Ottobre designs- balloon suits?

I have in the past enjoyed my Ottobre designs for women subscription. There were always some good, slightly funky, around-the-house or basic patterns in every magazine. And I loved the fact that the models were real, rather than unreal, women.


And yes it made me feel sort of cool to sew up a Finnish design. Like I was a woman who went cross-country skiing before breakfast, and ate a lot of cheese and wore clogs and was progressive and so damned healthy. You know, like chunky jewelry and bangs.


However I don't know what to think of this autumn/winter selection. I probably won't be renewing. These are some pretty damned weird coats IMO.


Have I lost my edge? Am I too suburban/North American after all? Not enough fresh air? Cheese? Style?


Or will this be one of the many new profiles I think is nuts at first and once I see it everywhere, and just about when it is going out of style,  decide it's OK?


What do you think?

Steamy day

No Irene in this neck of the woods but it has felt odd and so damp. The patterns in my sewing room feel like wet paper towels and things have just been weird.


First of all the dehumidifier overflowed, something to do with some thingy that I bent emptying it. So there was water all over the basement floor. One thing led to another and in the clean-up and my husband, who recently got his certification as a home inspector (a retirement plan idea although there is no indication he will be retiring for a long time yet), decided to check out the condensation in the downstairs bathroom. That  led to the toilet being taken up and out, then the floor, then the walls, and then that spread over into the laundry room which now doesn't have a floor either. I think another wall is going to be taken out too.


I feel this is only the beginning.


Now that's his end of the business.


On my end I took the dogs out for a walk at a new place (through the parking lot of the Mormon Temple and into the woods they share with the Sisters of Charity convent) where the dogs promptly lost four more balls. This is partially my fault as I have just about as much accuracy in using a Chuckit (if you are not a dog owner this is that stick thing you use to throw a ball further in case you throw like a girl and your natural arm propels balls about four feet) as I do in using a  dehumidifier apparently.


I really can't afford to keep these guys in balls anymore. Yes when I use the Chuckit I do hit trees and things bounce backwards. But they are dogs. They are supposed to find things. Things in tall grass and behind bushes. They are dogs. They are supposed to do more than look blankly at me and munch grass and go find sticks for me to throw when they hear  me say "Go find the ball."


O.K.


Since I couldn't do laundry or use the bathroom downstairs, or have the dogs show any signs of intelligence, initiative, or instinct,  I threw myself into cutting out the jacket for Vogue 1264, of the great, but short, but fashionable, pants. (Check out the divine Miss E's version today I am seriously reconsidering a red pair).


It's a bit of a cutting marathon what with the wool crepe, the pleather, the interfacing, and the lining and the FBA etc. going on.


I don't know about you but cutting out is something I dread. A necessary step between the purchasing/planning part I love and the sewing part I also love.


There is a lot of marking too and I always mark with tailor tacks using different colour threads for the different size dots etc. :

  
Sometimes I think this is a lot of trouble but really it takes a lot to keep me organized. Which brings me to this.


Near the end of my cutting session I realized I have lost Piece #8. The collar.


Now with it being so humid I had the windows of the sewing room open (my spouse was also using one of those windows to throw drywall pieces out onto the lawn - don't ask) so Piece #8 probably got blown around somewhere.


I limply looked for it for a while then asked Demolition Man for help. He took the guide sheet with the little pattern pieces on it, took a picture converted it into a .jpeg opened it in Autocad, a program he uses for work, figured out the scale and made me this:

Made me feel kind of bad for suggesting earlier that he was better at taking things apart than putting them together.


I will be glad when this project moves onto the sewing stage and this storm breaks.

Style Arc Linda pants

My Style arc Linda pants pattern finally came and I whipped off three pairs in the last two days. All stretch wovens because that's what the pattern calls for. A grey pair of stretch gabardine wool from G Street  I have had for a while now and wondered what I would do with it, some stretch poly crepe that was meant to be my muslin until it turned out, and some RPL.

Front step you can see the width of the leg

They are going to want to see the motorcycle he said

I wore these with shirts because I wanted to show that even though these are elastic waist pull on pants they can be worn with the straight stuff, although in real life I probably won't wear these shirts

OK just take the picture

Shams has put us all onto these patterns and I have to thank her for that. Apart from adding to the waist, natch, and what is now my regular 1" addition to the top of the centre front and centre back crotch seams. I just whipped this up like a crazy person without any further alterations.


I have a few observations that might be useful to another sewer:

• Don't get hung up on the Bengaline fabric suggestion. I used three different kinds of stretch wovens and they all worked fine.
• These are pretty fitted though in the hips, which is good in a stretch woven, but I noticed there was more comfort in the fabric with a little more stretch. I did the 4 inch test and the fabric that pulled to 5"was great, the 4 1/2" slightly less so, but still very wearable.
• The instructions suggest you top-stitch the seam allowance that attaches the waistband to the pants after pressing it up - I did this once and am not sure I like it. It was fine on the finer RPL but made little pleats in the heavier wool stretch - but maybe that was just operator error.
• The seam allowances are small - 3/8" which means you can't really press them open. Be aware of that. I straight-stitched the seams and then 4 thread serged them, so there is slight seam allowance bulk but really only I can see it.

Serious consideration going to go on around here about ordering more Style Arc patterns.

A good bit of back-to-school sewing for me. Tomorrow I am going to take a look at that Vogue jacket.

Deep acting

Those Syle Arc Linda pants are great. I have a day off today and have made one pair and just cut out two more. More on that later.


I realized I haven't talked about my amazing visit with my old school friend yet (we haven't seen each other since 1972 if you can believe that). It is worth talking about because it, and she, brought some things together for me.


First of all, our outsides have changed. What hadn't is that we each knew exactly who the other person was, the original.


You know how good it was to spend an evening talking with someone who really knew who you are? 


We talked about everything, including my dad who has been gone now for nearly twenty years. She remembered everything and she made him come back to me. I don't get many chances to talk about him around here, my children barely remember him, and my husband never met him.


I felt very connected together when she left.


This has got me thinking of something I read about and something the movie The Help made me think about. 


It's a concept psychologists call deep acting. There was a lot of deep acting going on in that movie. It's a behaviour women get involved in, especially in work situations, where we are called to put a smile on our faces or act interested in something we are not, or be "professional" when we really feel we are by nature an amateur. I remember going to so many official events in my life where the other women were in black and large silver jewelry and in houses that were so precious, you know I would have killed to have gone into one of those powder rooms and seen a crocheted toilet paper cover someone's grandmother had made. I think of meetings where I said something was "exciting" when it wasn't at all, at least not to me, and of working for politicians who really thought the purpose of my life was them. Really.


All of this over time separates you from the original, and by the way, people who are forced to do deep acting too long really can't get back to themselves if they tried. The disconnection can be haunting.


Lucky for me sewing has always been my route back. Lucky for me my family and current job are what I need.


And my school friend, she knew I still sewed. She didn't need to ask.

My McCalls 6078 and Vogue 1264 shot

Finally after one of those weeks with a lot happening between me and the camera, I got a shot of the pants of Vogue 1264 and the top of McCalls 6078 together.

Since I am not young, thin, or cool I was wondering how this would all work. You can decide for yourself. You can even tell me, I can take it. The jacket will pull it all together, and yes I wish I could have accessed some rayon knit rather than this polyester for the top, so the top is sort of a wearable muslin.


This whole outfit is super comfortable. The short pants work better than I thought they would. They are actually quite roomy in the thighs without looking baggy. I think I will make these again longer for normal pants sometime.


I have also decided that wool gab is the best fabric for these pants. You really need something with structure and will hold a press (how long has it been since we have pressed in  creases? ) You need a crease too to lengthen these pants and to balance the choppedoffedness (not a word, but I think you know that).


I have used up all my wool gab except some red (when is that son going to move back to the States so I can go visiting fabric shopping?) and I am wondering if red pants are too nuts. I haven't worn red pants since I was about eight, on the don't attract attention to where you are big policy, but I am not sure. Maybe with the same boots and a black tunic. Is this too much for a person over 50? Does it really matter? Does anyone really care? 


Glad the week is almost done. If I don't get some real sewing done again soon, I am not sure what I will do.

Tabs and tops

I finished my pants this weekend and am very pleased with them. I am happy with the fit, and enjoyed the details like this one on the inside waistband, although I am totally convinced Vogue was wrong to say this tab should be buttoning up to the front of the pants:

I also decided to make a top to go with these pants and so whipped up McCall's 6078 view B, the view with a full, not plunging, back and which has exactly the same neckline as Vogue 1250. Great pattern, good clear instructions, and highly recommended as an up-to-date shell alternative.

Now, I would like to show you what these two look like on but my photographer was in the garage for the weekend. Self-imposed.


I got a call a few days ago from my best friend from grade seven, who is in town and somehow tracked me down. I haven't seen her in almost 40 years. I know she is now married (in town because her husband is a lawyer at a convention) but I know nothing else about her. Does she have children? What does she do? I am looking forward to finding  out. My daughter says maybe we have changed but I told her, how much can anyone change since grade seven?


We are having them for dinner tomorrow and part of my prep involved telling my husband there were Things to Do Around the House. This usually makes him go to the garage for a few days.  There he moves things around so he "can find the tools" he might need. This has taken him out of photographic action.


Not that there hasn't been progress. One time he came in he said I am supposed to shoot him the next time he brings home more junk. Might have a deal there.


In the meantime there is a large device on wheels which is meant to hold up the drywall for you when you are drywalling a ceiling by yourself, which has happened yet.


It is on the front lawn with a sign on it that says "Free." People are stopping the because of the free sign but drive off again because they don't know what it is.


Not to worry. He is the best damn lobster cook in the Maritimes and that is going to come in handy tomorrow night.

Good ideas and things that are not making sense in Vogue 1264

O.K. We have already established I love this pattern because of the fit of the pants. I want to make this clear before I make comment on some of the construction advice. 


You know, I have a fantasy. In my dreams, someone at a pattern company appoints me pattern instruction proof reader - you know I would be paid to say what your average sewer would find confusing. I would love to tell the instruction writers how to make things just easier and more successful.


How many sewers, new sewers in particular, have been turned off the whole process of sewing because they couldn't manage to do what the instructions said, or what the picture looked like? They quit sewing because they thought it was them when in fact it is instructions anyone would have trouble with.


In my view, one of the main purposes of any instruction, sewing guides in particular, is to make the user feel smart and not stupid - that is, if you want them to keep coming back. In fact, I would argue one of the things the independent pattern companies  have going for them, even if they are sometimes limited in the styles and currency of what they offer, is that their instructions are generally helpful.


O.K. let's talk about Vogue 1264's pants. Then I better go to bed.


Good things first.


The nice thing about a designer pattern is the details. This one advised me that the waistline facing (and BTW even though it is a faced waistline it is right up at the real waistline no more of the dangling stuff) needed to be bound rather than say serged. I did this and used an old silk tie I bought at a second hand store for $1.50. The tie like all ties was of course already cut on the bias so it was easy and fabric economical to just cut a strip from the middle of it.


I cut this binding much wider than I needed rather than using the pattern piece. I did this so I would have something to hold on to while I stitched it down from the right side. I hate turning things over and finding I have missed catching something. Of course I will trim the extra off and the net effect will be as if I had used a narrow binding in the first place but was a really good sewer:

Now onto Things Make No sense.


Things that make no sense #1:


Construction order.


These pants call for an invisible zipper which of course is inserted before the seam below is sewn (I might do an invisible zipper tutorial sometime - they are the easiest zippers for beginners). This of course is easiest done with two garment pieces, in this case the left front and back legs.


So why then are you asked to do it after this step, pictured below?  If you do this you are going to have far too much random and out of control fabric around your sewing machine and as a result are in danger of applying the zipper to one leg and say one hem, or waistline, or something even more creative:

Makes no sense #2:


In this step, and in the final one in these instructions, you are told to sew the inside button tab to the back of the pants, meaning that it comes forward on the inside and is buttoned on the inside of your front waist. Maybe there is a good reason for this but to me a tab and a button should go towards the back, just like you would if there was a waistband that buttoned. I changed mine to the back because I don't see a button on the front of my side, even on the inside:

Makes no sense #3:


The continuation of the above with the button sewn to the front part, but note that you are also told, as the nearly last stage, to make a button hole in the tab.


Now really.


That little tab was made all on its own a while ago and that is the time to put in the buttonhole, when you have the option of making another little tab or several if you have to in case you mess up this up. Who wants to unpick that facing and that invisible zipper just because you made a crummy buttonhole because you were nearly done and you were tired? Why instruct in stress?

This is probably not the way to have the Big Four hire me as an instruction proof reader is it?