Sew Distracted

Off to Knoxville

We are off to Knoxville tomorrow morning early to visit baby Owen, who is apparently turning into quite the mobile little person since we saw him last at the end of May.  I am not taking my computer and will be out of touch but will catch up upon my return.  There is also some promise of actual sewing in the future if all continues to go well.

In the meantime, I have been savoring a few pages each day from this wonderful book which arrived at my door last week:

It is filled with beautiful ideas and wonderful ribbons and although I live in a rather modern house and most of the ideas presented are along the lines of home decor, I remain entranced. 

I love ribbons and anything that justifies my passions with taste is fine by me.  There are certainly ideas here that are filling my brain with dreams.

Have a good week and I will back after the 14th.

I've Got Mail

Looky Looky!  There was gold in my mailbox today!

This bounty should easily fill supply me with enough sewing dreams to fill out the rest of this week. 

Rather than grabbing them all and indulging in an evening spent wallowing in sewing ideas, I shall savour them slowly, one a day, to make them last, hopefully until I can squeeze in a little time with the sewing machines..

Perhaps I should start with the Burda.  I have been reading  about the patterns in this issue already over on Stitcher's Guild.

But then, perhaps I will start with Inspirations.  There is a magazine I always treasure even though it has been far longer since I last indulged my passion for embroidery than it has been since the sewing machines were primed and running.

Patrones Updaate, answers and comments

To answer a few questions:

Shannon and Christina write that Around the World in NYC carries Patrones and they are willing to ship.  I love Around the World and stop in there whenever I get a chance to walk anywhere near that neighborhood.  They were my source for several of the Patrones I got before the subscription.  They do ship and they are accommodating.  But competition for these magazines in NYC can be steep and you have to call while they have the books in stock, or just before they arrive.  I have had success with Around the World and Kinokinuya (for Mrs. Stylebook) with calling just before they expected a shipment to come in and pre-ordering a book.    But one has to keep up with publishing schedules and shipping schedules to pull this off. The standard issues of Patrones do not stay on the shelves long (if you are looking for large size editions, or children's issues you will have more luck).  Neither store will sell a subscription for the magazines.   I have decided that I am just too disorganized or too lazy to go to the trouble if I can get the book shipped directly to me.  I have loved every issue of Patrones I have seen.

Now some issues are children's issues, I think about 4 issues a year, but I am not certain.  In the first 4 months I have gotten 1 children's issue.  That is OK because I do occasionally sew for nieces, nephews, friends children, and grandchild, although I don't generally write about it (except for some grandbabby sewing) because It is not as interesting to me as making adult garments for myself.  I know there will also be a couple of  large size issues but that is not a problem because I am not a small person to begin with, although the large sizes are often larger than I want, and I can alter anything I like to fit.  So we will see how it goes, if there are too many children's issues, I may not renew.  Let's see.

As to price, the price of 288.4 Euros currently translates to $393.72 which is less than the Amazon subscription price of  $425.  The only rough part is figuring out how to fill out the Spanish subscription form, but there translators on the web to help you with that.  When I purchased my subscription the Euro was cheaper against the dollar and DH paid 321.89 for the subscription, so I can see how it would be beneficial to pay attention to exchange rates and subscribe accordingly.

There are twelve issues.  At $322.00 for a subscription that works out to $26.8 per issue, not cheap but not that far off what I was paying on e-bay for the fast shipping from Germany.  AT the current exchange rate it is more expensive at 32.83 per issue.  Of course, if you just throw away the children's issues it would be considerably more expensive.  Then you would have to decide if you got enough usable patterns out of each issue that it worked out in terms of cost per pattern. AT the moment, for my use, I would say I get more than $27 worth of patterns out of each issue, but I may have to reconsider if the dollar keeps falling against the Euro.  Luckily I have a few months, and lots of sewing time, before that decision will come up.

Patrones Subscriptions

A couple of people have asked about subscribing to Patrones.   I don't know of any subscription service that sends Patrones to the US, although there may be one available.

I got my subscription directly from Patrones by going to the Patrones Website  and clicking on the button called Subscripcion.

Everything is in Spanish, but I think it can be figured out.  Basically, if you are not in Europe you need the bottom choice "Resto países, correo certificado vía aérea 288,40 €." which basically means airmail to the rest of the world.  There seems to be no option bo subscribe by slow boat, and you will note that the rest of the world pays far more than the Europeans do, based on the exhorbitant cost of the airmail. The service has been quite prompt, except for April, my first three issues arrived right away, February and March were here by the 3rd day of each month.

My subscription was a gift from my DH.  But I will renew it next year.  Although I might have spent less ordering issues on ebay and having them shipped express from Germany, it wasn't that much less, and I never opted for slow boat delivery as I am far too impatient. Besides there was all the trouble of looking for issues and dealing with ebay. 

If anyone knows of another way, please let me know.

Dreamland

I spent the weekend perusing and dreaming over this newly arrived book:

The book is valuable mostly for its pictures, and oh, what pictures.  This book is full on inspiration and dreams.  Even if they are someone else's choices and someone else's style, the pictures remind me to be true to myself, and have courage.

I could sew an entire wardrobe based on the ideas I see in this book.

It reminds me to buy what I love.  It reminds me to hold on to what I love, not purge in the name of "space" or "fashion".   It makes me think "Oh why did I get rid of those mustard suede flats I loved so much".

This is a good book to look through whenever I get caught up in that old mantra of "should be".

I spent the weekend looking at this book and dreaming. 

I spent the entire weekend in shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops, whereas a mere week before I was wearing fur-lined raincoats thinking Spring would never come.

Hallelu! Hallelu! Halleluia!

Patrones Came!

(no offense intended at any irreverance)

This is a wonderful issue filled with some lovely suits and very cute sundresses, and a few othr things that are giving me ideas, even if I don't like the actual garment portrayed. Here are the best among a plethora of treats:

New Book

When I went to the post office today I was very excited to see that I had a yellow slip, which means that I have a package to pick up at the window.  Sometimes the slips are pink, and I have yet to unravel the mystery of why sometimes the slips are pink and sometimes they are yellow.  Supposedly they are for different things, excess mail or packages, but they seem to be used interchangeably.

But back to the package.  Despite my hopes it was not the April Patrones.  Instead I got this book:

I had ordered it before G went into the hospital, after reading about it on Blackwater Park,   but the truth is that it had been on my list for some time, I had just not bothered getting around to ordering it.    I have owned Mansfield's other book, Clothing Construction for a couple of years and treasure it as one of my favortie sewing books. 

I had in fact, forgotten that I had ordered it, and read about it again when I was catching up with Tany's blog   yesterday.  Luckily I checked with my various orders and saw that it was on the way.

I think I am going to love this book as much as the other.  I curled up with it and read the first chapter, on dress forms, and can't wait to get to work.  I think I need to reread some of my other sewing books as well.  So many new things to learn and absorb and try, and eventually a new dressform to pad out.

I will take Tany's suggestion and look for a copy of the April Patrones if mine does not arrive, and I will e-mail or call the publisher and find out what happened to my copy if it does not show up.

Where o where?

I am home trying to catch up on piles and piles of things that have been allowed to accumulate in the house, and hundreds of blog posts, e-mails, and message board entries. 

I can't catch up with all that has happened, but know this:  all is well.  My darling has had surgery and is home, tired, weak, and uncomfortable but in good spirits.  It appears that all of the evil stuff was caught during surgery and things look good.  I have been in and out of the house, mostly out, and certainly out of the office.  I have so much to do that should have been done before that I will never make it up -- so what health and happiness are far more important than a few days work. Now, while G convalesces I shall try to put everything back in order.

Despite the fact that I should be working, I have started catching up with blogs, very slowly.  I was reading Tany's Blog, actually catching up with posts since mid March because my mental state was not such that I could give her the attention she so richly deserves, when it struck me that she has pictures of the April Patrones  up and I don't think I have gotten it.  With my new subscription, I received the first issues (Jan - March) so quickly that this surprises me.  Now I admit that I have been terribly distracted, and I have piles of mail that have not been gone through.  They roughly sorted into "handle immediately" "not so urgent" and "no rush at all", but I would think that no matter what was going on, the Patrones would have been in my hands and unwrapped right away. I did get the April Burda and I remember reading it although I don't remember where I put it right at the moment; I most certainly did not put it where it belongs.  Oh well.

As I said, there are piles, so I shall wait until May, see if it comes, see if the next issue comes, then begin to panic.

And why am I worried about not getting more patterns anyway?  Do I not have enough?  Have I sewn anything in the last month?  So much for good intentions.  But, as stated before, patterns are dreams, and dreams are very dear right now.

Back to work

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.

Reading About Saint Laurent

I have been reading The Beautiful Fall by Alicia Drake and it even thought it is not about the clothes as such, but about the life of the designers and the lives of the “beautiful people” in the 1970s, it has still fed my fashion obsession because I remember some of the collections so vividly.

Although I am enjoying the book, I alternate between being fascinated and appalled.  I am familiar with the designers and the personalities discussed from reading fashion magazines over the years. I remember many of Saint Laurent's collections but I was basically only marginally aware of Karl Lagerfeld before he became the designer for Chanel. The personalities and lifestyle are not something I ever found appealing and I don’t believe I would like either designer, but that doesn’t really change my opinion of their talents as designers. I have never really confused a person’s creativity with their personality and I have never been one to be disillusioned or disappointed when a favorite philosopher, writer, or designer turns out to be truly dislikeable person.

What I am enjoying is the general descriptions of the mood and the time and place evoked by the story. I am mostly attracted to the aspects of the story dealing with Saint Laurent; simply because I have always been attracted to Saint Laurent’s clothes. They are definitely clothes that define a persona, but it is one I always found appealing and one that attracted me long after Saint Laurent stopped designing new and groundbreaking collections. I liked the combination of sensuality and untouchability combined in the clothes, be they the day suits or the wildly impractical collections such as the Opera collection.

I realized early on, perhaps because I was shy, the power of clothes as a mask, of a way to present a persona to the world. When I was young I was fascinated with clothes even as my mother had trouble getting me to comb my hair and look neat. I was fascinated by the idea of clothes as role-playing just as I was fascinated with play-acting. I suppose I still am to some extent, but not as much so as when I was then. Perhaps it is just that I no longer feel as strong a need to hide behind the mask. When I was young and working in a much more corporate environment I was attracted to suits in the Saint Laurent vein far more than the standard, dowdy, shapeless, sexless suits that my colleagues wore and corporate (at least IBM style corporate) America seemed to espouse. I like the powerful image of a well-cut suit and I liked a suit that also celebrated being female. Yves Saint Laurent did this kind of suit very well, and although many were not appropriate for business, much of his day look could be adapted. Dressing in this kind of suit was a statement of confidence and strength, strength I could shore myself up with even when I personally felt insecure. Insecure, quiet, and something of a doormat I might have been, but there was a part of me that was smart, competent, and very proud of being a woman with all that the words female and feminine entailed. I saw no reason why I couldn’t be smarter than the men I worked with and enjoy clothes.. Perhaps this was an extension of those confused childhood dreams I always had, where I was the princess in the tower waiting to be rescued by the handsome prince; except my prince always got in trouble and I had to go out and rescue him.