A question for you about clothing care

I bet you wish you came to my place for Sunday dinner. 

We run a regular salon over here once a week, discussing important and serious topics of the day.

Last night it was ironing. With a sidebar on hand washing.

The whole concept of "doing your ironing" made sense to my mother-in-law who is of the coke bottle with the shaker on top for dampening clothes before they were ironed generation - the concept meant nothing to my sister-in-law, daughter, and step-daughter.

The three of them are of the if-it-can't-go-from-the-washer-to-the-dryer I won't wear it school, and they iron nothing.

Myself, sort of in middle, am horrified by this. I think most sewers are. You just can't press as you sew and than forget about ironing after that. And you can't spend good money on good fabric and trust it to jumbling around with Mr. Bounce sheet at high heat.

I mean we know where that leads.

Fades and pills kids, fades and pills.

Myself I iron what I wear, although it tends to be on a case-by-case, day-by-day basis at the ironing board set up in my sewing room. And I admit when I do a tired morning rush out the door, more than a few times I grab a knit or something that doesn't need ironing.

This cheats my wardrobe resources and every once in a while I think I need to "do my ironing" and get ahead, be prepared more for emergencies.

My mother-in-law and my mother were of the school of ironing everything after it was washed, this was a routine and they did it. They both sprinkled clothes and put them in the freezer if they couldn't get it all done (every Canadian household always had a chest freezer downstairs at least 8 feet long) so it wouldn't mildew. I even remember my mother, at some stage we all were wearing her particularly out, had an "ironing lady." 

This involved my dad packing it all up, tablecloths, and shirts and kids clothes even, and driving it off to some poor soul who ironed it up for my mom. My dad was a teacher so this is no indication of our affluence, but of the trauma of being behind in her ironing that got to my mother, never a domestic natural, and I think tears were involved.

Anyway, women did their ironing.

I remember once being sent over to do wild little boy relief for a family friend who had four of them. She was in position when I arrived - ironing board set up on the beige broadloom, in front of her afternoon "shows," drinking a vodka and orange in the afternoon (which I thought was the height of sophistication and something I made a mental note to do when I grew up, as I only ever saw my own mother drink instant coffee).

I watched her iron tea towels and sheets and even her husband's underwear and we both ignored the boys who I am pretty sure were killing themselves somewhere in the backyard.

I understand that vodka and orange now more than I did then.

What I am sure of now is that her clothes were all set in case she had to run out the door early some time, although I realize now she probably didn't go out much.

So maybe it is OK I only half have the ironing situation under control.

Well that was last night over the dinner table and the natural second course was hand washing, something I am a great believer in. My step daughter (who confided the only thing she has to hand wash is a sweater she got from me) wanted to know what you do to get the soap bubbles out of a hand washed sweater. 

This brought on a dissertation from me on the virtues of rinse water.

And everyone went home after that.

Tell me what is your position on ironing and how much hand washing do you do at your house?

Technical notes from that birthday shirt: or how do you finish a back neckline?

For various reasons sewing guide sheets have been on my mind this week.

It all started with an email last week from an independent designer who noted that their patterns had minimal instructions because the assumption had been made that anyone who bought a pattern "already knew how to sew."

I have been considering this all week.

O.K. how do most people learn to sew?

Schools have maybe a smattering of sewing instruction jammed in between other family studies stuff, if that. My kids made shorts on semester for example. Even I didn't learn to sew at school (the project was a slip and I think I barely passed - the teacher obviously had little patience for deviation, mine was floral with lots of free form lace). 

My mother taught me the basics, things she learned from her mother, stuff like tailor tacks and the importance of grain lines, and I am grateful for that knowledge. In university I did a minor in theatrical costume design where I found out that no one can raise their arms in an 18th century frock coat from an original pattern.

But really most of the sewing knowledge I had starting out, pre Nancy Zeiman, pre sewing books, pre the internet for sure, I gathered from reading about 10,000 sewing instructions.

From this process I learned a lot about what worked, and even more about what doesn't.

Like most sewers (tell me if this is you too) I have remembered a particularly cool technique when I have found one and integrated it into my own repertoire.

For instance when I recently made Brensen Designs KISS dress I found a new way of bagging the lining in a sleeveless dress and that is the method I will use from now on. To me that meant it was a great, not just a good pattern.

I also learned a lot from alternative pattern sources. Kwik Sew and Jalie have taught me all I know about knits and Burda magazine opened my eyes to more ready-to-wear methods of construction and the reality that there were more sensible, and successful, ways to put garments together than the peculiar techniques I read in the Big Four.

All of this is leading somewhere.

After I had read my message a week ago from the designer who presumed sewers already knew how to put pieces together, I got to work on my son's shirt, Vogue 8800. This is an excellent pattern with a nice slightly retro, hip look and the fit was great. (BTW despite my earlier comments it turned out he really loved the shirt and gave me a shout out on FB for making it which was nice).

This is a convertible collar shirt, being casual and retro, and there isn't a stand on the collar, which is unusual for a man's shirt, but consistent with the style of this one.

When I glanced at the instructions I noted the usual Big Four method for finishing the back of the neck below the collar was still there, and I have taken professional level iPad shots of that method so you know what I mean:

The last stage, see how nice and easy it looks to just turn under that neckline collar edge and slip stitch it down. A sewer might be fooled into thinking this will go smoothly and in the end look like this picture.

OK this is how you set this up. Note very accurate clips right to the stitching line, already I am worried.

Where this technique goes off the rails. See how much action, and layers, there are at the intersection of the facings, collar turned under edge - all depending on those two surgically precise clips, which at this point are probably fraying and even more so because the odd stitch, the ones used to nail down the collar (making sure not to catch the free edge as they say) has been unpicked and restitched. I mean who can do this is a relaxed way?

I know all of this because in an unusual burst of conformity I actually tried this method to see if I was being too fussy. I did get it to turn out, with some fixes and restitches, but really am not happy with it, not as a process and not as a  product. I can do better.

Techniques like this, and I am sure this one was just cut and copied in from some sort of central data back without any actual person thinking this through, function only to frustrate sewers and even worse, far worse, make the learning-to-sew  sewer feel she just can't do this sewing thing.

Yes I know I have written a lot about this in the past but it always annoys me. Why are techniques never seen in ready-to-wear inserted into patterns by folks who should be trying to create new sewers, not lose them?

Are there other sewing-pattern-only-methods out there that frustrate you? What are the instructions you ignore?

Oh and how do I usually finish back necklines? I either serge right across the seam which reduces bulk and wears quite well, or I put a binding over the seam allowance. 

Tell me how do you finish the necklines of collars without a stand?

Catching up

OK, well, what's the latest?

For a start we have had some company and more to come. This is a very good reason not to sew.

One of our star visitors was my step-daughter who came home for a visit from Nottingham England where she now lives.

There are many reasons why I am proud of her, but one recently is how she turned her life around from the usual young lifestyle of partying, not a lot of systematic exercise and eating not all that sensibly. Her story is best told in her own pictures:

A strong girl on the inside she has gotten very strong on the outside too. Does a lot of crazy weight lifting and is eating a full but clean diet.

She is also incredibly funny and smart. And a smart knitter.

I did some moaning about my not so fair fair isle vest project, where I broke the record for stubborn stupidity having knit and ripped out the same row 5 times, and she took one look at it and pointed out if I put in stitch markers every repeat I could catch my mistakes before they took off.

Like everyone in the world knows this but me. 

Hopefully I will finish this unit pretty soon. Right now I feel like one of those Japanese soldiers they used to find in Pacific islands 40 years after the war had ended because no one had told them they could go home.

More stubborn than smart. I'm that kind of knitter.

Other than ripping out that same row and cooking for a lot of folks, I have continued on my pillow mania. 

There is now no place to sit in my house unless you dump about four pillows on the floor. Yes, pillow making is the ultimate in no brain sewing, but I think I need to give it a rest now. 

Even the dog has learned to throw them off the chairs so he has room to lie down. Tell me how a dog who after 9 years of failed training in just about every useful area, can figure out in about two minutes how to throw a bunch of pillows off the couch right across the room. 

This is just one of the mysteries of life along with why any body would spend this much time trying to learn to knit a fair isle vest when she doesn't actually wear vests.

And yes I did some sewing. 

My last picture for this evening is my youngest at his birthday bash last night. He has a hat I knit him on his head and the wear-to-a-BBQ shirt he requested. He has just finished a major renovation of a duplex he is going to rent out and so I figured a house shirt made sense.

He has asked that next time I involve him in the fabric selecting process. That must mean he really liked it.

One of my beautiful boys, no longer little any more:

Now what I am going to sew next?

Slow day sewing

The last few days I have been divesting myself of considerable sewing supplies. After having lived lean in the supply department in Florida I realized that my ought-to-dos, piled high, were getting to me.

I have collected so many potential projects that no matter what I made I always felt I was behind.

This is stupid.

So I decided to pass on the things that I didn't actually enjoy making, no matter how high my hopes have been, no matter how many components I have collected. I have found a taker for my embroidery threads, for many expensive mail order patterns, for a half ton of lingerie fabric and findings. 

I have kept all good fabric, dress fabric and patterns that are TNTs or have that potential.

Why was I cluttering my sewing brain for so many decades?

The bottom line is that having so much around me that didn't totally excite me was getting in the way of enjoying what I was actually sewing and enjoying sewing.

I love to sew dresses, and some skirts, and tops. I find bra sewing annoying, too many little pieces and slippery fabrics with 1/4" seams and I haven't embroidered anything in about five years and have no desire to.

I did one soothing, and virtuous thing though. I did get caught up on one of my ghost-from-the-past projects. I made pillow forms today, lots of them with stuffing I had saved forever. I also finally fixed a cushion up that matches the pattern on the couch that a  dog chewed off so long ago that I can't remember the last time I dusted the urn with his ashes in it at the back of the cupboard.

The pattern on the couch has faded, but the cushion now looks bright and brand new.

Of course I have covers to make for these pillow forms next and I will. Soon. I have decided my chairs need a whole lot of cushions. 

I was shocked to read the other day that designers like to put a cushion every foot and a half on seating which means we have been really uncomfortable all these years and didn't even know it.

Pillow form sewing seemed to be about all I could handle today since I only had a few hours sleep.

We had a big family dinner (12) last night and I was too tired to start my marking when I had finished cleaning up, so I went to bed at about 11:00. Of course once I was in bed I lay there thinking about all the marking and my sewing room and what else I needed to liberate and the next think you know it was 4:00 a.m. and I was still awake.

The internet says if you are awake for no reason a whole night because you have things on your mind you need to see someone about all that stress.

Where am I going to find someone I can sit down and say "I was trying to decide if I can line a grey coat with black and the next thing you know it was 4:00?"

Where am I going to find someone who understands that this falls under the category of racing thoughts (I can feel my blood pressure going up right now. What about red? Too cliche?)

Anyway I just got up at 4:00 had a tea and some cereal and all my marking was done by 7:13.

Which left me the whole day, but not enough energy to do more than pillow forms.

But it was meant to be.

I don't think that chewed up cushion should have to wait another ten years.

Anyone else ever have a night like that?

Do you need more stuff? Help me have less.

This message is probably for within-driving-distance readers.

I have massive amounts of machine embroidery thread (rayons and cotton) and lingerie fabric, lingerie elastic, wires and findings I have bagged as part of the "clean this place up so I can move" campaign in my sewing room that started when I went down there and started folding fabric the other night.

I am also looking at some StyleArc patterns that are in a size I am not and some classic sewing books.

If any of these things are of interest to you, why don't you shoot me an email?

What I am sewing now

First of all thank you so much for your supportive messages. It meant a lot to me, I felt so helpless and it was good to have my peeps reach out.

We are getting organized again. You carry on. My daughter's mom and baby group sent her a lilac bush so she can see it bloom every year this time and as one of the girls wrote " it was in full bloom last week." I think that really helped, something she had hoped for and fought for will not be forgotten.

Last night she started sewing again, a baby blanket actually, to be sent to a woman in New York who is going to a baby shower.

Today I decided what I am going to be doing next two.

Two projects that are different for me. The first is a retro shirt for my middle son who has a birthday on July 4th. He wants something funky and retro to wear to BBQs, and boy can his mom deliver that. This is the pattern I am going to use:

I have also been inspired to make a summer purse. 

I have been immune to date to the bag making craze but am inspired a bit by my daughter's own cool bags and all the links to patterns she sends, me I decided now is the time.

I have lots of purses of course but the old leather or even straw bag looks a bit formal with the shorts at the garden centre, or tearing around and throwing a bag in between two car seats in the back, or on the floor of the reno my son is working on and I am helping clean up.

I need a utility number. 

With lots of pockets for all the things I keep losing. I have resolved to stop unloading my entire purse on the counter in front of every cash register I meet.

Here is the pattern I have decided to use. My only regret is that I don't have immediate access to the garment district so I can get some neat, not garment looking, zippers.

I am actually pretty excited to be going out of my garment sewing comfort zone:

Stay tuned, real tuned.

What will I sew now?

We are home now and doing the long unpack.

After a difficult week my daughter lost the baby. There is no other way to say it. I feel so sad for her, she tries so hard to be good about everything, but this was tough. But she is too. One of my sisters once said that we are the kind that don't fall apart even when we want to. When we want to.

Do you know what I mean?

I think perhaps only women really understand this.

But you know today was a sunny day and she and the little girls came over and they walked around the back yard making grass and stone soup, like kids have done for generations, and made us laugh. 

You just have to trust.

Yesterday morning we went out, she probably should have been resting, and well we brought her a new summer wardrobe. She had different plans for this summer but you know you just have to regroup and feeling better on the outside is a start. 

I know there is a vanity is all the time we spend thinking about what to wear, I know that, but there really is something about new clothes that helps. Of course they don't actually fix anything but they make a difference. 

Maybe it means if you get up and get dressed you are moving forward. I don't know.

I remember my favourite all time movie scene in "Men don't leave" where the father has died and the mother takes to her bed and the kids are sort of panicking. A family friend who was a nurse I think, Joan Cusack who was wonderful, comes in after the mother has been in bed for days or weeks maybe and the kids are living off cereal or something, and Joan Cusack, picks the mother up out of that bed (Joan Cusack looks pretty strong) and throws the mother who is screaming and swearing at her into a shower, and says enough, you get dressed.

Getting dressed, and dressed up, means something.

I remember too that when my mother, who was an only child, lost both her parents the year she was sixteen, she went to live with an aunt and uncle. She always remembers the summer she was sixteen as the summer all the aunts sewed for her, making her a new wardrobe, and they put a red rinse in her hair too.

She can still tell you what those outfits looked like.

And for me when everyone went home tonight I went into my sewing room and spent a little time refolding some of my fabric thinking what I should sew next.

I really need to sew.