Where to from here?

I got up this morning and thought I have to decide what to do next. Here, in addition to some work work and student references, are the possibilities:

1. I cut out Stylearc's Jane overshirt yesterday. I am thinking of the short sleeve version as sort of a camp shirt for the summer as it is dartless, has a yoke, and I like a cotton shirt that doesn't stick to my ribs, not that my ribs are all that easy to find these days. My all time favourite shirt, now 22 years old and still worn this week, is a camp shirt I can't give up because the print is funny. Can't find any snappy prints locally but have some dots that will do. This will be an easy project and a test run of another Stylearc and the last one I brought with me.
2. Do a bunch of Pattern reviews. I am way behind in this and need to share some things.
3. Make another House Bra or two. Have the fabric, have the Koolaid to dye some elastic. Of course would wear these immediately.

What's not on this list?

The elephant in the room, or more specifically the bag in the closet.

My Chanel jacket.

The universe has been reminding me that I have committed to do this.

Erica Bunker posted that Chanel video to her blog.

Stylearc released a new Chanel jacket pattern called the Coco jacket, which looks to me like a pretty easy to sew almost jean jacket with trim.

And I am ready to go with a Chanel jacket.

I took the excellent French Jacket course on Pattern Review in January, which I thoroughly enjoyed even if I only got as far as a decent muslin. I have enough fabric and lining for two nice jackets. I have enough trim and chain collected to sink a battleship. 

I would really, really like to have a jacket for the next school year that was as comfortable as everyone says it is.

So what's stopping me?

All my sewing friends who say things like 80 hours of hand-sewing and never again. The seriousness of the whole project, the pressure to do it right, like this is sort of the Phd. of sewing and the Chanel jacket is your dissertation defense.

Now I quite like hand-sewing. It is compatible with TV watching and husband listening, although I have never done it for 80 hours straight. I am capable of doing serious sewing. I am sure I am.

But why am I not jumping out of bed to do it?

Have I turned into some kind of Hawaiian shirt wearing slacker? Have I turned into someone who eats cherry pie in the middle of the afternoon while sitting on an exercise ball? Have I lost my capacity for sewing endurance? 

Would I thank myself when it is done? Is this the best way to spend my last two weeks in a hotel room with a fox terrier? Is this the only thing to do in a hotel room with a fox terrier? Would I ever do it otherwise?

Should I say to hell with it and order the Stylearc pattern and whip that up without quilting the lining when I get home?

Should I do a bit everyday and post about it in the hope you all can drag me through it?

What would you do if you were me?

Old town Knoxville Tennessee and Style Arc's Annie's Cami

We had a beautiful walk today and really enjoyed the old part of Knoxville.


Later I called on my walking partners, the one who can hold a camera in particular, to take a picture of my fitting muslin of Annie's Cami.


My first version was not so successful, partly I am sure to my own attempts to move the centre part of the neckline in a bit to accommodate my scrawny neckline.


As you can see Edition one (despite my huge success with my Sacha shirt) had darts that were too low and trouble fitting over my enormous bustline (?). Too bad because I was quite pleased with the neckline binding which I did exactly like the knit binding described earlier in my post about the Adele top.


BTW I have a real trick for making your neckline binding lie nice and non ripply around the neck, and pull it in just the right little bit so it won't ever gape.


OK, here is the hint:


1. Cut the binding on the bias. Natch.
2. Take it to the ironing board and pull on it hard while you iron, stretching the whole piece as much as you can, which removes the stretch and actually narrows the binding a far bit too.
3. Then fold the binding in half, wrong sides together, and press.
4. Pin and stitch to the wrong side of the neckline.
5. Flip to the right side and topstitch along the folded edge, close to the edge.


Here is what it looks like in an otherwise failure top:

Finished binding wrong side

Finished binding right side

And here are the fitting issues:

Shocking bust dart accentuated by pink House Bra, which might explain why I am totally off centre.

Too harassed to deal with the hair, after all I am sewing in a hotel room with the ironing board in the bathroom. See the tightness over the pink House Bra. Neckline and shoulder great, so I Did Not Give Up.

Next version done in crappo polyester, little bit of cotton, gingham from Jo-Ann's. FBA added, dart lowered, great neckline still there.

Peta pants cut down into shorts, knees brought to you by 58 years, wind, stiff fabric and photographer issues (why does he keep taking shots that make my stomach look big? I want to know) making this look more like a maternity top than it should.

You many not be, but I am really happy with this top now, although I note again that Style Arc makes long shirts when they call it a tunic, I added my usual 2" and will take it off next time.

I now consider myself to have a good TNT shell, a very useful, never to go out of style unit. Although I will be making future versions in:

1. Good quality fabric

2. Fabric that drapes, silk? Soft linen.

Worth the trouble don't you think?

This a.m.'s NY Times on American style and shoes

Love it, of course:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/style/on-the-street/1247463985977/index.html

Shoes

Picking up on a theme I started last night, women are doing well.


Women are far out-numbering men in post secondary education.


30% of North American women make more than their partners. 


Many women are the head of their households and raising families on their own. And doing a fine job. I know because I teach your kids, I know because for a while that was me.


So how's that sitting?


Spanx, and shoes you can hardly walk across the room in, much less work a day, get yourself to the store, make dinner, get the kids to practice. Or get yourself around the community helping out, keeping things going.


Women front up and get it done. I don't have to tell you this because you know.


So don't try to dress us to slow us down. To me it's an issue of self-respect.


So to me being comfortable is not about not caring. Let you tell me if I was having a heart attack I would  check my lipstick before I called 911. I would do that first.


On the continuum of effort invested I am closer to the "all done up" side than not.


It matters to me, a lot. Style can work, it has to. It should.


However I have things to do and I have to keep moving. I don't sit down a lot, I can't.


Which brings me to the Golan Heights.


I used to have a boss who used to over-estimate me.


So he sent me to the Middle East.


You will note that things in the Middle East are even worse than they used to be.


Anyway.


It was a educational trip where a small group of us met with all sides and spent a lot of time with serious folks on buses. Well one day we were taken to the Golan Heights, which are very beautiful, over-looking Lebanon, hosted by a member of the the Israeli Defense Forces. A rightly serious guy, as was our guide for the day, an ex-intelligence/commando guy with absolutely no sense of humour. You can take that from me.


Anyway on the way down to the main road this is what myself and another woman (from the town I was born in and with the same view of the world) saw this:

I don't read Hebrew but I am pretty sure it says "Naot Shoe Outlet : best prices in the Middle East". Or maybe not.


Anyway this was the original kibbutz where they make Naots and the prices were great. $40 a pair, tops. So we shopped big, while our guides looked on with considerable distain. 


What I learned most from this trip was that Naot makes some weird looking shoes but boy are they are comfortable. A kibbutz is probably not a place where you make or wear shoes that are hard on your feet.


So remembering all of this I indulged myself in a couple of pairs this week as I am enjoying the fabulous Tennessee weather sooo much and I walk a lot. This is what arrived in the hotel room today:

Now as my wonderful former assistant used to say "I would rather cut my feet off at the ankles than wear shoes like that" but I do my walking during my day, and am not a marathon runner on the weekend like she is.

These are perfect for me and for my day, and don't negate lipstick, jewelry, or a sharp outfit. Seems to me the clothes we sew are not for standing in, but for living in.

Back to sewing topics tomorrow.

Baby's bums part two

When my daughter was young I used to think I would teach her to sew. 


Touching mother and daughter time. 


In the end it was her youngest brother who got an A in Home Ec, for his beautiful top-stitching on his summer shorts, displaying a Lego fanatic's love of detail.


My daughter was not that interested. Of course she picked up the basics because it was always going on but beyond that her line was "Why should I learn how to do something you can do for me?"


Always the pragmatist, always the pragmatist.


Instead she developed her own interests and became really good at really hard stuff, like pediatric oncology and fancy baking - things her mother couldn't do.


However when she became a mother, and is now on her second maternity leave, she started to sew, much to my amazement and again by doing things I was never good at, like quilting.


Her quilts, receiving blankets, and 100% cotton baby wipes (all but the wipes are also organic) are hip, cool, and very nice.  She has quickly developed a nice business among those  looking for green baby stuff and not the traditional. Here is one of her quilts:

It makes me smile when she says this whole business is based on her love of fabrics - now I wonder where she got that?


Things have gone so well for her that she is now involved in a Momentrepreneur show next month:

To help her out I answered an SOS and made her a skirt to wear (she sent me a picture and I made up that pattern here in the hotel room, we will see how that turned out):

Tell me this looks like a hip gathered skirt with a wide waistband and ties

And I also made some baby wipes- all in the mail off to Nova Scotia from Tennessee today:

Yes I know the birds are upside down - but I am wiped so they are going to stay that way.

Who would have thought I would one day be sewing baby wipes in Knoxville Tennessee? 

Never under estimate life.

Now tomorrow I am going to tell you about outlet shopping on the Golan Heights. 

Yes, I am serious.

Armani, baby's bums and house bras

In this morning's New York Times there was an interesting article on Armani, who the author noted, really keeps making clothes with the same shapes (patterns to us). So why does it work?


For Armani, the risks aren’t in silhouettes, but in fabrics.


This was a moment of real insight for me because I saw this for what it was: TNT patterns - where the interest is in the fabric. For someone like me who has been doing a lot of deep introspection lately, and as a result has decided I would rather buy fabric than fit new patterns, at least this month, I felt enormously validated by the fact that me and Armani are more or less the same person, and all of this before my iPad and I were out of bed and before I had even the second cup of coffee of the day.


The days are busy. 


First of all yesterday I made another version of the Jalie Comfy House bra

I found some good cotton lycra at the local Joann's when I was on a notions mission and couldn't resist. Yes, I know it doesn't lift and separate as much as it could, it is sort of a more hold it still bra, but very comfortable.


Since I see casual life on the immediate horizon I am going to be making a few more of these before I am let out of this hotel room.


May I also take a moment to give comfort its due?


I read one of those regular what not to wear articles and near the top of the list was exactly what I was wearing as I was reading it - below the knee wide cropped pants (7/8 Peta pants). The authors suggested that if you had to wear short type pants to wear Audrey Hepburn pants only which as I recall were tight and constricting.


In my current dog caring, sewing, knitting life (which I am now doing on an exercise ball to improve my core - sort of a customized fitness program I am developing all by myself) I feel more like a person who needs to be comfortable than Audrey Hepburn.


Which reminds me.


All over New York I saw pair after pair after pair of shoes with sky high heels and all over New York I didn't see anyone wearing them.


My theory is as soon as women start getting comfortable in their own skins and having their own lives/power something tries to slow them down. Shoes with 6 inch heels will do that to you.


This is getting long.


I will have to do the baby bum part tomorrow a.m.

Until then

Style Arc Tops installment two: Sacha top

Here we go, Style Arc's Sacha top. It is advertised as a sort of big shirt but to be truthful I think it is more of a long version of a fairly fitted shirt with a bust dart with perhaps some casual drop to the shoulder.


I made the size 12 right out of the envelope, no alterations at all and you can see on my 5'9" self that it is still really long - I actually added my usual 2" to length and then cut it off again.


On, this feels like a good fit but not so loose that you would say hang over the bathtub in comfort and scrub it out without feeling the pull across the back. I will definitely make this again, shorter, as a shirt I would wear to work.


The fabric was some great embroidered white cotton I got last year from Fabric.com when I was delusionally thinking I was going to make 10 white shirts, which of course I am now starting to do now the pressure of feeling I have to is off.


Which should just about tell you all you need to know about me.


The construction was straightforward and easy. I did note that the collar band was pretty slim, narrower than I am used to seeing, but probably more RTW. And I was also interested to see the dart was very angled and actually just in the right place for me. How often does that happen?

Now I want to talk to you about my current run on Style Arc patterns.


This season for some reason the pattern book offerings have left me cold.


I mean I really, really want to like them. I had a great time last spring and summer sewing up new styles (remember those great Vogue knit dresses we all made?) but this year everything I saw had deja vue all over them. There wasn't a pattern that I could not have pointed you to something similar in an earlier book.


I also did a wardrobe cull before I came away and what I threw out tended to be some of my more trendy styles that didn't get as much wear as the effort deserved. A new style as to be compatible with what suits you - not just a new trend. I learned this again for about the 49th time this lifetime.


My trips to the Garment District have also reignited my deep love of good fabric (which is always looking for a way to find itself up to the surface) and you really need reliable patterns for that.


Which brings me to an appreciation of TNT (tried and trues for those who still wonder about that term) and to me Style Arc so far is providing me with those.


Now, they are expensive I know. Hand-drawn on heavy paper, as the orders come in. Shipping to Canada is about $20 so three patterns plus shipping is over $50. Not worth it for one offs but if these are basics, like the pants I made 12 pairs of, well this is a good investment.


On the subject of pants, for those of you who are thinking about them, I want to note a difference between the Peta and Cargo. The Cargo has a wider leg (has to as it can be rolled up) but also a more shaped waistline which actually is somewhat more comfortable if you have a big butt like I do ( I have decided to forgo the delicacy in the interests of efficiency), although the Peta is very nice too. 


And when they say works best in drapey fabrics they say that for a reason. I like my poplin Peta's less than the softer chambray ones, although I wear both happily.


Now off to another day in the hotel room and walking the trails of Knoxville with Mr. R.


You would think that 4 weeks in a hotel room with a dog, a sewing machine, and Christmas knitting projects from Christmas 1993 (plus some online work from work) would get to a person.


No.


I am absolutely flat out all day.


Tonight we are going out to a work party with my husband's team. I really like the people he works with and am looking forward to it.


BTW aren't men weird about what they don't know? If I were to ask my husband what everyone drove he could tell me, however he is unable to answer interesting questions like:

• how long have they been going out and are they serious
• how long have they lived here
• how many children do they have
• how old are the children
• where does his wife work
• where does her husband work

You get my drift. What does he do all day?