Easy coats

Living in Nova Scotia outerwear is important to me, and as I also walk to work, pretty essential. I have been plotting new coats for a while now as I have a definite gap in the mid-weather (as opposed to really cold winter) can wear over a suit or skirt stuff. You know those times where you have to go somewhere and the same coat you wore to walk the dog in the morning won't cut it. Sort of a car door to the front door coat. I have collected some nice fabric and quite a lot of different patterns, but nothing that made me want to get up early and start sewing. I was also concerned in making something too trendy, aka dated, in nice fabric that I would not be wearing every day and would therefore likely have around for a few years.

Also, see previous post, I have some interesting fall projects lined up, plus a whole heap of bra-making supplies under collection and really didn't want to invest my precious Labour Day weekend in something that would not turn around pretty fast.

So on one of my many online whims I ordered Christine Jonson's Easy Coat, because, well it was even called easy, and seemed a pretty classic style. To tell you the truth I wasn't expecting all that much. This pattern has been around a while and I thought it might be dated and boxy, but felt it was worth a try. For my "wearable muslin" I decide to make an unlined version first in some metallic type nylon taffeta I got on a buy-one-meter-get-two-free sale.

I made it up yesterday, while dog sitting the three extended family dogs who entertained themselves by wrestling across the floor for 14 hours straight, and I love this pattern.

Here's why:

1. It's really well drafted and all the pieces fit together very smoothly. A one day project no problem.

2. It is simple, but not crude and boxy. Nice slim fit through the shoulders and chest with enough flare to cover wider parts without alterations. The finished pattern measurements are printed in the guidesheet so I knew exactly what I was getting. Good shape.

3. The sleeves are as close as a set-in as a sleeve that is still sewn in flat with that one long up under the arm seam as you can get, not too wide, and for my average size arms fit perfectly.

The coat I have would be good for traveling or for throwing on over a skirt outfit doing the dash-to -the-door-run in the rain.

So today I am making a wool gab version with a silk lining and have high hopes and glad I ordered a few more CJ patterns.

Been busy sewing

When I opened my blog this morning I couldn't believe how long it has been since I posted. I also realized that the last time I wrote anything also marked the day that my summer company started arriving, closely followed by the week of prep and week of sewing of the Wardrobe in a week competition at Stitchers Guild.

I am posting the suit, blouse and skirt (you had to make four items in a week that you had cut out and marked the week before) I completed for that one. I have also been busy with baby sewing for my daughter, bedskirt for the crib, valance, receiving blankets, wet bags for transporting the diapers, and knitting more diaper covers/soakers. It has been an intense sewing time for me and I can feel I am entering into one of those phases.

I also reconnected with an old friend I haven't seen in a long time and we had a good sewing Saturday together. She was in a bad accident and still in recovery and it was poignant to see her slowly start to sew again and how nice it was for her to see something come together.

Oh yes and I have been super busy at work getting a new program launched and a new course online. Neither are really my thing, what I love to to do is teach and it was useful to struggle with administration (all those meetings how do people stand it?) this summer to remind myself that the classroom is where I belong.

First off let me tell you what Wardrobe in a Week sewing has taught me.

I am a real sewing contest failure. I tried SWAP a couple of times and ended up with things that fit the rules but I didn't want to wear. WiaW has limited garments, four, and a tight time frame so the emphasis is on sewing not planning (see comments about aptitude for the classroom versus the meeting room) and I do better at that. WiaW, invented by the way by the brilliant Ruthie, the sewing contest champ, also has built in to it a whole week in advance where you are not allowed to sew, only get organized. I thought in the past getting a pattern and fabric was as organized as I needed to be before I started sewing but I was wrong. Held back from actually stitching I had nothing better to do than fit, cut, fuse and go and get in the buttons, thread and zippers, wind bobbins and put it into bags (BTW those plastic bags with zippers new blankets come in are great for WiaW prep). This is not my usual procedure and I can tell you if you get everything ready in advance your sewing just flies by. This reminds me of my change in my baking when I decided to pre-measure all my ingredients just like a cooking show (and put all the other stuff away) before I made anything, as opposed to the old way where I would walk back and forth to the pantry as I went ... one teaspoon of baking powder, where did I put that etc.

Makes the whole process enjoyable. So I have decided to prep and bag all my fall projects, the other thing I have been doing, and plan on treating all my sewing if I can like a WiaW.

Around the house

My house is full of company right now. My son home from DC and my sister, brother-in-law and 18 and 20 year old nieces from Ottawa. Other family is coming over every night for dinner too so the place is jumping.

Not a lot of time to sew although I have done some more online pattern shopping (my Vogues finally came - good because at the end of next week I have to start my prep week for the SG Wardrobe in a Week competition) and some thinking.

I also got myself a set of good wooden hangers, the ones with the pant/skirt clips on them and in the process of company prep moved clothes around closets and while I did that decided to arrange my fall teaching outfits on these hangers. As all my courses are 24 classes per term, I always figure on 12 professional, more or less, outfits so I wear each outfit no more than twice for the same class a term.(Rotating the days of the week is another exercise).  I quickly found out that I have this covered with things I like to wear (and noticed that all the clothes I like are the ones I have made and that my discards are purchases) and the thought hit me that even if I didn't sew a thing all fall for work I would be OK. 

This is interesting because if you asked me I would say I needed to make a ton of clothes for fall, although I have a few suits planned for the odd conference talk etc. 

Where my real wardrobe gaps are though is in my home casual clothes, and I am at home a fair bit as I do most of my course prep and marking from home, and also DH and I are basically homebodies anyway in our social life (see above).

It made me realize that my home clothes, are sort of left overs and not very thoughtful, certainly I don't consider them a wardrobe. T shirts and jeans and often the same comfortable old pairs of knit pants, presentable for sure but definitely not where I put my sewing energy.

This got me to thinking about leisure suits and what most of us wear when we have a home day or what we change into when we come home from work. Hour for hour I should be putting as much of my sewing energy here as into my work clothes. I pulled out my most precious possession which is an old 1950's pattern catalog and looked at what those women in those more formal time wore.

I am posting some pictures here of the Tee Vee coats (what you wore when you finally got that girdle off) and thought of the patterns that exist from the Indie designers in particular for comfortable clothes, good for schlepping/knitting/sewing/talking on the phone to relatives days, but still stylish. I am thinking maybe of Favourite Things and Indigo Junction 

Some thing else to consider when the house is quiet again and I can start my bra and mini wardrobe sewing. Home wear might in fact be what I need most for fall.

Bra making here we come

I should start at the beginning, OK the pre-beginning.

In the last couple of months or so I have noticed that some of my favourite sewers have embarked on bra-making adventures. Sigrid started it, Liana continued it and Robin got involved too. Since each of these sewers always makes things I would like to wear myself I spent more than a few late nights looking at their blogs, following their links and generally considering the concept of bra-making.

There are a couple of reasons why I have not got into this bra-making thing myself. First it looked all a little fiddly to me - if I was good at that sort of sewing I think I would be a quilter and I am not. Also there seem to be a lot of hard to source parts to the whole thing, and I thought all those across the bust seams would show through knits, and as a general policy I don't like to sew what I can buy cheaper (OK that's not at all true, let's be honest it is the fiddly thing that got me). However the bras online that I see other sewers making look very pretty so let's say that the idea was planted in my mind, and there isn't a new area of sewing adventure that generally doesn't eventually get to me.

OK. On Friday I got my hair cut. My hairdresser has a strategic chair on the second floor of a building on the corner of our best shopping street. As he cut away and in between our catching up (he has done my hair for 20 years and once brought me a lasagna when the kids were little and I had pneumonia) I looked at all the women pass on the street below and thought to myself if there was one thing they could do to improve their appearance what would that be, and I decided it was a better bra. In the summer in all those T shirts there are a lot of poorly supported bosoms out there.

This got me thinking, and really my own bras aren't that comfortable. I don't really like the ones I wear to work (yes I have comfortable old knit bras for the weekend) and I often suffer from a urge to haul them down. 

Which brings me to shoes. A while ago now I decided to buy fewer shoes but to spend whatever it took to have shoes that are really comfortable but also have some style. I walk a lot, and walk to work, and the concept of work shoes that I can't walk any distance in is something I feel I have outgrown and have a right to outgrow at this age.

So now I spend more than I ever thought I would on shoes but am saving money because I buy fewer pairs - and I am happy to wear what I wear to work on the weekends.

You see where I am going with this.

In fact where I actually went after my haircut was down the street to a fancy lingerie shop with a  " Bra fitting specialists" sign in the window. I walked and and just said "fit me." And they did.

Well what I ended up with (pictured above) was a bra two band sizes smaller and two cup sizes larger than anything I have ever worn in my life. It fit and it felt great. The price, well we won't be talking about that, let's just say I won't be buying a lot of fabric over the next couple of months, and that when they brought me the matching panties at $90 I don't know who had a greater fit me or all my Scottish immigrant ancestors or the Prairie farmer grandparents. My people don't spend that on underwear. But I did buy that bra - for research purposes and to own something that fit - I am considering this tuition money and it more or less is.

You will notice something about this bra though, a couple of things. First is there is next to nothing to it 1/8 of fabric and a couple of yards of elastic. You will also see that it has seams and looks completely sewable.

This purchase has been followed by an incredible amount of pattern surfing/sourcing. I liked the European patterns a lot and tried to find one that looked like the research bra but also saw this. The Bravo bra is a new pattern designed by Anne from Needlenook's daughter  Monica and that lead to a really nice conversation with Anne herself (when I was supposed to be engaged in heavy duty company's coming house cleaning and bed assigning for 5 incoming guests). Anne incredibly has volunteered to send me a few fitting bras to try on to see what I think before I try a pattern. 

I think I am about to start something new, stay with me, as the ultimate Ordinary Sewer, who knows where this is going to go.

Diaper pictures

Adventures in cloth diapers

My friend Robin, this one is for you.

Busy week, that included DD making the decision to go on mat leave early (we have 12 months in Canada) because the 12 hour night shifts are bringing on a lot of contractions. Things have settled down as she has slowed down. BTW did you know that many European countries have legislation that says pregnant women are not allowed to work nights?

Things are better for her now but we were busy there for a while and of course I figured that I should focus on the diapers.

Now here is my disclaimer. Cloth diapers are really big around here for environmental as well as economic reasons, but some of this movement (for those of us who cloth diapered as a matter of course years ago - gauze rectangles you bought at the grocery and drug stores) has like so many other things it seems has become very self-conscious and another reason for advanced consumption. I have spent a lot of time online and I can tell you the range of fabric and pattern choices is enough to make your head hurt. Hemp, bamboo, non-bleached, organic, chlorine free, birdseye cotton, sustainable, bio-degradable. diaper liners, diaper "soaker" pads as add ons, wrap diapers with snaps, with velcro, one-size (24 snaps), many variant sizes, all-in ones (meaning the diaper has a waterproof cover and the diaper fabric also inside), wrap around diapers with separate diaper covers and of course 47 different variations of diaper covers.

My neighbour called me over to see her niece's baby's bum and as I think I have mentioned earlier I calculated $45 worth of stuff on that infant's rear. Multiply that by numerous changes.

So you can imagine my relief when DD announced that the consensus on the pregnancy chat boards was that "pre-folds" - double layer flat diapers with a few extra layers of fabric stitched in the middle third - were the way to go because they are best way to get a "custom fit" was with a diaper you wrapped around and pinned. (Although there are a huge variety of ways to put these things on - I can't even describe the "bow tie").

The idea of "pre-folds" is that you are stitching the folds in so the diapers do not have to be folded every time. Makes sense to me, although you do need several sizes from 0-toilet training.

As part of our research we bought a very pricey set of 6 pre-folds at one of those baby boutiques and like all pre-folds they are marketed as "shrinking down to something soft and more absorbent" as if this is a huge breakthrough.

O.K. I know my sewer-fabricaholic snobbery is showing through here big time.

Looks to me like el-cheapo cotton that of course is going to shrink enormously and I know cheap fabric folded up and serged when I see it - whatever price you put on it. This IMO could only be marketed to a generation that had no idea of how to sew.

Oh my god, I have transformed into someone's old grandmother already haven't I?

Moving on.

I decided to make our diapers from diaper flannel. They still make it and it is nice quality - much like quilter's flannel. I bought a bolt when I was visiting my mom at $1.80 a meter 26" wide. Washed and pre-shrunk in hot water and Ivory Snow (gee I had forgotten that smell - I should use it more often.)

After a bit more online research this is how I decided to make them, in the small size first (figure I will make more as this baby grows and needs them - we have heard that the small ones can be folded as overnight inserts when the baby is bigger.)

I think it is best to explain this conceptually in words and then hope that my awful photography helps.

1. Figure out what the size the finished diaper needs to be. I narrowed it down to three basic sizes small 11"-14"; medium 13"-18"; and large 15"-21". Now I think that for a real newborn 11"-12" might be better. You might want to have a look at these sizes and decide what you think.

2. Once you have the final size in your head figure that it is going to be made by folding one larger rectangle into a tube and sewing, or serging, it along the long edge. Add a bit for a seam allowance. This meant that for my small ones I cut pieces 23" (two 1/2" seam allowances) wide and 14" long (I knew I was going to serge the ends of the tubes and didn't add seam allowances).

3. Also realize that you are going to need a sort of pad of extra layers to be sewn into the middle 1/3 of the diaper - some instructions suggested 6-8 layers but I found that in the flannel this was way too thick - almost like putting a rolled up newspaper between the baby legs and I didn't want to do that - so I cut only 4 layers (two pieces folded over) to do this - finished size of the pad about 11" X 4" so there would be  little extra to be caught in the stitching.

4. While the tube, with the long edge now serged, was still right sides together I pinned the pag right up against the seamed edge, with only a pin through one layer of the diaper fabric, to hold it into position while I turned the tube inside out. I had decided to put the seam a third of the way in so there would not be any seam bulk at the edge of the diapers. Once it was turned inside out I removed these pins and re-positioned them on the right side.

5. Serge the ends of the diaper tube closed, catching in the ends of the pads.

6. This is the fun part. The last step was to stitch through all layers on both sides of the pad to secure. Really this is like quilting (I even considered channel quilting these diapers but decided that would be too bulky). To do this I used those strange decorative stitches on my machine that I never use. In this case hearts and flowers. In a few I sewed down the middle of the pad too. I used up the ends of many pastel spools to do this.

That's it and I hope this makes sense. Of course being a multiple sewer I ended up making 38. And that is just smalls. My mom is bringing more flannel when she does the baby visit.

No fitting and pretty fun project.Oh and I also made a few extra pads to be put in for over night.

The last to know

It is no news to me that I am not on the leading edge, just sewing on the edge, so I am happy to report that other sewers are way ahead of me on this Cozy thing, so please check out Sigrid's and Tany's blogs for some great detail and pattern ideas.