Two pattern reviews

My sewing has kept ahead of my blogging this last week. I find making things easier than finding the time to take pictures. When my husband leaves next week I will probably be resorting to on the dressform shots or being brave like Carolyn and trying to take pictures remote control.

Things have been busy. 

My daughter is near the middle of her pregnancy and last week was dealing with a husband who was away for work for the week and a round of Norwok over there. I did what I could to help her out and that included one night where I stayed over to change and wash sheets while she held the bowls.

You get the picture.

The week was a bit of a blur between work and helping out but I had some nice sewing surprises. 

The first was a batch of six new Stylearc patterns I am dying to try and a shipment of some really nice knits from GirlCharlee fabrics.  They only carry knits but I got some terrific practical T shirt prints, good cotton lycra for some more day-to-day Elles, and some ponte. I am particularly impressed with the ponte. Good quality, good stretch. BTW the Girl Charlee site posts the stretch factor of their knits which is really useful if you are making some Stylearc pants for reasons in my earlier review.

My latest sewing produced a hit and a miss.

The first of these was Vogue 8951, a semi miss.

Here is the pattern shot:

I didn't do the extended hem at the back, personally that look still looks like a saggy diaper to me, and I really expected this top to be pretty straightforward and the top useful.

I used a ponte with good body and interfaced the collar and facings of course.

What the picture doesn't show, and I should have checked, is how low and wide that V is. Showing cleavage day-to-day may work for some people but those people sure didn't grow up in small towns in Manitoba. There we saved that for New Year's Eve and even then put on a sweater.

So I was sort of kicking myself for having burned some good fabric on this one, and in the end put on a silk scarf which makes it wearable. Here are the shots, see for yourself:

Since I always push up my sleeves, why do I forget sometimes not to just make them 3/4? A very good question.

This makes a few patterns now from the Vogue conglomerate that has produced clothes I am not comfortable in and makes the money I spend on ordering in the Stylearcs I can make many versions of more sensible. (In a previous life I was a spin doctor, see I can even still do it to myself).

Which brings me to my skirt experiments.

On Mondays and Wednesdays I teach a first thing in the morning class at the top of a hill. I am always running up that hill and since my work skirts are all straight skirts this is not always as easy as it sounds.

So last week I decided I needed something I haven't worn for decades and that is a skirt with movement, and in a knit.

This led me to the Stylearc Allison skirt:

I am still working my way through my black fabric stash and made this one out of a rayon ponte. It was an easy sew.

I was of course iffy about the waist since mine left town some time ago but decided I needed to just see how it went, knowing this in advance.

So these are shots taken before I went out the door to work yesterday.

In case you are wondering, yes you are in fact looking at a purple top and purple tights. I have been enjoying adding colour to my life and in my teaching evaluations last term one student, undoubtedly one of those who wears jeaggings and has plugs in her ears, complimented me on my kicking style.

Not sure what that really meant, I never the less still let it go to my head and give me courage to wear exactly what I never would have worn in my previous corporate life.

Of course being black you can't really see much of the skirt in this photo but it should give you some idea of the swing of it and its suitability for hill climbing.

Next up are more skirts and waiting for spring.

Flypaper thoughts

• Been doing a lot of sewing.
• Reviews and pictures will trickle by you soon.
• In the mood for this instead tonight.
• Spent the day trying to feel sorry for myself.
• Really hard.
• Love of my life is leaving soon for two months above the Arctic Circle.
• You read that right.
• So far north and any further he is on his way back.
• Serves him right.
• I will have to find the remote on my own.
• He has the attributes that matter most to a Canadian wife.
• He can make a person laugh even in February.
• Even on a Monday morning in February.
• He shovels the snow.
• He makes nachos when you want to sew.
• I notice when he is gone.
• This week my workplace was shut because of a blizzard.
• Half my evening online class didn't log in.
• Said they thought we were cancelled because of the weather.
• You see what I am up against here.
• Started some clothes to have self pity in.
• Velour housecoat in case I decide to age this way or become a hoarder.
• It involved the Rule of Corners.
• If you are a new sewer let me explain.
• If you set in something with corners only one will turn out.
• Or if they both work, they will be different.
• This is a rule.
• When I was a young pup sewing wise I would have ripped it all out.
• Three times.
• And made holes.
• I now know better.
• My daughter had ric rack at her place.
• Pretty much if you have ric rack you are in business.
• Woke up at 11:30 Wednesday night and my step daughter was standing in the hallway.
• She lives in England.
• Not in my hallway.
• They were coming for a visit and they got stuck in a snowdrift on the way to her sister's.
• We thought the flight had been cancelled.
• Good thing I am close.
• And I always have a lasagna in the freezer.
• English boyfriend thought snow was so neat so l he dug out my walk.
• There is potential there.
• Ric Rack cheered me right up.
• Even went and fixed the holes the spouse's felted mittens.
• It is very helpful in this life to be shallow.
• The best thing about grandchildren is that a kid is back in the house.
• And it's you.
• I will be in Florida in April.
• Pretty sure Miss Heidi put a toothbrush down the sink.
• Will know when the pipes get cut open.
• But we are not missing a toothbrush.
• This is getting exciting.
• My grandfather's first pharmacy was on the way to the North.
• Place called Flin Flon.
• The store was called Gateway Drugs.
• You can't make stuff like this up.
• My dad was named after the president of their best selling product.
• Sanitary napkins.
• Norval.
• That was my dad's name not the sanitary napkins.
• What do you expect.
• After that my grandfather called him Skip.
• Wonder if there are any nachos left.
• May all your problems be fixable with ric rack.
• That is not an Irish blessing.
• It should be.

Fooling around with the Kristen dress

I pretty much enjoyed doing three pants patterns and comparing them and might do more of that kind of thing in the future. 

I love fooling around with new patterns. 

Right now I have some semi-duds, a top and a skirt, both new patterns, I will talk about in the next week or so, but right now I want to share my experiments with the Kristen dress.

I originally made this dress here and really liked it. 

I have been meaning to get back to it and had two fabulous pieces of ponte from Mood I wanted to cut into. Nothing, nothing, nothing is as energizing as good fabric, in happy colours, and a pattern you can trust.

Note to the audience, for whatever reason the colours are not quite so blazing in real life, and yes my photographer should tell me my hair got messed up during the quick changes. 

Done.

O.K. The first dress was in my coral ponte from Mood, such nice hand to this fabric it more or less makes a person who has been stuck with too much crap fabric in the past,  to just cry.

Unfortunately the same person did not have the brains to buy quite enough. So there was some piecing done adding a seam under the bust which I hope looks like it is supposed to be there. 

With this new seam I decided the darts might look busy so I eased in the dart to the side seam with perhaps some success or perhaps not.

Also because the fabric was beefy (you will know exactly what I mean by that) I took the side seams in a lot to eliminate the A shape. 

And because I have a chicken neck I also added a silk scarf I got at my vintage second hand source.

I could be told to tone it down, good advice, if I were a toned down kind of girl. Which I am not. You will figure that out for yourself when you look at these shots and I trust someone somewhere is doing my toning down for me. It is probably very much needed.

A shot outside the sewing room I decided to do because the colour is more accurate and it shows the neckline without the scarf.

Second, I decided to try Pam's collar ideas, linked a few posts back, in another ponte. Because this would obviously make it a pull over dress I eliminated the back seam and the zipper, which I realize could be done in any version of this dress.

I love the collar but probably should have interfaced it. I didn't because in the planning stages I was concerned about having all those layers of ponte making a bulky collar anyway. So the collar sort of flops a bit but I am fine with that.

I love, love this dress. Which BTW I made with the original side seams. You can see the difference not taking it in makes.

I am so, so happy to have a good TNT basic knit dress to fool around with and you can be sure there is a lot more fooling around in my future.

Three Stylearc pants patterns differientated

O.K. here we go. 

As promised a highly scientific examination of the differences between three Stylearc patterns, the Becky Yoga, the Elle and the Barb. The thing about the Stylearc pants is they fit an amazing variety of shapes - due I think to some great drafting and an excellent crotch curve.

With of course the requisite quick and dirty shots in my basement done by my quick and relatively clean spouse who always seems to be on his way to other projects here we are.

The theme of this review is : the degree of stretch is the factor determining success. 

Each of these pants has been made by me in a stretch fabric that was not the right degree of stretch for that pattern and I produced either a wadder or something too uncomfortable to wear.

Each of these patterns was also made by me in fabric with the right degree of stretch and I had great success.

My assessment of what fabric worked with what pattern seemed to me to be worth passing on.

Here goes:

The Becky Yoga pant:

The first pair I made was in what I thought was a highly stretchy light ponte knit in which 4" of fabric stretched to about 6".

I could barely fit one leg into the first leg I sewed up and the centre front came no where near the actual centre front.

On an impulse I grabbed the most stretchy knit I had on hand, in purple no less, a rayon interlock that stretched 100% , meaning that 4" stretched easily to 8".

The result was a highly comfortable pair of purple yoga pants that I will be wearing in the basement to do my so- called exercises and no where else.

Here is the general shape of these pants on a hanger:

Here are these pants on my general shape:

Yes I know but no one is going to see these except you and www. I will do anything for education. Note these pants have a nice high waistline.

The Elle pant:

I made these a year ago in a stretch woven, about 25% ( 4" to 5") stretch and they made my body look like a teacup - legs with a ball on top. Plus I couldn't move in them.

This time I used a cotton/lycra terry with 50% stretch  and am super happy with them as skinny pants. I have them on now and they are perfect for blogging.

Here they are on a hanger, you can see the leg shape:

And on me:

Husband decided the black pants didn't show up so he threw an old cotton sheet over the family photos. Who am I to argue with a man with a camera in his hand and better things to do?

Finally, here are the Barb's in stretch corduroy (25% stretch this would be a minimum IMO).

On the hanger:

  And on me:

Any questions?

Now back to the lab.

In process sewing

In a sort of semi acknowledgment of my sewing resolutions I have spent part of this weekend playing around with pants patterns.

I had the bright idea that I would make three Stylearc patterns - the Barb, Elle and Yoga - and take shots of them all on my own realistic body so you can see the difference the different draft makes on the same person.

I figured it would be educational, for like me.

Well semi progress.

I have made the Barb in a stretch cord (an acknowledgment of the current climate) because I was dubious about how they would look in a heavier, more utility fabric.

I made the Elles, which had been previously expressed as a wadder, in some real stretchy french terry cotton lycra stuff.

I made the Yoga pants in something I figured was stretchy enough and was not. I could have provided you with an illuminating illustration of how they turned out in fabric like that but that would have involved a one legged shot and a good clear view of the other half of me in some nice sensible striped cotton sewing underwear - but since I am having a hard enough time myself coming to terms with that image-  I would rather not put you through it.

So my trio is so far incomplete but I have gone as far as cutting out another Yoga in some fine but highly stretchy knit and we will see how that goes.

This is putting me behind schedule since my photographer will be out of town until Wednesday but I should get it all done that night and up.

In other news Pam at Off the Cuff has posted a wonderful tutorial for adding cool collars to knit tops.

These are perfect, perfect additions to the two Kristen dresses I have on the runway and I am so pleased that I saw this before I had started sewing them. 

Aren't these just great?

To follow up on the weather I have been knitting a lot in the evenings. I did a sweater for the hubby in the summer but really, despite all the nice things my sister-in-law said, it really was too wide at the hips and sort of too short and riding up at the back. You know these things when the wearer keeps pulling it down in the fitting.

It is a beautiful alpaca and I know he would wear it now so I unravelled it to the armpits and have reknit it adding some short rows at the back and decreases from the underarm to the bottom.

Since I have absolutely no idea what I am doing I am not sure if this is an improvement or not but it has been educational.

Pictures when the ribbing is done.

I like to knit but find it fairly boring unless I am watching something on TV.
I should say the screen really because I find most TV terrible. 

We just watch one or two news shows and the spouse watches golf sometimes when there is a home reno project promised but that's it. 

Why do cable companies make it impossible to just order that - we have tons of other channels we never, ever watch yet we are stuck with them as part of our "package."

For some reason this makes me crazy because it seems like such a waste. Give this stuff to someone who wants to watch "Storage Wars" or other reality TV shows about nasty people, or who wants to watch cars rebuilt or people cry at cooking competitions and just let me keep my news.

OK Downton Abbey starts again tonight I forgot that. OK PBS and news.

Netflix is good however. I like the series because you can adjust how much you watch to how tired you are.

Here is what I have been watching, while I wait for House of Cards to come around again. (BTW I loved that series having worked with politicians. My husband bailed on me though, he got tired of hearing "That is soooo true. That is exactly what happens." He says no one in the engineering/construction industry ever acts like that and they all were nuts).

In the meantime I have watched Lillyhammer which is majorly quirky with Steve Van Zandt doing some tremendous over acting but some great Norwegian actors (a lot of the movie is in Norwegian) but I liked it for shots of the Norwegian interiors and the clothes. You know when you see an Ottobre woman pattern and you think, well that's a bit odd. They wore those clothes in this series with winter boots and it all fit. Interesting.

I also enjoyed the Bletchley Circle which was about smart women forced back to dull lives on the home front after the war, lots of knitted jumpers.

There are other series I have enjoyed but these are the most recent.

What do you watch when you sew or knit?

What would you recommend?

New Year's resolutions and Maddie top

Here we go with getting ready for the new year.

First the resolutions:

1. Sew more. 

2013 was a very busy year and I felt pulled in many directions by many forces. The result was I felt pulled away from myself a bit. I have been thinking this over.

Last night I was babysitting at my daughter's. The house was quiet and I was thinking about my life and all the roles I have played, all the different things I have done, all those experiences. Then I thought, as middle-aged adults do, of where I started and the person I was when I was a kid. 

I was always a kid with projects. Ask my mother. I more or less drove the street and the other mothers nuts with my schemes. My major theatrical projects with a cast of thousands, the time I set up a sweat shop in the garage making doll clothes until I was shut down by mothers who instituted labour and consumer protection laws.

Well I sat last night and looked at that dollhouse, as messy as it was, and as bright, and thought to myself I have travelled in a direct line from there to here.

My wish for you right now is that you can see your own direct line and aren't letting life move you off it.

How this all pertains to the resolution to sew more needs no explanation with this crowd here.

2. Be more experimental in my sewing. 

I am not a production person but an artisan. What do you think about that?

I am proud of myself for picking up this word and applying it to myself. 

This is a result of having spoken this morning with my son in Brooklyn who talked this evening about going out for artisanal cocktails. Having walked around Brooklyn a lot on my last trip I now understand what this means. Being a craftsperson implies a high level of practiced skill, but artisanal products I realize now means DIY and generally involves fooling around a bit. A craftsman makes a perfect martini. And artisanal cocktail involves things you might not think go together like maybe pickle juice and vodka and muddied chocolate basil (I am just making this one up but I do not put it past some artisan to be mixing this exact recipe up tonight for my son and his girlfriend).

I intend to work with more basic patterns and fool around with them a bit. Like an artisan.

3. Buy more interesting fabric, but only 10/10 stuff. 

I don't really need to explain this. I need this for items one and two.

4. Sew more StyleArc patterns, try more indies.

Listen StyleArc patterns fit me and are interesting and smart. Why I have wasted so much money on other stuff is beyond me.

So in summary here is the latest, a sort of 2014 warm-up. A pair of Barb pants and the Maddie top. 

I actually got this pattern only for the name, which is the name of my son's girlfriend and sometimes I really miss her. 

What is wonderful about this pull-on top is that it has a beautifully fitting neckline, nothing sloppy and the bands at the sleeves and bottoms are doubled so you have weight to help the top hang and the need for hemming is eliminated.

I made this out of some silk crepe and the bands out of some light weight pleather I had looking at me from the shelves.

I am super happy with this pattern (only took a few hours start to finish and I was in a rush as I wanted to wear it down to do some radio, which as my husband pointed out, doesn't make much sense) and will be using it for many more experiments. It absolutely wants to be a dress I can hear that from it.

No construction notes for the top, except if you are not putting in a back opening (you don't need it IMO) eliminate the seam.

I am wearing this top with the latest pair of Barb pants and I have one comment (in addition to adding a bit for the hips if are you not sure about the stretch of your stretch woven). I want to point out that the pattern calls for 2" elastic in the waist casing. I couldn't find any around here and so in previous pairs used 1 1/2" which I figured wouldn't make a difference.

It does. 

For this pair I overlapped my 1 1/2" with some 1" elastic and zig-zagged them together to make a sturdy 2". What a difference, these pants feel so much more secure on the body. I might be making a couple more pairs over the next few days, I am so happy with them, when I should be doing some cooking for the troops.

So here is the shot:

Happy New Year!

The dollhouse shots

As requested here are some shots of the notorious dollhouse taken by me lying down in my daughter's family room. There is a video of it around somewhere of the whole thing but this should give you an idea.

It was a huge hit and my daughter says the little girls have been playing with it more than any other toy. It is Barbie scale so they have lots of dolls (some with hands that have not been chewed off by dogs even) to put in it.

The main idea is that this is not going to be pinned on Pinterest any time soon.

To be perfectly honest with you my execution was not up to my mental images of how this was going to turn out. My main error was thinking I could Modge Podge on scrapbooking paper to look like wall paper. I was working with my head inside the dollhouse and that stuff wrinkled and crinkled and tore in places and I could not get the cuts to line up with the edges. I realize in the pictures it was even worse than I thought.

I would rather make a dozen bound buttonholes in silk charmeuse (this is the most extreme example I can think of) than go near another bottle of Modge Podge again. I am now going to look at all those women in Michael's aisles with new respect from now on.

But listen. I am not a crafter right? And the girls like it. A lot. As my daughter said when it was unveiled, "well it sure has personality."

Because there are two girls and both my husband and I are the eldest of four in our families, we know all about pushing and shoving around the same toy. So we decided to cut a four shelf bookcase in half and back to back the parts so there would be two rooms each side so they could play without the other guy saying "she's messing it up." My husband also cut a door on the second level so they could still see each other and the Barbies could walk through.

The roof didn't get finished due to time constraints and we will be going back to finish that.

So here it is in all its messy glory:

There is a Barbie curling iron in the drawer of the vanity.

A sleeping mask like Babs wears. The girls like to borrow mine and walk into the walls.

The doll house is now up on a coffee table so they can see it better for playing. What you might be able to see are Barbie and Ken outside on the park bench.

A blender for smoothies like daddy makes.

It is crazy what you can get for $1.99 at Value Village, if you in fact are crazy enough to buy it.

TV remote on the coffee table but Barbie can only watch her shows for a limited time each day. That's the rules.

The biggest hit in the whole house was the toilet paper.

I collected this vintage furniture on eBay from across the continent. There is a turkey and pie in the oven for Christmas. I actually got into a bidding war over them.

The wardrobe is full of clothes I bought in a gas station parking lot from a woman who advertised on Kijji (Craigslist in Canada) the collection includes a wedding dress and leather pants and jacket. All now smelling of Detol.