them to go anywhere in particular.  Jeans will see me most anywhere I go.  What I actually want are not just any pretty clothes but things that are just right.  I'm sure I will make mistakes along the way, but getting the things I want, the way I want them, is worth time and the risk of wadders.  

Thread Cabinet and Family Fun

At one point yesterday the entire family was busy in the sewing room.

 G was bored and wanted something to do, so I set him to work.  First I had him cut up some old sweaters I had felted, then had him cutting old t-shirts so that I can use the pieces for other projects. 

Meanwhile, I was cutting up foam board, attempting to make drawer liners for my thread and bead cabinet.

As you can see from the photo, that first tray was a little rough.

 I have an antique chest of drawers I use for storing thread, beads, belt buckles and similar things.  I picked it up years ago at a second hand store and although I love it, the bottoms of the drawers are splitting and bowed with age.  Things fall through.  It occurred to me that I could just line the drawers with foam board and this would solve the problem.  Not only that, I realized that although I had been storing thread in a single layer in the drawers, I could actually use the foam board to make two trays, and store two layers of thread in each drawer, doubling my storage capacity.  This is useful because I had a few bags of thread sitting around on the floor, thread my mom generously sent me, waiting for me to find storage space.

While I was measuring, cutting, and creating the thread storage trays, you can see that Moisés was busy helping me sort the thread into piles by color.

 I only purchased three foam boards because I wasn't really sure how well my plan would work out.  One board almost makes two thread trays.  More exactly it makes two bottom pieces, four long side pieces, and three short side pieces.   I made trays for two drawers, and succeeded in storing most of my basic spools of sewing thread in these drawers, sorted by color.  Polyester and cotton threads are mixed in the same drawer.  Although I have grouped similar colors together, I have not yet sorted each drawer in any orderly fashion.  I might do that someday, if not putting them in a strict sequence, at least just putting spools of the same color next to each other.

 I need to pick up more foam board to finish the project.  I need one more drawer to hold the larger spools of Mettler thread, and also to hold top stitching thread and buttonhole twist, which are not mixed in with regular sewing thread.  Silk thread and embroidery thread get their own drawers. 

The top two drawers hold cones of Metrosene thread for the serger.  These fit in a single layer in each drawer.  Belt buckles, beads, and a few things (belts and necklaces) that need repair are in the lower drawers.

I think this plan is working well and it will be much easier to find the appropriate thread now as I will no longer have to sort through bags and boxes.  If I put multiple spools of the same color together, it will also be fairly easy to see when I am missing or low on important colors and to replace them as needed.

New Dress: Elm Design

 I'm running behind this week.  I have things to share, but am also having trouble with sciatica and a lot of pain in my arthritic hip, the one that was injured several years ago when I fell down the stairs.   I don't know why both are acting up now when they've been quite for a long while now.  The weather?  Does the general inflammation from my gluten reaction last week allow an opening for other things to flare up?  

Right now though, sitting, bending, and moving are all difficult and standing or lying down are only slightly better.

I'll merely share the other Elm piece I picked up in Chatham a couple of weeks ago.

It is really a simple rayon knit dress.  Actually two dresses sewn together at the shoulders, the inner dress has a deep ruffle, and the outer dress has nice pockets.  

When I purchased the dress I tried it on over jeans, and this is basically the way I intend to wear it most of the time.  It does look nice also as a dress, with bare legs and this is how G likes it best.  Come hot weather I may or may not wear it that way.  I am not yet convinced that it is not a little too short for a woman in her 50's, what with the ruffle and the bare legs, although it might work well with leggings and ballet flats.

I do really like this with the jeans.  The jeans are a little long for these particular boots, but it rained all weekend and these are my waterproof boots, as opposed to the heels I usually wear with these jeans. And unlike my previous attempt at a long tunic over pants, this is a look I love and will actually wear, in fact, have worn a good bit already.  Perhaps it is the layering opportunities afforded by the sleeveless dress as opposed to the sleeves of the Eileen Fisher.  Perhaps it is just that it has just a little more shape.  Perhaps I have just gotten wiser with time.

As to that Eileen Fisher dress, it became a nightgown, and one I still wear.  G particularly likes the way it slips seductively off the shoulder as I move.

Two broken necklaces become a new summer favorite

Some days I just feel like pulling my hair out.  There is no time to focus on anything.

 Luckily there are simple projects for days just like this.

I've had a simple necklace of wooden beads for some 25 years now.  It is nothing fancy, very basic, but a summer favorite.  I picked it up from a street vendor somewhere.  

A couple of weeks ago the string broke.  I managed to find all the beads, and since I really love this thing, went to a local bead store to get the items necessary to fix it.  This is the first time I've ever fixed a broken necklace myself, but it is just stringing material, beads and a clasp.  It seemed like it was about time.

The coral beads were not originally part of the necklace.  Although I love this simple necklace, I somehow have been wearing it less frequently in recent years because it always seemed either too short or too long.  It was too long to wear with a tee and a little too short to wear outside the neckline on a shirt.  The broken string created the perfect opportunity to turn this into a necklace I would use, and to learn a new skill without much sacrifice.  Again, it is really the most basic of necklaces, no knots, just string, beads and a clasp.

 The coral beads were what I found in my stash that worked with the wood.  These too are very cheap beads, purchased from another street vendor, this one somewhere in the British Virgin Islands.  The string on this strand broke long ago, but I saved the beads, not because they were precious, they aren't, but because they intrigued me.    

Inexpensive stained wood beads meet coarse dyed coral.    I am very happy with the result.

muslin progress

 Well, I did manage to get the skirt muslin sewn together and the initial alterations done.  The pattern was no where near my current size (although it was the smallest iteration I still had of this pattern.  It must have been from the end of 2005, not the beginning as the skirts that only needed an inch or two taken out of them are from early 2005.

I ended up taking 2 inches out at each side seam, or 8 inches total from the girth of the skirt, all the way down from waist to hem.  That certainly makes me feel better about my efforts now, although somewhat appalled about my history as well.

Here's a quick photo of me in the substantially narrowed skirt.  The hem will be a little shorter than is marked here (olive line), just at the bottom of the knee, which will be a much more flattering length.

I haven't finished fitting the skirt at the waist yet.  It looks like the skirt pattern extends up about 2 to 3 inches above my natural waist.  I probably just chopped it off as I made each skirt, although several of my older skirts are too high at the waist.  

I am putting it aside for now because I had a gluten encounter over the weekend.   I am still a bit bloated from the GI symptoms and also from taking prednisone which I need to control the rampant hives which are also brought on by the smallest bit of gluten.  

 This is my favorite belt this spring.  I usually wear it on the third (middle) buckle with my jeans, at about 1" below my waist.  I last wore this belt on Friday and can't buckle it at all now, the closest I can get is to about an inch from the largest hole, which is what, 3 inches over normal? I am wearing an old belt that I hadn't given away yet, a belt that I stopped wearing because it was too large.  This amount of bloating will make a difference in the final fit of the skirt.  It behooves me to wait.

Since I have the basic dimensions of the skirt, I could probably start cutting the lining at least.  But things should be back to normal by the weekend.  Once I pass the belt test, it is full steam ahead.

Slow progress, mistakes, and organizing the mental arsenal.

I've really had sewing on the brain of late and I have started a list of projects, have pulled some fabric and patterns, but am working at an extremely slow pace just due to distractions here on the home front.

I've come to realize that it is not working in 15 minute increments that is difficult for me.  I can do that.  I have more trouble when there is a lack of focused time; and this affects everything, cooking, sewing, knitting (although not perhaps as much as I can switch to a mindless stockinette project), reading and just keeping up with life.  This has been the problem in the past week.  I have time, but I don't have time where I can allow my brain to focus on whatever I am doing to the extent that I can tune out other stimuli, even for just a few minutes.  I suppose it is not that I am unfocused either.  I have realized that I can focus, but my focus on G is paramount, and I can't necessarily tune him out if he needs help, and when he needs help he needs help now.  Unfortunately he does not always have the ability to distinguish between what is urgent or necessary, and what is just ephemeral so there are times when I am always on my guard. This is deadly for sewing.

 There is a fabric I want to wear this spring.  I have the coordinates and the accessories, I have the vision in my head.  A few days ago I pulled out the pattern and some muslin.  But it took me until yesterday to actually cut the muslin, and even then there were glitches primarily due to this same lack of focus on what I was doing and the constant call of interruptions.

 I am cutting a skirt.  This was a TNT pattern, Vogue 7333, and I have made several iterations in several sizes over the years.  In going through my closet I saw that the 2005 version is the closest to my current size.  Since this was the first version I made, I still have my final pattern pieces from that first skirt.  Still, I will need some alterations so I decided to make a muslin, make the changes, and use the muslin to make a new skirt and a new copy of this pattern, probably on oak tag as this will be a basic skirt for me.

Due to my distracted state however, I made a few simple mistakes, not critical mistakes, just mistakes that added to the time requirements involved.  

When I lay the pattern out on the muslin, I thought to myself that I now have these large sets of tracing paper so that I can mark with the paper underneath so I don't have to lift the pattern.  I laid the pattern pieces on the fabric as if the outer side of the fabric was up.  Then I got distracted and walked away and came back.  Since this pattern has no seam allowances, the edge of the paper is the seamline, I proceeded to trace the pattern onto the muslin as if I was tracing on the wrong side of the fabric.  

 It wasn't until I came back, after yet another interruption in my thought process, and put the piece on the tracing paper that I realized my mistake. As you can see, the dark tracing paper is under the pattern in order to trace off the darts and other necessary markings, but the seamlines have been marked on the part of the fabric that is facing up -- the outside or public face of the fabric.    Luckily for me this is just a muslin and now that I see the error of my ways, it will not be repeated.

This is not a particular problem in terms of the marks showing on the finished garment.  I always sew along the inside of the mark, so the mark is actually in the seam allowance, but it is a problem for seeing the markings while I am actually sewing.  This meant that I had to remove the pattern paper, reposition it and mark the seam allowances again with my chalk.  In my befuddled state it only occurred to me later that I could have just used the tracing wheel to trace the pattern shape onto the wrong side of the fabric on the seam lines.  

 It worked out anyway, the muslin is thin enough that I could see the shadow of the markings through the fabric, something I would never do with fashion fabric, and I had marked all my darts, dashes and matching points quite carefully so it was relatively easy to realign the pattern and trace the seam lines directly over the previous markings. But I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.

Now, I could have originally traced the pattern using the tracing paper.  But I find this is a little more difficult to do with a tracing wheel if you have cut the seam allowances off the paper.  It is for this reason that Kenneth King, in the Sit and Sew class I took in November, recommended leaving seam allowances on patterns.    If I were using muslin, or a thin tissue paper as a pattern I would have worked this way.  But if my pattern is on a thicker paper like oak tag, or in this case exam table paper, I find I get a sharper line if I drag chalk over the edge of the paper, simultaneously marking the paper and the fabric.  Although the marking looks wide and fuzzy on the fabric, the inside line, the actual stitching line, is quite sharp and clear.  In my case this is often sharper than the sometimes wobbly lines I get using a tracing wheel.  The advantage of the chalks is that they don't fade with time or steam, and they are available in enough colors that I can, if necessary get a color that is very close to the fashion fabric but still visible enough to see when sewing without show-through.

I am sure my tracing wheel technique will improve with practice.  If I were matching a print or positioning the pattern on the right side of the fabric I would probably use the wheel, or fall back on my old standby -- thread tracing, which also works well if the seam allowances have been removed from the pattern.

What I need to do now is focus on keeping the arsenal of techniques available in my head separate and in order, not all jumbled together.  This is just practice.  Apparently this is what I need.  Practical practice and sewing practice.  It is all falling back into place, albeit slowly.

A little spring shopping

 One of the things G always wanted to do in retirement was just get in the car and explore. He wanted  to just be able to drive around the back roads of our little county but also go further and take day trips not just in the Hudson Valley but around New England.  

Unfortunately, retirement did not turn out quite the way we planned.  He no longer drives, and although I don't mind driving, his ability to cope with uncertainty and changes in routine is not what it once was.  But we do, occasionally, get out to explore.

Saturday was one of those occasions.  It was such a lovely, sunny, warm day, the daffodils were blooming and the trees are all budding out, a trifle early I might add.  We decided to drive up to the little town of Chatham, roughly 40 minutes north of us. 

Granted, I had an ulterior motive as there was a little boutique in town I wanted to check out.  But first we walked up and down Main street and looked into other stores.  I happened to find a parking space right next to a yarn shop, and since G's mom had been a knitwear designer he always likes to look at yarn with me.  Then we went to the bookstore and a toy store, poked our head in a few little cafes, and finally settled down in the boutique.    

As you can see from the photo above, we did not come out empty handed.  I am wearing a skirt made by a company called Elm.  The clothes are designed in Iceland and made in Peru and they have very interesting and intriguing cuts, or at least this was true of the clothes I saw.  

 I basically tried this skirt on because I couldn't imagine how it would fit or look on the body judging by how it looked on the hanger.  It is a combination of fabrics, a rayon/lycra knit on one side, and a crisp cotton on the other, with rather odd looking puckers and gathers.    You can see the construction of the skirt somewhat here.  I apologize for the washed out color, but I tried to lighten the photo enough so that you could see some detail.  This is the front of the skirt.

Frankly I thought it was a little weird, and was pretty sure I wouldn't like it or ever wear it.  Well, I thought that until I put it on.  I loved it, and as you can see I came home with it.  G was not so certain, but although I will listen to his advice when I am not so certain myself, I had no doubts about this skirt.  I have, simply put, never worn anything like it.  I feel crisp and cool with it on and I think it will be a mainstay of my summer wardrobe.  

 I need a few different tops to wear with it; things I don't necessarily have in my wardrobe right now.  But these things should not be difficult.

I also got a dress which I think can be worn alone in the hot summer months, or layered in spring and fall and I will try to show you that soon.  There were several other things I tried: a giant raincoat, and a very fitted little top with a pleated peplum all around the hips which I have to admit shocked me because it looked so good.  Even my spouse was trying to get me to bring that piece home but I just couldn't do it.  I felt like a little girl playing ballerina, like I was wearing a costume, and I just wasn't willing to go quite that far.

One Piece Leads to Another

I managed not to buy or accumulate any new fabric for a few months, but apparently have now fallen off the wagon.

And I haven't even gotten back to my indexing and cataloging project, abandoned after a frantic couple of weeks in December.  For some reason I opened an email from Elliot Berman instead of deleting it outright.  The fabric arrived yesterday.

 A rayon knit in a group of my favorite colors.

 And a fabulous silk twill in bold stripes.  This is absolutely gorgeous.  It also appears to be printed slightly off-grain.  This may require some revisions of my plans for the fabric and some playing with grain and line in the layout.  

Even with this small setback, I intend to get these made up before they can be added to the stash catalog.

Just Call Me Rainbow Woman

Just because I said that most of my favorite colors are more muted than clear, or more deep than bright, and sometimes just softer, don't think that means I am dull and dreary.

 When I came into my studio yesterday morning, this colorful pile of clothes waiting to be ironed caught my eye. The bright red on the bottom is an old pair of J Crew Chinos that I purchased several years ago and put off hemming for too long.  Shame on me.  Now, however, they fit me better than they did when I purchased them, and they have been hemmed and are ready to wear.  I am determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past.  They are not actually as bright as they appear here, the morning sunshine and the reflected light from the colorful knits  seem to intensify the color through the camera lense. 

Now I firmly believe that if we all buy only the colors we dearly love, we will buy colors we can wear well.   I think we are naturally to those things that look good on us and we dislike those things that are unflattering, that is, if we don't let friends, family, and society tell us what we "should" wear.  My color palette contains my favorite colors, and I love it.  These colors are the mainstays of my wardrobe.  But there are things that don't appear on that palette that look good on me.  I think this is true for most people.  Everyone one of us has a unique combination of skin and hair and eye colors and they all work together in different ways.  

 Take this green.  I have been color-typed as an Autumn, a Winter, and a Summer at various times in my life, but never a Spring.  But this shade of yellow-green is one of my favorite colors -- yes it has white added, and perhaps the tiniest bit of gray, but not much gray.  Yes I have yellow greens in my eyes, but not this light.  Yet this color works for me.  

My gray/white/yellow outfit fit the spring-like weather that we are having again, but I needed a light jacket this morning.  This bright green cashmere jacket from Akris provided warmth and the perfect touch of color.  It is the kind of jacket that garners complements every time I wear it.  All morning people were commenting on how fabulous and pretty I looked (not the jacket).  The sun is higher in the sky now and it brings out the warmer highlights in my hair, the ones that get lost in the winter-time, when my hair looks darker, and those warm highlights also reflected the warmth of the jacket

It has also not escaped my attention that yellow-green is the complement to purple, my favorite color, and the dominant undertone in my skin.

Color Play

I've spent the last few days playing with color.  There have been several reasons for this.

First of all, I have been working with the items of clothing in my wardrobe, and putting things together both in old familiar ways and in new ways.  As I've do so I have occasionally wondered to myself why certain color combinations do or don't work for me; not just in terms of what colors I wear well, but in terms of what I feel comfortable wearing. It is not the kind of thing I am used to spending time thinking about, but I am finding it relevant now, in this time, when I am rediscovering so many things that I have put aside for a while.    

While I was doing this several posted about using the colors in their eyes as a guide to the colors to wear.  Always one to try some new thing, I played around with that for a while, coming up with several different versions of eye palettes.  Here is one of them.

My first thought was that I don't actually wear a lot of those colors.  Should I?  No, I decided not.  Then I thought I would look into it further and started playing with the colors and eye palettes and translating colors from one color system (RGB, CMYK, HTML codes, Pantone codes) so that I could visualize these colors in the pantone fabric system that I am used to working with. 

Around about this same time, Myrna posted on her blog about the colors she wears, the colors she defines as her colors, and the ones she does not wear.  This got me thinking because I would generally say that I wear most colors, or at least a couple of colors or shades from each segment of the color wheel. As a result I started looking in my closet and my fabric collection and thinking about what I wear and why I wear it.  

I have basically a cool skin tone, and medium-dark ash-brown hair.  My eyes are green. Long ago, I had my colors done a few times, but the definitive analysis was by Donna Fujii who basically said that I am a High Contrast Summer. 

  

Actually this worked pretty well for me.  The sample swatches Donna gave me included most of the colors I wear the most often and her analysis was pleasing.  That doesn't mean that I only wear the colors she gave me, but they gave me a foundation around which to play. 

But wait.  The colors Donna gave me include a few things that are not in the High-Contrast Summer palette, at least as defined in her books, and they left a few things out as well.  Here are the cards from my palette, disassembled and piled up on my cutting table this morning.

See those olive greens, and warmer browns and caramel colors?  Those are part of my palette too.  Where did they come from?  Look at my eyes.  Some of those colors are in my eyes.  But what are those eye colors?  Those bright "olive" colors are actually grayed shades of yellow.  Some of the greens in my eyes are yellows and yellow greens, some are blue greens, most of them are grayed shades. I do wear these colors, some of the colors in my eyes, but not a great deal, not usually alone.  I wear them with other colors, often complementary colors.  I often wear colors that are complementary to the colors in my eyes, medium-toned muted or grayed shades  of blue-violet, blue-red, magenta, and purple. These all go well with my skin tones and complement my eyes. The bright brights and the dark darks are not for me.  

When I wear analogous colors they tend to be more in the red to blue-violet range than in any other shade, but I will sometimes wear a range of greens as well. 

I primarily tend to be attracted to complementary colors, and to split-complementary groupings, as well as triadic combinations.  These are my loves, color-wise, and they allow me to play with a lot of color, even if I stick primarily to the muted, deep, and grayed shades, which is my wont.  As I look at these things they fit, the cool blue-pink skin with violet undertones and sallow overtones goes with my cool ash-brown hair and my eyes which are a mix of grayed yellow and blue greens.  

I don't actually know where I am going with all of this, perhaps nowhere, but it is helping me to articulate the way I put things together, and also to better understand why some things "work" better than others.  I've never really studied color, never thought about it, just kind of threw it together.

I'm finding it rather interesting.