Down but not out

There isn't a lot of sewing to post here because there isn't a lot of sewing going on, due to the flu.

Last weekend my daughter and son-in-law had it. When I got that "I have lost the will to live" call from my daughter and my son-in-law said he started to walk up the stairs to see the kids and had to sit down because he was too dizzy I took the little girls over to my house for three days. 

This was of course partly showing off on my part as I am famous for never getting sick. We had a good time, reading books and making houses all over the house. Listen Nutella is pretty good stuff. Miss Scarlett did this picture of the three of us on that weekend, this is the sort of thing you save. It's worth more than tenure:

Of course being a smarty pants I did get the bug, just in time for my poor husband's week home. I was going to have him take pictures of the Renfrew top but since I have announced myself too weak to wash any dishes, and cook the food on them, I probably shouldn't rally so far as to start styling T shirts.

We will have to get to that later.

But of course my mind has been actively sewing and considering sewing. 

You wouldn't believe the brilliant letter I wrote to Simplicity at 2:00 a.m. this morning, only in my head of course, on how it was a terrible business decision to write off this whole country. We have the largest land mass in the world (OK there isn't much in most of it, but who knows maybe one day there will be), not all of us want to spend 8 months of the year watching Hockey Night in Canada, we are delusional ( I mean we stay here all winter) and will buy lots of patterns. Lots. Why don't they just get in the car and drive their whole operation over to BMV, who have sensible sales (one on right now) and ship patterns to this side of the border for $8 rather than the $17 each I hear those jokers at Simplicity are offering, and just leave it on the sidewalk for them to pick up?

I mean BMV sales are brilliant. I have tons of patterns downstairs I bought from them that I will never, ever use and I am adding to that number every month. And I am quite sure there are many more women like me from the Bay of Despair (real place, Newfoundland) all the way to Moose Jaw and beyond with the same behavioural pattern. BVM obviously has a business model that works, particularly with the weak and the vulnerable.

So what alternate model is Simplicity working from? The restrict the market, print the patterns but only sell them at JoAnn's model? Listen I go to JoAnn's like every other snowbird in Florida when I can, but JoAnn's is not it, the only it.

Which brings me to some of what I bought in NYC. Now generally I don't post fabric I bought pictures in case someone smart starts to keep track and realizes that they don't actually see this fabric become anything like a garment, but I am making an exception because the fabric is interesting.

Here we go:

I make crazy cotton shirts for my youngest son, who always says, "the crazier the better Babs" and this might fit that bill. He is away in New Zealand right now and every picture he posts on facebook he has on the exact same last crazy shirt I made him, which kind of has me concerned. He is a water guy and I thought the bridges were perfect.

My son in NYC's girlfriend and I both think this is our favourite. If this doesn't make me a cute summer blouse, I mean what will?

Since so much of my work life has been about newspapers and writing how could I not love this? I can see the pattern in my head I want but not in the books.

Gorgeous knit, the hand I mean, I will either be making a top that requires a lot of fabric or a dress that doesn't require much fabric.

Cotton quilted, sort of like high end sweatshirt fleece that I will make into a long jacket thing with big pockets for carrying the poop bags I collect when Mr. R and I go walking.

So that's it and as soon as I am feeling a little better I am on it.

Flypaper thoughts

• Past experience tells me that winters end
• Not sure I am feeling it here
• Have watched robins freeze on the branches for a week now
• The little girls and I took out seeds
• New York was wonderful
• Took an outstanding soap making class at the Brooklyn Creative Studio
• The teacher Rosemary is the real deal, we measured on digital scales and wore safety glasses
• Michaels it was not
• Will be doing a skin cream class for sure another trip
• Understand seaweed soap is primo
• Folks have I got a province for you
• Made the Renfrew top
• Lived up to the reviews
• The inside of the cowl is cut smaller than the outside
• A brain was in operation when this was drafted
• Photographer will be home tomorrow
• Mass producing Elle pants
• I am so not a production sewer
• This is no weather for bare legs
• Mr. Rascal is on the mend
• He now is jumping into the bathtub in the middle of the night for someone to turn on the tap
• Fluids are better, sleep not so much
• My students are so, so fun
• You have to love folks who have time to paint each nail a different colour but no time to study before the test
• Not sure this is the right priority but did make me smile
• That's worth something
• Just not marks
• Simplicity has a semi-boycott of Canada
• My local store has nothing past fall and they won't ship direct to sewers here
• Patterns.com has them
• Just so you know
• Where is the tape?
• Next month I will be in Florida
• In bare legs
• Went to a stand up confessional thing at a bookstore in NYC
• Glasses of wine and folks telling horror stories
• Expected Meg Ryan to show up
• In Nova Scotia we do that in the grocery line up
• Except the wine part
• Nicest thing anyone ever said to me came out of Miss Scarlett's mouth last week
• "Babs I really think you are the real Cat in the Hat."
• Doesn't get any better than that
• Got to get those Elles finished
• Need to move onto tops
• No weather here for bare chested cats

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Step dancing in Nova Scotia

You will be delighted to know that I am not doing badly getting fluids into Mr. R.

I know this because I woke up this morning and realized that some time in the night he had peed on my bed.

I am trying to get the house in shape before my friend comes over when I am away, and this was a set back. 

I am of course washing all the sheets and mattress pads in hot water and disinfectant but the king sized duvet was a challenge.

I called around everywhere to try to find someone who could wash this for me today but no one could do it. No one. Not even Shiny Tiny Bubbles and you know how good they are.

So I figured I had to do it myself. The problem is  I know from past experience that a wet duvet weighs about 900 pounds and after I was let out after The Big Fix-up they said lift nothing over 20 pounds or you will see us again.

I have no intention of doing that.

Fortunately I have recently completed the Canadian Home Fitness test which involved stepping on and off the coffee table and taking my heart rate on an iPad app. (only knocked over the cable box twice, they are pretty sturdy) and I know I have good lower body strength if not much else. Like common sense.

So with this on my side I filled up the bath and washed it and then took off all my clothes and walked up and down the wet duvet, sometimes on my knees because they are bigger than my feet, and thought.

As I stomped I wondered if I should add the wine regions of France to my bucket list.

I thought that with this as a workout I could skip the exercise bike today.

I thought about how fun it was, and how you can usually figure things out for yourself.

I thought about the Olympics.

I wondered what the events are in the Masters.

I wondered what the closest thing to duvet stomping is.

After that it was still wet and then I figured this was more or less a giant sweater.

So I got out every towel I own and rolled up parts of it and got more water out.

I figured the heavier the towels were the lighter the duvet was.

Then I eased it piece by piece into a laundry basket and pushed it with my feet to the dryer, even down the stairs.

I jammed it in the dryer, with my head and my hands, and managed to close the door.

In about five hours it will be dry if the dryer holds out.

I was kind of thinking I could use a new dryer.

This was a busy morning.

I feel like a shower, but I don't have any towels.

Tomorrow I hit NYC. I think I need a break. Or they will.

Tops and trips

Thank you for all the helpful comments. I will be following up on pattern suggestions.

I made a muslin of the Sunny last night, hoping to follow failure with success.

Nope.

Maybe it's just me but it sort of looked like a sleeping bag with two spaghetti arms sticking out of it.

I realize that this look, which I have run into with some of the latest Stylearcs, is fashionable, the loose body and the skinny arms.

If this is what you are starting with anyway it doesn't exactly bring out the positive.

Moving on.

I don't know how much sewing I will get done in the next few days. I leave for NYC Wednesday afternoon and have a truck load of marking to do plus get the house and Mr. R ready for my friend who is going to be house/dog sitting while I am gone.

I am looking forward to spending time with my son and his girlfriend but you know I am not crazy about the plane part. It seems flights get cancelled a lot these days once you get to the airport, you have to cram in line with your shoes off, and they reduce the leg room by 3" every trip. You feel like baggage.

My preferred way to travel is on a road trip with my spouse who usually picks me up at school when we go to Florida with the car all packed and my coffee in the holder - but next to that I would like the train.

If I could drive the 15 minutes to the train station here and get off in Central Station I would be happy, but of course that isn't possible. And who has the time anymore?

When I was a very small girl my dad drove my grandparents to BC and we took the train home through the Rockies to Manitoba.

I remember it being incredibly glamorous. There were very nice people who folded down your sheets for you and brought you treats because you were a kid, and observation car where the grown ups played cards, and dinner with silverware on the table and flowers. The drinks had cherries.

When I was in university in Montreal I had a friend whose dad was the chef for the president of the railway. We went down to Gare Central down, down many layers of tracks and he sat us in the president's car and made us lunch. I could not believe he could actually cook in a rolling kitchen smaller than my small bathroom. I couldn't believe all the work that got done in such small spaces. My grandfather on my mother's side and all his brothers worked for the railway and I realized they had spent their lives doing that. Swaying along as they walked between cars all over Canada. One cousin actually died between cars from a heart attack. My grandfather died running along the platform for the train.

He was never late, said my mother. She has his watch. Well maybe just that one time.

And I sort of believe when you travel you should experience the space, not fly over it. Distances are real, something you should see and feel and not necessarily something you cancel out with ear buds and a curved pillow around your neck.

When you travel these days all the matters is the destination. Not sure that is always the best way to travel.

In life either.

Stylearc sleeves 2

I have measured the Sunny top to give you some more information. There is already a comment on Patternreview about the sleeves being too tight there.

In a size 10 the sleeves at the bicep measure 10". Same as the Pia. My actual bent arm at the bicep is 12". Now in a light stretchy knit this would still be OK but your fabric would still have to have at least 75% stretch I figure - exactly like the swatch in fact.

Many T shirt knits, particularly those with cotton don't have this.

I really like the shape of the Sunny but when I have more time than I have tonight I will be adding at least a couple of inches to that sleeve. Maybe that will ruin the design but I know from today's experience that I am just not going to be comfortable in a tight sleeve.

I would be interested to hear more about other experiences.

I am hot on the trail of a few TNT knit tops, at least one that can be tunic length with high day-to-day wearability.

Any suggestions?

Stylearc sleeves

Just a quick note before I go back to marking. My Stylearc Pleated Pia top was a wadder.

I don't like wadders.

I have scrawny arms so it was disappointing to have to throw it out because the sleeves turned out to be negative ease, and just impossible to talk myself into thinking they would be OK. Too bad because it was cool fabric.

As usual there was a lot of operator error here because I went back to the swatch and it was more or less a slinky knit, not my old cotton lycra knit and I guess, like the Stylearc pants, an understanding of stretchability is really important.

FYI I compared the sleeve circumference to the Renfrew, which I haven't made, and the sleeve was a full 2 1/2" narrower.

So if you are smarter than I was you might want to double check the Stylearc sleeve measurements before you cut.

Wish I had.