Swimsuit sew-along reboot

Well my apologies for my off line - ness

For those of you who have been waiting for more words on swimwear I am back at it this week.

Life detoured me a bit this last little while. I hope those of you who have been patiently sitting beside their machines with their bathing suit fabric waiting for the next edition of the sew-along have access to a good pool - because the beaches won't be open too much longer. At least not here in the globally warmed near tropical now far north that probably still has life guards operating on the old calendar.

I should put a word in here about my attitude too.

I love summer. Flip flops are my favourite shoe. I have never complained about the heat in my life. I drive around most of the year with the car seat warmers on, which drives my husband crazy. What I am doing in a country that is the birthplace of hockey has always been a mystery to me.

So my ambivalence about the change to fall probably has affected my slow on ramp with this sew-along.

In my family everyone else loves fall. My daughter says weird things like she is getting sick of summer. I have sisters who like the orange leaves and those pumpkins on doorsteps. I want to tell them don't get to excited, don't you remember what comes next? Seasonal affective disorder and chipping the ice off the windshield.

Off topic.

So in addition to denying that summer is coming to a close I have had other things going on that have been interesting sewing wise.

My son from Austin Texas has been home for two weeks.  

I decided that he wasn't going back without a shirt I made for him. 

It was an idea I got in my head. 

I like it when he tells me he wears his shirts out and people ask him "where did you get that cool shirt?" and he says my mom made it.

To me that one line never has gotten old.

I mean what mother doesn't stay up a few night in front of the Rocketeer for an opening like that?

So here's that shirt:

I love working with these retro prints, they remind me of my dad and of the curtains we had up in the living room when I was a kid.

Useless fact: my mother reports that she once lost me in the house when I was two. She finally found me sitting behind the curtains quietly unpicking the hem. I wonder if I knew then how much of my life I would be spending taking out stitches.

This shirt also gave me a chance to do some pocket print matching. One of the things I love doing because I have a system for it. I have it in the book and somewhere on this blog too:

Since last we spoke I have also got involved in testing a new pattern for Love Notions.

Every once in a while I do some pattern testing, in situations when a real pattern is being refined by multiple version sews, tweaks, refinements, and perfecting the hard way. 

These are very different from the tester calls that are more requests for sample garments.

Anyway I am one of a small group of sewers test sewing multiple iterations of a pattern for Love Notions. To sum up this intense process let me just say that version 7 has just been emailed to me. I have to say that I am impressed by the rigour of the testing and the attention to detail, not to mention the whole heap of sewing being done by the volunteer testers.

I am not sure if I would be up for doing this regularly but man has this been an interesting week.

Now back to swimsuits.

Tomorrow I am going to post a few thoughts on the very important issue of lining and give a review of Rad Patterns First Crush swimsuit, about which I have many opinions.

See you then.