Underlining technique

Made some careful progress on my two-tone black and white (please see picture on the pattern envelope- I am so creative) linen retro A line summer dress today. Tested top-stitching for the seams down the front- used white buttonhole twist in the top of the machine and the same thread in black in the bottom, loosened my bobbin tension a lot and tightened the top tension which means that some of the bobbin thread shows between the stitches on top so it sort of looks like a hand saddle stitch. Felt clever. 

Then I tried really hard to find a way to underline the white linen bodice so there would not be a lot of show through from the darts etc. (if you make this dress the darts are deep and short and the only way to get them to press properly is to slice them open almost to the point). The interesting thing about white fabric I found out is that you can line it with 75 layers and you will still get show through. Finally I tried fusing a tricot knit interfacing to the piece I was going to cut out the bodice from and that worked very well. The tricot is dense and it does the trick, plus it is laminated on. It will also help the linen bodice with those assertive darts hold its shape, and as this is only one small part of the dress it will still be able to breathe, something I like to do myself in the summer heat of the city.

Which is why I love linen. Nothing to my mind is as cool and it is lovely to sew and press. But there is that wrinkly thing. The only way around it I decided was to wash the fabric once, which I did, and to underline each pattern piece, in addition to the tricot I put into the bodice. I have some Bemberg rayon in black and some nice China silk in white. It is actually amazing what my supply shelves are capable of spitting out, and I am trying to work with what I have.

Now the only problem was that  I hate working with lining, lightweight fabrics, China silk in particular. I once made a silk chiffon blouse and it was undoubtedly the worst experience of my life. And that includes child birth. To my mind it is like cutting and sewing dust and about as controllable. And I have no intention of emerging from my staycation down to my last nerve. Also underlining is tricky stuff. No matter how carefully you cut both the fashion fabric and the underlining it seems that in these hands at least, the two are never quite the same size, they slide away from each other when you try to pin, baste, serge them together and the end result is often a little buckled.

Plus I hate cutting out floaty fabric. I believe I have mentioned this.

However I had a brain wave this morning (I really needed this time off) and this is what I did and it worked.

Here we go:

1. Cut out the fashion fabric pieces.

2. Lay these fabric pieces opened out and single layer on top of a single layer of the lining/underlining fabric.

3. Pin the fabric pieces to the lining/underlining. Use a lot of pins.

4. Quickly baste close to the edge of all garment pieces through all layers.

5. Then, and only then, cut out the lining/underlining carefully around each garment piece.

6. Remove pins.

7. Repin pattern where necessary and add markings to underlining side.

Each garment piece will be then be underlined, to size and without any wrinkles or buckling. I then treated each laminated piece as one and serged all edges that would be exposed in seams, the necklines and armholes were already attached with the basting.

Really easy.

Tomorrow on to sewing this dress up.

Day one of the sewing staycation

For some reason my camera isn't working this morning; it keeps saying that there isn't enough light. Obviously it has joined the rest of us in mid-winter, February light and colour depravation. The kind of problem I can hand DH when he comes in the door.

This is Monday and the first day that counts in my staycation as it is the first one where I would be at work.

Over the weekend I warmed up by working on a TNT version of the previously posted Simplicity retro A line shift. Version one, in shocking pink cotton twill, my tester, was great apart from some tightening across the bust as I cut out a smaller than usual size to try and fit my shoulders. Version two in denim that I had kicking around added a FBA (thanks Debbie Cook) which was great but that added a bit too much to the under bust seam, so yesterday I rotated half of the below bust point width into the side bust dart.

We will see how that works today in a more final version in black and white linen, underlined.

More later, I have a lot of sewing to do, then off to a matinee with my daughter, who is now undergoing shift from too sick to eat to eating everything that isn't nailed down. 

I am looking forward to a nice day. I now really understand why retired people look so happy.

Happy Valentine's Day Two, on the TNT

As I write this my husband is shelling lobster to make a special pasta dinner for us for Valentine's day. After an extremely busy couple of months and lots of eating out we are going to spend the evening together, watch "W" on the DVD and maybe hold hands until I decide it is time to knit and Rascal jumps on my husband's lap.

I once asked my husband why he married me. 

When we met I was a frazzled 45 year old single mother with an old dog, three teenagers, and a house that had been only partially renovated and then left. When I asked him this he just looked at me like I was crazy and said "I figured I had better marry you before you got snapped up." 

He has no idea.

What I would say about my husband is that he is the kind of guy who always comes through for you. You can count on that, you can count on him. I have to say that it makes an enormous difference to have that in your life. All the difference in fact.

Another thing my husband has brought to this house is his cooking. He feels about food the way I feel about sewing. But he does it differently.

When the  DH gets on to something he doesn't let it go until it is perfect, and only then will he move on to something else. Like the time he wanted to perfect his pizza crust and we had pizza every night for three weeks, with different things on top of course, but we had so much pizza the kids were bringing home extra people to eat it. We were giving it away. Of course I have to tell you it' s the best pizza in the world, and that's a field with no small competition.

And then there was the pita phase, the bagel phase, the halibut phase, the duck phase... 

I think you get the idea.

It has finally dawned on me that what this man is doing is perfecting his TNT patterns. Once he has the recipe all ironed out it goes in the inventory and it's there to be pulled out when that is what he feels like on the day, and he knows before hand that it will turn out exactly how he wants it.

Contrast this with my own style of cooking that is more random and involves new recipes picked up and let go before I understand them. Much like how I sew.

I need to do some more figuring out on this one.

In the meantime it's time to eat. My dinner is calling.

Happy Valentine's day. Who would have thought, at this stage of the game, that there would be so many nice surprises.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I have had a week. First of all just let me say this:

Pinwale corduroy

Seersucker

Flannelette

Snaps

Bamboo knit

Prints

Pastels

Terry towel

Gingham

Swiss dot

Eyelet

Velour

Houston, we have heartbeat.

It has been confirmed. My daughter is pregnant and I am going to be a grandmother. My DD has had some problems in the past but it looks now like things are going to work out. I am delighted, she is too but not feeling all that great, but this too should pass.

I volunteered to do maternity clothes (they don't do that anymore apparently, just wear everything really tight, like T shirts with Baby printed on them and arrows) but have the OK for baby clothes.

Excellent.

I have realized, and my daughter is just understanding this too, that pregnancies are a community thing. It takes every woman back to where she was once herself, erasing all the years. Daily calls from my 81 year old mother who when she was pregnant with me was a public health nurse in the toughest neighbourhood of a tough town, a job she still misses by the way, "And then I got off the bus and threw up behind a lamp-post, and your aunt used to keep soda crackers in the O.R., and your mother wasn't sick but she ate all the time and was huge ..." Every day some new piece of family experience to recall and revive.

For me I am remembering my first SWAP.

I am realizing now that in all my sewing career the wardrobe I was most happy with was the one I made for my first pregnancy, with this daughter actually.

I was tall and I was working in Australia and at that time it seemed to me that all the maternity clothes were designed to make you look like a child yourself. All that was missing was the Choo-choo trains on the pockets, although I am not sure I didn't see those too.

Peter Pan collars, tiny florals (which might have been fine if you were a tiny flower yourself and I never was), puffed sleeves and lace trims and billowing gathers. And all way too short, so short that a person's belly showed out under the bottom of the tops, not a cool look at the time. This is now, that was then. 

So I made all my own clothes and I could tell you in detail what each garment was, the fabric, the patterns, how I altered non-maternity patterns to work for me.

I realize that this was my first SWAP. I made a complete wardrobe, every thing in it, and I kept it small and deliberate, and colourful and fun because I knew that before the year was out I wouldn't wear it again (it was all worn in fact by many other women on a rotating basis). There was a real freedom to sewing like that and I only made things that were fun to sew and didn't necessarily have a future. It is interesting to me that of all the hundreds of wardrobe builders, classics and good clothes I have made since then nothing has satisfied me like my first SWAP wardrobe.

A 56 year old woman has just swum across the Atlantic ocean

OK so maybe I can make those curtains.

Now if I can persuade my husband to sail along side of me and throw me food and drinks ...

An upcoming sewing staycation

Don't you just love it how recessions create new vocabulary? 

Starting next Friday, the 13th no less, I have a week off from school for our winter break. Unlike other times I have all my school work and marking up to date, so this one's for me. There were fleeting discussions about going away to somewhere warm, but my DH can't get away from a project and with the recession and all we are just being frugal, both for the present and for the future.

I have had a pretty intense couple of weeks, personal stuff, family stuff (nothing serious but things to take care of and adjust to) and job decisions like a request from my old employer to came back for a term and work like a crazy person out there in the non academic world. Too much to explain, I get tired just thinking about it.

Point is, dues wise I am pretty paid up at the moment and I have earned a week for me.

Question is what am I going to do with it?

As you all know a week off can be easily frittered away, particularly by me, on lunches and web surfing and getting up late and half started projects.

I really want to sew. I can't remember when I had a dedicated week to sew and I want to spend the week getting geared up for it.

It's interesting that one of Carolyn's posts of the last few days on planning has gone right to the heart of what I feel right now.

If I don't plan, and spend this week getting my supplies and ideas in order, some of that precious week will be wasted.

Question is what are my options?

1. Use the time to do something I need to do and haven't had a clear run at. I'm thinking of those bedroom curtains. Three windows and fabric and lining hanging around at least a year waiting. I have written before about how I hate home dec, being a garment sewer to the core, but would I feel a great weight lifted if I got these units out of the in basket and onto the windows? I don't really know. Whenever I have company I wish I had forced myself to do these curtains and a whole lot of other things.

2. Make a spring coat. I really missed this last spring, something to put over dresses and skirts that covers them to the hem. I have a couple of shorter coats but I feel bitsy in them with some skirts hanging out. I have the fabric and lining for this and a range of patterns from Vogue Vintage to New Look Easy. This would be definitely one of those sewing projects where you want the garment but are not excited by the process. When I have to go somewhere decent in the spring I would be glad I had done this coat.

3. A top week, I have a range of knits that would make good tops and a few blouses and the idea of getting this off the runway and into the wardrobe sort of appeals. I would like to try a sweater set for example and I do have a taste for dramatic sewing as  when I made my five pairs of pants that fit in sort of an obsessive crazy submersion period. 4-5 new tops would really perk up the whole wardrobe and if they are new patterns could be interesting to make.

4. Spring/ summer dresses. I have spent today working on the previously shown Simplicity summer dress pattern and it more or less fits in its fitting muslin shocking pink cotton twill version although I think I need to add a Full bust alteration next time of about an 1-3/4 inches. I made it in a smaller than usual size as per the Pivot and Slide manual that worked for the pants, which in itself has eliminated the gaping neckline, armhole issues I usually have, and of course the A line of the skirt has taken care of my body shape, but it is a lot tighter across the bust, about 1" ease, than I am comfortable with. I should work this out but since there is no way I in real life have a full bust, I am not sure if this is going to work (have done it all on paper this afternoon as a prototype) and I am anxious once I finish current and still wearable version to try it out. I can wear what I have  if I wear a lousy bra it should work (speaking of which I need a good bra, as I get older they just get more uncomfortable but all the sewing versions have that cup seam that is not good for those of us who wear knits) but would love to nail a TNT summer dress pattern sometime before next October, which would be true to form for me. I would love to sew up some bright cheerful dresses but am incredibly, short of fabric of  the weight I need for these somewhat structured dresses.

A trip to the local fabric store at the bottom of the street was no help, more polyester, and all I did was run into a sewing friend who told me I looked tired. Mainly I think I am tired for not finding good fabric. I could try to order some in for these projects but doubt if I could get it in time, I miss Timmel Fabrics which was local.

So that's my week, to figure out how to spend the next one.

Any suggestions?

Burda and red mitts

Of course as soon as I decide that I am not going to sew anything from Burda WF they come out with an outstanding issue full of cool things I want to make, many wearable garments that actually look comfortable. At least I am consistent in my inconsistency.

An excellent international newsagent here gets in Burda and a nice polite man always calls me to tell me when it is in. So four nights ago I went down around 10:00 p.m.  and picked up this interesting issue. Of course the streets in the downtown area are pretty hard to drive on, this is an old city with narrow streets near the waterfront, and with all the snow piled up on the edges they are even narrower. I had to sort of park the car half up on a snowbank beside the newsagent just to leave enough room for the other cars. I then spent about 15 minutes sitting in the car reading the issue by the car light in the cold. 

When I got home I realized that in my excitement I had let one of my nice red knit-by-me (which means one thumb was about 1 1/2" longer than the other) felted mitts get lost along the way.

Today coming home from a meeting downtown I had a brainwave and detoured my way over to the newagent's street which was even narrower now because of a few intervening snowstorms.

Well wouldn't you know it. There right in the middle of the street, looking really alone and dirty and flattened by a thousand cars was my missing red mitt. We were so happy to see each other.

This made me think that it is sometimes worthwhile to go back and try and pick up important things you had left behind, that so often it's just too much trouble, but maybe something is waiting for you to remember.

So when I came home tonight I decided to call up one of my nieces on the other side of the country, she's 10, and we had an interesting talk about sewing which she has just started to do and how sleeves are hard, and I noticed how little her voice sounded. And tomorrow I am going to call an neighbour from my old street 20 years ago who faithfully sends me a card every year, and who doesn't hear from me much because I just get too busy and never get organized to send cards back.

And then I am going to think about what to sew from that magazine.