A highly illustrated day.

First the new Vogues. Some lovely formal dresses but unless this blog is awarded for an Academy Award in the original costumes by an independent, or in the slightly more likely event that I am appointed ambassador to France (reflecting only that option A was really unlikely) I am probably wouldn't get much wear out of them. Best I can hope for in formal functions in this century is mother of the bride and if that's in the immediate cards someone is not telling me something.


However.


It was a startling collection for other reasons.


First of all it appears I continued to be stalked by the Channel jacket. Claire Shaeffer has caught up with me. This one had NO MORE EXCUSES written all over it.


Climbed right back into the bucket list:

Not sure I can get a motorcycle helmet to match. Believe mine has a purple monster on it. Gloves are not purple.

But there was, incredibly a dress that really is something I would wear at lot. Got real dress written all over it. 

I probably won't do this walk with it though, not in those shoes:

Thank you so much for the sewing extension table ideas. Got to find some of that Styrofoam. In the meantime this is what my husband has made as a prototype. Exactly what a person would need to make another Chanel jacket:

So busy.

Flypaper thoughts

• Started teaching a new class today, had students set up blogs to record progress.
• Commented without logging out of this account.
• Shut down my sewing on the edge profile until I can figure this out.
• Can't have my worlds collide.
• The little girls and my daughter arrived today.
• Fed Miss Scarlett spaghetti outside while she washed the wooden play food I got her at that great place for $8.00.
• Then I went for a bike ride.
• My daughter put them to bed.
• Being a grandmother works for me.
• Yesterday we saw a fox chase a raccoon into the woods.
• You don't see that every day.
• Also saw another 8 foot alligator plus a baby.
• On the 8th hole.
• Travel is broadening.
• Off to bed now.
• Here some folks are up at 5:00 a.m...

Sewing extension tables

A while ago it occurred to me that of the many sewing machines I have owned/own I have never had a Bernina.


And once I get an idea in my head ...


With a Pfaff 7570, a sturdy Pfaff 85 as back-up, a nice small Janome for traveling, my grandmother's Featherweight, my 4860 Pfaff 5 thread serger and my Janome coverhem, you couldn't really say I was short of machines.


However once I get an idea in my head ...


To cut a time consuming story short I started hovering eBay and was a failed bidder at numerous auctions where I was amazed how expensive good vintage Berninas were.


Enter my spouse the man who is responsible for an infinite number of small padded post bags from all over the world with camera or computer parts (and I am not even going into the 4 GPS fiasco ,that once had us traveling with at least two and a half of them going at the same time - all talking in those annoying metallic voices, with different accents, and sending us in the wrong direction, at least two wrong directions, while I yelled "the sign right above our heads says this is the exit").


Suffice it to say that the rules of GPSs are that you are not allowed to read the road signs particularly those that are telling you to go in a different direction than the voices.


Anyway, incredibly we are still married, and back to eBay.


On one late night auction the GPS man, experienced with his pressure purchases, actually took the mouse from my hand (in my books grounds for divorce) and I "won" a Bernina 801 for $130.00.


It arrived and turned out to be in beautiful condition but minus the bobbin case and the extension table. Signs all you home ec teachers will know right away means it was used in a classroom. Put into a drop down desk and all the bobbin cases in the teacher's desk, because, well you know, kids.


Of course it has been impossible to source an extension table (the original bobbin case was easy) and I have been thinking I need one. Sewing on a free arm alone isn't enough.


I am going to have to go with an adjusta model and those are really quite pricey. And it's sort of a principle to not spend more on the part than on the machine.


Companies like this one  have nice looking tables like this:

Which really look beautiful, but I am a garment sewer and not a quilter, and only need a little something for my left hand and to rest my right hand during a longer seam.


I have searched DIY but those look like involving my spouse, who sort of feels about these jobs the way I do about replacing zippers in jeans. He is far more into jobs like tear down that wall.


So I am wondering how I can make one for myself, with easy to source materials. So far I have come up with cardboard from the box that my Fabricmart order came in and legs made of Opi nail polish bottles that just happen to be the right height.


But what about my toes?


It's all really stressful.


Any ideas?

Handbags

I don't know about you but sometimes a trend appears that I just can't warm up to.


For me it has been the hardware heavy bags that have been around for a while.


Don't get me wrong. 


I love a big bag. One that can hold a wallet with 14 pounds of pennies in it (thank god the Canadian mint is going to stop making these, but think of all the $4.99 price tags that are going to have to be changed), a hairbrush, 5 lipsticks, a cell phone, a sock to knit, an iPad, work keys, home keys, car keys, a book to read in case one of the four bamboo knitting needles gets broken because I sat on my purse, sunscreen if it's summer, warmer gloves if it's winter, pens, address book, diary, a plastic bag (a.k.a. a "poop purse" in this household, no explanation necessary), lunch in large glass containers because I have gone responsible for the planet, a barrette and a sock Miss Scarlett left at my house, and a pattern to think about.


I am not a clutch sort of person.


Once when I was working in political media relations and everyone was supposed to be able to talk to me at any time, even when I was hiding from them, and I was never to ever go to the bathroom, I lost my cell phone for three weeks. The office had to replace it and I had to tell everyone a new number for some reason, and that was too many people.


It turns out I had lost it at the bottom of my purse. Battery dead. For three weeks. (Come to think of it was this just before our office administrator quit? See earlier post).


Anyway. I like a big purse but I thought all the hardware could look sort of junky but I was afraid to say that out loud, since everyone else was carrying these purses and often had paid a lot of cash for them.


So all of that leads somewhere. 


Here to a one of those lovely Bill Cunningham NYTimes pieces on the the new bags. You could even make these:


http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/04/20/fashion/100000001501886/bill-cunningham-upsize.html

Jane top : Loud version one

Here in all it's retro glory is the 3/4 sleeve Jane top from Stylearc with proper fusible interfacing in the collar. It stands out a bit, but I have not pressed it as well as I should have maybe because I am waiting until I get home and can serge the back neck seam to tack down the facings.


I never, never put back neck facings in shirts and blouses. To me they are just a huge mistake invention - devised only to cover the back neck seam allowance and as such all that interfacing and stitching and finishing is overkill. All it gives you is bumps and things that don't lay right around your neck.


Who needs that?


I have tried all the alternatives and have decided that simply serging the collar seam along the back neck makes the smoothest and very durable product.


The fused collar went well and is very much crisper than the 1890 version done entirely with sew-in. 


Since it was all I had I also fused the same interfacing to the blouse facings and decided a shirt collar and cuff interfacing was too stiff at the front of a blouse for me, particularly when this means two layers, one for each facing. I have often used different interfacings in different areas of a garment and in future would probably use this fusible for the collar itself and go with the softer sew-in for the facings. I think that would make a front that felt less intrusive to me.


My other thought was this loud retro quilting cotton suits me. I thought when I bought it that the scale of the print was too big. But I can see that I am not a small person and this works as a garment. In fact I can see that some of my prints that I am less than crazy about when I make them up are just too small scale on me.


At any rate I can feel a theme coming on where I end up wearing kitchen curtain patterned shirts all year to teach. Bet I would be the only teacher to do that.


This definitely would be one of your DIY wardrobe options.


The colours are brighter actually in real life than in this interior picture but I really like this shirt. I will be making many more, probably too because until the Stylearc order arrives here - it is my only pattern.


Cool eh?

On new things

I am delighted to announce my interfacing has arrived. 


This weekend I will finish off those two shirts and disinfect the remaining toys before the little girls and their mom arrive Tuesday.


I feel my luck has turned.


Let me tell you about my golf.


First off let's make clear that I am no athlete. In fact in the family I grew up in I was frequently referred to as the one who didn't do sports. Maybe that's one reason why I sew.


When I was growing up sports was a team thing and I was the kind of kid who was most likely to be picked last for the team. 


Then my husband got me out to the golf course last year. Since he knows enough about teaching to give very little advice and say lots of nice things (or maybe he knows a lot about marriage), I started to have fun.


Until two days ago when for some reason there were teams of 20 men around each sand trap fixing them up who stopped, leaned on their rakes and shovels, and watched my every shot.


Let's just say that ball would have gone further if I had kicked it with my foot.


This built up to a sort of session on about the 7th hole when my golf partner / spouse was given a full description of how I felt in grade 8 when the gym teacher laughed so hard at my attempts to play basketball he had to sit down. Of ski trips with new boyfriends when I skied into the snow making machine. Of even being a Line Dancing class dropout at the local community centre, because I couldn't keep up.


I think every one of us has something that they have been told, or believed, or have tried and failed at in the past - to the point they have decided they just can't do it. It's just not them.


This matters only if you have been steering around that thing you can't do so long that somehow what it is makes you feel lesser about yourself. If all that steering around had detoured you. It depends too, I think, on how badly you felt, or even were made to feel about not succeeding, that determines how much it is costing you. 


But you know we all deserve to feel complete, because we are. So when a person gets knocked back, even by herself, she has to deal with that.


So after I stamped home I actually googled "how to recover from a bad golf game" (you would be surprised there are about 8 million hits on this) and saw useless diagrams but finally found one soul who said "the more you try the worse your swing will be. Loosen your grip and just try to hit it up in the air and forget about everything else." (I am paraphrasing here - the author was a male professional golfer and I am not).


So I went out again, yesterday and today, and did just that. I decided to play for me. Just for me. I looked at that little ball and said to myself "up in the air you go" and about 20% of the time that's exactly what happened.


20%. Pretty good for a girl who was booted from basketball in grade 8. 


I used to have a phobia about bound buttonholes. So about 20 years ago I made them and made them and made them until I made one perfect, in fushia knit no less. I cut that sample out and it's on my bulletin board at home and sometimes, in some jobs, I used to put it in my pocket and take it to work.


I keep that buttonhole around to remind me that I am not a fast learner but I am a good learner. To remind myself that you can learn a new thing at any time in your life if you allow for not learning it too fast.


You have to give yourself a chance, you have to give yourself a chance.


I left that buttonhole at home, maybe I should have brought it.

Fitting and bodies

Thanks for the nice comments on the menopause post. It is very helpful when I write something and think to myself "am I nuts?"


The interfacing is due to arrive tomorrow. 


That's a good thing because, I am warning you, I have pretty much got most of the best shirt ever made done, and it really needs a collar and facings. It is so loud and colourful and cheerful. Very retro said my husband, searching for words, but then again so am I.


Of course I wrote about the inside of the change of life and since fitting is an issue here, I should talk about that too.


A few things happen and here they are. No need to panic, like Bunny said once in a comment here, it is possible to be easier to fit after what I like to call the change back to yourself than before.


OK, the body things:


1. Your skin starts to look like your mother's in places that you thought were safe, like your legs. Cross your legs in shorts and you have leg wrinkles. Well, what do you know. And you might rethink mini skirts because your knees... well mine are reminding me of a basset hound's chin, and this too is sort of surprising. This impacts styles like say a mini skirt, except for the part that if you are of this stage - if you want to wear them you will and folks can just cope.


2. After a life time bending over children, desks, computers, and, yes sewing machines, your neck sort of gets bent forward. This means your front chest measurement gets narrower and your back gets wider. Some sewers deal with this by cutting a smaller front and a bigger back. I actually know someone who wears as size 12 front and a size 20 back. Imagine that, and she looks totally normal.


The really important thing to remember, and I am bolding this because it is so important, is if you sew you look great because things fit, it is only poor fit that makes "figure flaws" which IMO are just pattern/fitting issues, not person inside issues.


I personally deal with the bent upper back thing (which I have earned as a tall person in a short world and time spent with students/children/dogs/sewing - all completely worth the alterations) by looking for centre back seams and princess seamed backs so I can easily taper in the top of the seam. As Nancy Zeiman would say "Viola."


3. Your waist gets bigger. If you are lucky you may have fully functioning members of society out in the world after a start from behind that same waist. Larger waists are not a bad thing. Small children find them comfy props when you read to them and a really good belly offers good support to a nice plate of snacks and to the head of a hopeful fox terrier. In a hard world it doesn't hurt to be soft I figure, and sometimes is appreciated. Remember your best hugs of your life. It wasn't from someone bony was it?


OK, back to fitting.


When I was younger, before I did so much with my life, I had a 28" waist. This was a whole lot smaller than my hips and was a real pain to alter for. I had to go through my undergraduate lectures with uncomfortable darts sewn into the waistbands of my jeans.


For the first time in my life, post change-back-to-myself, I have few fitting issues with waists - I just add to them. This is because, and this is sooo true, it is always easier to make something bigger than it is to make something smaller. As a general rule in fact, when between sizes buy small and add -  trying to reduce a pattern usually is disastrous.


3. You develop boobs. This may be an issue if you had lots to start with, but if you didn't really this extra also makes fitting easier. Just remember to lower the bust darts. I am not sure if increase in bust size is not really some of that stuff packed away just-in-case under your armpit moved to the front, but I will take it - fitting is easier.


I think I have more to say about being a woman at this stage - and if you aren't there now, you will be, so I will be writing more on this in later posts. I also have things I want to say about being a young mother and about working hard in the world.


It all matters to me.


But for now what would you add to fitting the experienced sewer?