Flypaper thoughts almost home edition

•  Day after tomorrow we will be back on my street
• Already doing some re-entry adjusting
• Wondering if there will be mouse poop under my pillow like there was two years ago
• This year I took my pillows with me
• Tried to debrief our time away with my husband tonight
• What did you enjoy best I asked?
• Well everything he said
• It was all great
• That man enjoys himself no matter what
• But that doesn’t lead to in depth debriefs
• So I will do that with you
• I learned a lot
• For instance that there is a real bird called a road runner who runs around Texas
• At top speed, including through our campsite
• Identical to how they look in the old cartoon
• Can’t say that about everything
• I learned that if you decide you need a haircut and you are in the middle of nowhere
• The dog scissors, an RV bathroom, and no glasses
• Are not an ideal combination
• If you had to have two out of the three I would say to keep the glasses for sure
• And go for the mirror a probably
• Try to sub the dog scissors
• Might not be doing head shots in my next round of garment photos
• I learned that the ticks you catch on your arm
• Really look a lot like the pictures in the doctor’s office
• And that Texas is absolutely full of wildflowers in the spring
• Even the cacti
• Completely amazing
• The desert does bloom
• I learned that it really is possible to be flat out doing next to nothing
• So you can just stop worrying about that one right now
• Retirement is covered
• I learned that cowboy boots actually look pretty sharp with summer dresses
• And that I absolutely have to get some next year
• And that the age you really shouldn’t been wearing them
• Is probably the exact same age when you no longer care
• I learned that the sight of a granddaughter who is completely and absolutely identical
• To her father when he was the exact same age, yesterday
• Is both comforting and awe inspiring
• And exactly what you were meant to see this time round
• Now it makes sense
• I learned that any place called a Washeteria probably has dryers that only do High Heat
• And that there is no fabric on earth that doesn’t shrink or pill
• But that there is so much entertainment at the Washeteria that this seems like a small price
• Besides that 85 year old man who assured me he was a cowboy
• Thought I had class
• You go where you can get it
• I learned that it is possible to be very happy with your spouse
• In a very small space for two months
• If he is a very good cook
• And you are knitting
• I learned that the sound of rain on a metal roof is still sweet
• And the stars are still there
• And marshmallows burnt on the outside
• Beat any dessert anywhere else
• And that you just pull the twigs off
• If you need to
• I learned that showers don’t have to be long
• That leaving your watch at home is fine
• That going for an after work walk with a son
• Is worth the 2,500 miles it took to get there
• But most of all
• That if you let everything just stop
• It doesn’t matter one bit

Tulsa Vintage Sewing Machine Museum

My husband coordinating with the blue machines and purple fabrics

I took a lot of pictures in my visit to this museum and I will try to post as many as I can here, with annotations, before Blogger becomes saturated.

No particular order here. The over whelmingness I felt faced with nearly a thousand machines, many, many of them set up ready for test sewing, will become apparent.

Here we go. The operating hours can be erratic, this is the creation of one man who was having his lunch in his truck when we arrived but who helpfully told us where the hidden key was so we let ourselves in.

The entry arch, made from salvaged machines from a landfill

Wall art made from flywheels.

Do you recognize these? Some more wall art made from throat plates

Such neat and tidy industrial design

A well known name in industrial machines this time in a domestic model, beautiful metal dials and some zippy mid century modern detailing

Amazing the number of different sewing machine manufacturers

An accessory cupboard

Love the colour and the presentation

Neck really seemed to play around with alternate ideas, note here the work area is on the inside of the machine

Theses rotating throat plates for different stitches in the Necchi machines are crazy but interesting

An industrial leather machine

Industrial embroidery machine

 A tiny white featherweight in the room of children's machines

Another child's machine

And another one, note the care in display

My heart stopped when I saw this. 

When I was 8 years old our neighbour across the street gave me one exactly like this - she had brought it with her from Czechoslovakia. It made a chain stitch, no bobbin, and was held to the kitchen table (Formica) with one of my dad's vices from the garage. I turned the handle and poured out a ton of doll clothes that I sold to the neighbourhook kids for a nickel or a dime until the local mothers marched down and shut down my sweatshop.

It made a very nice stitch.

A baby treadle

One of the delights of the museum is the care in presentation. Here a row of pink machines on a pink shelf

The blue wall, my favourite

A lovely lady who came a very long way for my class.

Flypaper thoughts somewhere in Arkansas version

• First thing big thank you for all who supported me doing more writing here
• Means a lot
• Mostly still going to be writing about sewing because mostly do a lot of sewing
• I have some ideas for novels but have a lot of projects to get done first
• So I will share some concepts and maybe you can write it up
• Open source plots
• Thing you have to know is all of these are true
• Do not know how someone writes a whole book of made up stuff
• When real life is so dense with the unbelievable
• Idea for murder mystery one:
• A history professor notices an odd smell in his office
• Calls building maintenance
• They unscrew the air vent in the wall
• There, upside down, and considerable dehydrated
• Is long time missing university person
• Upside down and looking back at them
• Well sort of
• Verdict that the mummified individual
• Was a suicide
• Who had gone up onto the roof and done themselves in by throwing themselves down the air vent
• Which narrowed six floors down at the history department
• Personally I would have considered other scenarios
• And did at the time
• But second year students
• Are rarely called in for forensic consults
• Now teaching second year students
• I can see the point
• But still
• Maybe I better space out the plots between posts
• There is only so much reality we can all cope with
• Going home from a really wonderful visit with my stateside family
• Back to where I understand they had more snow today
• But there is always something relaxing about going back to Nova Scotia
• A place that runs on favours
• To the point you run your life counting on it
• However unreasonable this is as a life tactic
• Example
• Found a cool sewing thing on our equivalent of Craiglist today
• From a part of the province long way from me
• On a whim I messaged and said
• I am in an RV in Arkansas but my niece works in a hospital near you
• Well my niece works there too she said
• Of course she does
• I haven’t actually seen what’s she’s selling and she hasn’t seen the money
• But it is niece guaranteed
• Done
• Tulsa is a nice town too
• Quietest city I have ever been in
• And who knew it was a masterpiece of Art Deco architecture?
• Do they film movies there?
• They should
• Wonderful experience teaching at the Vintage Sewing adventure
• One lady, I am talking about you Marilyn Sweet, drove 400 miles to meet up
• We could have talked all day
• The people sewing has introduced me to are everything that matters
• And the Vintage Sewing Museum made a big impression on me too
• More than the David in Florence (looked to me like a kid)
• And the British museum
• Which has a pretty nice collection for sure
• But really
• The Vintage Sewing Museum has a whole wall of only blue machines
• And shelves of blue fabric to test sew
• And Miles Davis playing the blues right there too
• I mean really
• How can you compete with that?
• Once I am off this Arkansas highway and can download all my pictures
• I am going to show it to you
• Prepared to be amazed
• Some of those machines are bigger than you think

Berkeley sewing

When I was in Berkeley last week I was able to deliver a few things I have made.

Here is the BBQ shirt I made for my oldest son. I has a beautiful saying hidden in the waves, he is a sailor, in fact my favourite saying of all time -smooth seas don't make for skilled sailors.

I think I got the fit just a about right on this one. And as always pleased with the print matching on the pocket, my speciality.

I was also able to finally deliver two dresses I made for my daughter-in-law with fabric I got from Stonemountain in December:

Maddie is absolutely gorgeous and she loves this dress, but I decided she needed a square shoulder adjustment to make the front hang right so I did that while I was there and it really made a difference. She will wear this with heels and the length will be right then too.

I have a book at home in which I write down everyone's measurements as they evolve and figure notes. When I go home I am going to put down, Maddie has square shoulders.

Of course when I was there Maddie and I went back to Stonemountain fabrics. The baby needed some pants and we picked out some nice knits. Since I brought a vintage Bernina to leave there I was able to set it up on the dining room table and sew and chat. It was a lovely time for Maddie, baby Anika and I to share. I loved it.

I really like fabric shopping with Maddie because she has such an eye for fabric and can see things that I can't see. For instance she chose this rust knit and striped knit for a little hip baby suit and I think it looks so great:

Of course I have to say that Anika is a doll. I am not sure how they did it, except of course both my son and daughter-in-law are the nicest parents, but this baby smiles all the time.

I have a theory that people are born with their dispositions, and this one was born happy, there is just no other way to put it.

Boy am I lucky to have these guys!

Some thoughts and a quick request for feedback

Hi folks.

This morning I am in Tulsa Oklahoma. Today I am going to be visiting the vintage sewing museum and this evening doing a book signing at the incredible Art Deco Mayo Hotel.

Tomorrow I am going to be teaching all day and really looking forward to that.

After this we will be heading home.

It has been a really great trip. Basically we relaxed in the state parks and concentrated on spending time with the other guys - my son in Austin and my oldest son and his family in Berkeley. It was tremendously restorative for me to do both.

This trip has also given me some time to think about what to do next and that includes this blog.

While I have been away I did a podcast interview for C & T who published my book. One of the comments made during the course of the questions was that my book was very different in that there was a lot of writing in it, as opposed to most books they publish which focus more on instructions. This was interesting because I have been thinking about doing more instructional stuff particularly for new sewers, I am thinking Youtube, but I also think this was a very valid comment.

I really like writing. In fact the best part of the book process for me was the writing not the sample making to be really honest, although I liked doing the step-by-step instructions when I thought they were about sharing something stress reducing and easy making ideas.

This also got me thinking about this blog.

I don't know about you but social media often overwhelms me. So many great garments, so many beautifully styled photos, such tremendous output. 

I sew all the time, nearly every day, but it is often a communication thing, a creative thing more than an output exercise. Many of my garments are now for other people and I always want to do a surprise. This doesn't make for consistent blog presentation.

I really don't think I can keep up with that kind of blogging, the garment photos twice a week stuff. That is done so much more capably by other people. I really want to just communicate with other sewers about our lives and our sewing more than do a lot of show and tell, because my life doesn't work like that.

So I am thinking about doing this.

Focusing on my Instagram account @bemodi for the showing what I am making part. I want to do this particularly when there is a pattern I want to share or a fabric source to pass on. I will still do garments and construction here of course, but Instagram is so fast and easy for this kind of stuff and that is helpful for frequent posting.

Using my Youtube channel Barbara Emodi more for the kind of information I want to share with newer sewers in particular, or for techniques I would place in the nifty idea category. I have decided to do some basic how-to's on Youtube for my daughter-in-law in Berkeley. I left her a machine and she has outstanding textile/design sense and might find those useful.

Writing in this blog about stuff. 

Thoughts I am having, considerations on sewing, a little more unplugged. This might be a disappointment to those who see this as a sewing only blog, but to me sewing is part of the flow of my life. Hard for me to make that separation.

I think I need more of a writing outlet right now than to feel the pressure to produce regular sewing production blog posts - it would be good to go a bit more random.

Flypaper thoughts type writing more often here if you get my drift.

So I guess the question is what do you think?

Vogue 9253

This is a very popular pattern. I believe it has made it to the Patternreview hit list and there are a gazillion versions out there in the digital world.

It is a beautiful flowy dress with a major V neckline. Most of the reviews have been occupied with going with that look or trying to counter it will various modesty panels or neckline redrafts:

Interestingly when my DIL did our big Stonemountain and Daughter fabric shop in December and she picked out this fabric, a beautiful rayon batik:

Vogue 9253 is the pattern she chose for a maxi dress. She is tall and slim and can wear necklines like this, and I thought the fabric was perfect.

I cut this dress out at home and finally had the time this week to make it. Of course this is a dress that you really can't show on a hanger, definitely needs a person in it, but we are going to have to wait for that when I see her in a few weeks time.

I still wanted to show it to you though and decided that it would be a good idea to show you what was around me when I made this at the picnic table, definitely one of those now I really know I am not in Nova Scotia moments:

Of course to be right in location like this has its perils - prickles are fairly easy to extract from a dress, from myself not so much:

Now onto the pattern.

Really I made this one up just as instructed, the kimono sleeves have in a slighter way the issue of the River dress, but not too bad. I have to say though that having sewn kimonos from Japanese instructions that the underarm usually is left open a bit, forming a natural gusset, or in later patterns, a gusset has been added. That could still happen in a garment like this:

Now I realize that these shots are not particularly edifying, some dresses just don't show on a hanger, but hopefully have served to illustrate how nicely this extremely popular pattern works in a nice heavy rayon.

I will be very interested to see how this fits on Maddie and of course I am feeling some angst about the fit of that neckline. Last year about this time I altered a beautiful vintage dress for her with a remarkably similar style and at that time my job was to give her more room for her ribcage under the bust. That got a bit tricky without any extra fabric to work with but fortunately the dress had a very deep hem I was able to use to find that little bit of fabric in.

However as is so often the case we end up sewing the next project haunted by the last one (does anyone else ever experience this?) so I might have over compensated with what I have done here.

This pattern has tucks in both the bodice and the skirt at the front and these are very useful for fine-tuning fit in that very important under bust area. 

Maddie measured for me and I knew she had a 31.5" underbust and the pattern as it was designed was for a 30" in her size. Given the softness of the style in general as well as the fabric I was very, very wary of having this seam too tight - that would be a lot of strain on the zipper and of course this is not a style for a waist stay. So after many trial bastings, thinking, changing my mind, and finally considering that there was a big sash that would be tied under the bust anyway, I adjusted the tucks so this under bust seam was 34" long or 2.5" ease, figuring it could then be adjusted by the ties for fit and comfort.

This may or may not be a good idea, and it may or not mess up with the fit of the bodice over that V, but my mind was remembering the maneuvers I made last year to give her extra room in this area.

At any rate I can fit it finally on her when I am in Berkeley the end of the month and adjust as necessary then.

I am going to be sending a machine, one of my vintage Berninas ahead.

My husband is going to be going to Berkeley for a few days on his own to see the baby and I will give it to him to carry and negotiate through the airlines. So by the time he is back and I go myself for four days (we aren't going on a long drive this year and have decided Daisy wouldn't fly too well so we are doing baby visits in relay) there will be a machine waiting for me.

I just can't see having any of my kids anywhere without a machine for me to use when I visit.

On a personal note this trip is going really well.

After an intense fall I really needed to rest up a bit and settle down and see my other children. Both boys are in the US. People say to me a lot oh that's so hard and of course my first choice would be to have all the kids lined up in houses on my street, but seriously it has added so much to our lives to have them so happy in such interesting places. We have really been able to get in touch with the youngest's life here in Austin and of course being here makes hops out to the West Coast so much easier than from Nova Scotia.

They are all such good kids. In fact even after I am home I will be back down here again, in Nashville in May. My son and daughter-in-law are going to an annual Memorial Day weekend they do every year with friends and they are bringing my down to stay nearby with the baby for four days while they go off and do that. I mean how lucky am I?