The change of life

No kidding. I am actually going to write about that.


I have no choice. 


The interfacing still hasn't arrived and I spent a lot of the day getting my next online course that goes live Tuesday ready. That's the same day my daughter and the little girls fly in so my plan is to lock myself in the bathroom with my laptop and a headset that evening.


Should work.


Also I have been thinking of my fabulous oldest step-daughter since I was here. (If you knew her you would know that is the only word to describe her). Last year when she was visiting we were sitting out the back with a glass of wine and she looked at me and said:


"What's the menopause like?"


I am not sure what I told her, but in the last year I have been thinking about her question.


It seems to me we do a good job as women about not being honest to each other about life's realities. Here are some examples:


"Sleep when the baby sleeps and you will be fine." (What if the baby never sleeps?)


Or in the labour room "tell us if you are uncomfortable." (uncomfortable is telling the same story twice and realizing it half the way through).


"You will miss them when they are gone, but you'll enjoy the time to yourself." (Am I the only one who went back into the empty room to smell the pillow? Five years after that first trip to the airport.)


Likewise no one talks about the menopause. 


So it looks like it's up to me. Since the interfacing hasn't arrived.


So here it is. What no one tells you. Let veterans add what I have forgotten:


1. You will get angry like you never have before. Part of the change of life is that part of you that allowed you to be tolerant, say when a male manager with half your brains spoke to you as if he were twice as smart, just expires.


It's gone.


You just stop putting up. All of a sudden.


It's unexpected and forceful.  I have seen "F-k housework" written in lipstick on kitchen walls.  I have seen the clothes no one picked up off that floor bagged and put out in the trash. I have received emails from efficient long time office administrators that have said "Toodle-doo folks. Organize your own conference."


And I am not even telling you what I have done.


Just don't scare yourself.


However once the storm has passed you will feel pretty good. Just remember it's not you, it's them. Probably always was.


2. You look at men differently. Thank God. I read somewhere women are susceptible to looking at a nice exterior and then fabricating a beautiful interior to match. You stop doing that. Your sex drive doesn't change, you just don't waste it.


This is a great relief and frees up more time to think about your sewing.


Listen, I look at George Clooney and think "that's a guy who would say he had paid off the Visa when he hadn't." Lately when watching Luck I found, for the first time, that Dustin Hoffman was sexy - because he was, in the end, nice to his grandson.


Nice is the new hot. Always should have been. Tell that to a 19 year old.


3. You get to be who you used to be again. Remember that awful time during puberty when suddenly you felt everyone was looking at you and all you cared about was what they thought? Well that expires too. And it's not whether or not they are looking, you just don't care if they are. 


When you dress you want to feel cool and what anyone else thinks, well tough bananas. 


I am personally convinced, based on no actual evidence, that I have never been cooler. That's kicked in to replace all that other stuff that's expired. I feel cool like only Miss Scarlett feels cool when she rides her bike around and says "I'm sporting." 


It's good to get that back.


You like your treats and you treat yourself. 


Rhubarb pie on the steps. Library books read in the bath. Looking at your feet in those new shoes. Talking to other women, members of the tribe. Noticing the birds. Working and thinking you are just so good, so practiced. Realizing you like yourself too much to let it get to you.


And you sew more.

More about interfacing and about life's hardest job

O.K.


I have two more Jane shirts cut out, one loud with a white background (I think you saw that fabric on the line) and the other loud with a black background. Sort of my positive and negative shirts.


I am on standby for interfacing though, so I am sewing everything but the collar pieces and facings - they have to wait.


I finally ordered in some interfacing from Pam at Off the Cuff and after a five year self-imposed ban on the stuff, I ordered fusible.


For years like everyone else I used fusibles and they worked just fine. Then, five years ago, I was making a real nice blouse with the same fusible interfacing I always used, and it bubbled.


Bubbled. 


You know the kind of stuff you press and press before you wear it but those bubbles still rise up again to ruin everything. You try to say it is OK but it isn't. I was so traumatized, the same interfacing I always used, and suddenly it bubbles.


I lost my nerve. 


In fact ever since then I have gone back to sew-in that I have even sewn in. However sometimes I wonder if my collars and cuffs look old school, you know sort of uncrisp like this, a bit bumpy around the details:

So I am going to close my eyes and fuse, with the $9.00 reconditioned steam iron I got at Big Lots since my own irons are at home and the mouse who spits in the rental model is getting tired.


I've got a lawn chair set up beside the mailbox and as soon as the interfacing arrives I am ready to go.


On a totally different note, but something I was reminded of when thinking of traumatic events and old pictures, I have bought my husband his birthday present a few weeks early.


I consider buying presents for males one of life's hardest jobs. What they want, which is usually very specific, they buy for themselves. If you ask them what they want from you for a holiday/birthday/etc. they say "I don't need anything." Or even worse they say things like "well you could fix that zipper on my jacket".


Well that's a help. As if you are going to give someone a nothing or a reconditioned jacket.


No wonder there are so many socks under the tree across the nation.


However this year I figure I finally scored. Here it is:

A genuine antique picture of, you guessed it, a fox terrier with the exact same expression that Mr. Rascal has on his face, and come to think of it, my spouse has on his face too.


Now what am I going to get him next year?


Maybe I will make him a shirt with a crisp collar and cuffs.


Maybe.

More information on Stylearc's Coco jacket

If you hung in there with me you know that one of my problems with the Chanel jacket project was that the pattern was not on my side.


Not for a minute, not from the beginning.


Why in sewing, as in so many other major areas of life, do we just not listen to those little voices?  Not until it's too late, not until we have said to our friends "I should have known." The signs are always there. In my case I should have stopped when I had to wrestle the upper bust to the ground.


So the issue of a pattern for my next Chanel jacket, when I am at home an reunited with all my tools, is major.


I have been thinking about the new Coco pattern from Stylearc but I had some questions.


I finally emailed Chloe and team with my questions and with the generosity that seems typical of that operation they sent me shots of the shop model and .pdf's of the instruction sheets. This is simply the kind of information a sewer always needs and never gets pre-purchase, so with the Stylearc team's permission here it is for you too. 


You should be able to scroll down through the embedded .pdf to see it all:





And here are some studio shots of the model jacket:

Work in progress model frayed edges not added yet.

This is definitely a shorter Chanel type jacket but I feel the lines add width to the upper body for balance, and I may lengthen it a bit for me.


Yes, I have ordered this pattern and a whole bunch of others along with a replacement for my Sasha shirt that turned out so well and is still missing in Room 333.


More news too.


In all the discussion about this jacket I asked Chloe if she would let me interview her, channeling that part of my past that used to write for a couple of the local papers.


She said yes, amazingly, so watch for that interview too as soon as I can post it.

Interfacing and other crises

Man is it going to be hard to to back to the real life. 

I like this blogging, bike riding, sewing, knitting thing. The internet is amazing, the way I figure it I should be doing all my teaching April to September at least online. Of course it nearly killed me to teach myself how to build the courses, but worth it, definitely worth it.

If my mom is reading this, and she probably is, the woman is on Facebook now even, she will be happy to know that I have sterilized the second hand toys. I know she was about to ask.

You see my mother's prime time in her nursing career was during a polio epidemic and later TB and she is more or less the Queen of infectious diseases. My dad used to say proudly that she could have stopped the bubonic plague in its tracks.

When we were kids this mean that anything that came into the house second hand was sort of autoclaved. The books used to bug me the most. An hour at 250. I was in school before I realized that not all pages of all books were wavy.

When she used to come and visit me in the summer when my kids were little she would do a complete sterilization of all toys before her coat was off.

So yes Mom, it's all be soaked, disinfected, run through the dishwasher and dried in the sun. The ostrich feather dress up boa didn't turn out so well.

OK that's the productive part of my life.

Now onto the crises:

Crisis #1: 

I have lost my Sasha shirt pattern. I am convinced it is behind some couch in Room 333 in Knoxville Tennessee but I didn't make much headway with the weekend guy at the desk. Had trouble explaining what a sewing pattern was, and trouble making him understand that this was a National Emergency. Will try again tomorrow when Housekeeping comes in - otherwise I sure hope those folks at Stylearc have operators standing by.

Crisis #2:

I have decided to make not one but two loud shirts from the Jane pattern. There are things that look fine here in Florida that probably won't elsewhere, but here is where I am right now. I think I am going to be bringing out my inner Kosmo Krammer.

However, and this the second National Emergency. I have run out of interfacing. How did this happen? I have 400 yards at home.

The only spot around here for any kind of supply is Hobby Lobby and what they have is craft or sewing Pellon. This is not an "or" situation. The stuff carry is the line that looks like Bounce Sheet. Not going to work. Fortunately I now have Paypal and wireless and I will be hanging around the mailbox this week. Also discovered Fabrics.com has zippers and other notions, haven't needed them before, so that's good too.

I will update you after my conversation with Tennessee Housekeeping.

Quick design question

As some of you can see I have changed the look of my blog from a simple to a sidebar view. My feeling was that this would make it easier to access older posts without having to scroll down a lot.


I felt my old blog was getting cluttered and this seems like an easy way to fix that. I am enjoying the luxury of being able to post more frequently now I am on semi vacation (still doing the online teaching thing) and noticed this more.


What do you think? Is this an improvement or not? 

Stylearc Jane blouse review

Yesterday was a good day. Hit the garage sales and got some clothed Barbies and a trike.

Also finished my wearable muslin of Stylearc's Jane's overshirt.

There is a bit of a back story on this.

I personally find a cotton shirt sometimes cooler in the hot weather than a knit top. More air room. I also have been thinking long and hard about clothing designed for men that have been deemed "classics" for women.

Tell me, do you often see a woman who looks better in a pair of pants with a fly than without? Why are trousers with a fly a female "classic"?

Same goes for the old power suit straight up blazer with the mega shoulder pads.

I think this is important because this list of classics denies garments that really do suit women and are comfortable for them. 

So I was so happy to see the return of the dress to corporate and fashionable life. I am intrigued by this fall's new statement skirts.

Which brings me to shirts vs. blouses if you define a shirt as something with a collar band. 

Now these shirts were designed for wearing with ties, which are things that men themselves complain about. Shirts can look fresh and sharp on women, particularly women with a longer neck because the stand raises the collar and takes up neck space. However if you don't have a long neck it can't be your best look. I remember once been suckered into thinking I needed heavy duty collar interfacing on a collar band shirt and ended up with red marks burned onto my neck under my ears. Was I mad, it had taken me ages to match the print at the front.

Which brings me to the blouse and a convertible collar worn open, a strictly only female garment. These are IMO more flattering on most women. 

Trouble is there are very, very few patterns for them. In fact if you add in the camp shirt element you are stuck with some kind of hybrid unisex women/men/boys pattern that has zero shape.

So I was intrigued when I saw the Jane shirt and thought that this might be a possibility.

Amazingly I am running out of fabric here (I thought the Chanel jacket was going to take me longer but I hadn't anticipated I would become so obsessed with getting it in the Out Basket.) In fact all I could find in Knoxville in 100% cotton  that I liked, until I discovered Gina's Sewing Centre, but that's another story, was dotted quilting cotton.

So I used some of this (I have three more dotted cottons) to make up a trial of the Jane.

Have to tell you I love it.

First the pictures:

The all important bum shot. Note yet another iteration of the Peta pants into shorts. Note the nice yoke with the pleats set off quite far to the sides so it doesn't billow out.

The frozen smile shot, nice fit I think. Note the matching star earrings someone talked me into buying at a jewelry party. Finally they match something and further allow me to channel my highly developed inner '50s housewife.

The dog talking side shot - so you can see what this blouse looks like unaltered and without a bust dart, which this pattern doesn't have.

Here's why I like this pattern:

• No bust darts but in a casual shirt still a pretty good fit. Yes, with a dart I could eliminate those pull lines shown above and the pull up at the front, articulated in the cotton,  but since the front view looks OK I am good with this for an is-what-it-is.
• Casual and therefore cool and comfortable but fitted enough so it doesn't look sloppy. Set in sleeve (that went in with minimal easing), ease built in at the back with a couple of tucks.
• I love the collar. It's is pretty and feminine.
• Fit together beautifully. Well-drafted pattern.
• If I had my serger I would have knocked this out in no time. As it is I had to bind the back neck, and still in Chanel mode for some reason hand stitched the hems. Didn't want to see a line of white thread running between my dots.

I made this out of the box and this is what I would change next time:

• I would lower the top button about 3/4".
• I would add about 2" to the length and do the side slits as per pattern. 
• I might add a bust dart and certainly will add to CF.

A real TNT keeper with potential for further development.

Toy store

My daughter and the two little girls are coming for three weeks the week after next, to be joined later by my wonderful son-in-law.

I remember enough about toddlers to know that a bored kid is a whiny kid (not that grandchildren ever whine, that was their parents), so this week I hit a fantastic consignment store and look what I picked up cheap, cheap.

The furniture is not quite to scale but it will do for a 2.5 year old who likes to pretend. I am going to have to go back for a bag 'o Barbies and find some clothes somewhere. I do not make Barbie clothes. Setting in those sleeves is as dumb as it gets.

A big bag of dress-up clothes.

Unused Easy-bake oven, but going to have to make up my mixes, who knows how long the ones that came with it have been around or what's in them? Do you believe it? An easy-bake oven.

Golf clubs, good weight. A putter, driver and a 7/8.

For Miss Heidi

Miniature Tupperware. I think I used to own the full set life size. We are eco etc. and this is plastic but OK for water and giving Rascal drinks if he can't escape.

I would also like some books. 

When the boys were little they loved Rupert and Tin Tin. Rupert is English and they used to publish an annual that I gave the kids every Christmas. My sons were great admirers of Rupert's mother. When he would say things like "Mum I am going to fly to China on a dragon" she always just said "I'll make sandwiches" and never "be careful" or "are you crazy?" She didn't get out much, all that sandwich making.

They also went to French school and totally hated the French children's books which they told me were all about girls. Yuuk. The only French books they would read, comics really, were about Tin Tin who lived alone with Snowy, the terrier and precursor to Rascal, who was usually nearly killed in every one of Tin Tin's adventures, but like any terrier always signed up for more.


I once spent a hot afternoon in Amsterdam's red light district (those ladies are just resting) with a obsessive child (you know who I am talking about) who had been told that somewhere in the neighbourhood there was a flea market that sold Tin Tin T shirts.

Toys are important at any age.

My sewing room and points in between are full of my toys - I don't know how adults who don't still play survive.

What are your favourite toys? What do you remember? What do you play with now?