A green outfit

I posted a shot of myself sitting down in this outfit a while ago. 

It has taken me some time to slow down my photographer enough to get pictures when he is home. The husband has been busy replacing ornamental shrubs with raised bed vegetable gardens and pouring me a patio. All I want for outdoor landscaping/furniture is a good heavy picnic table and need somewhere to put it on.

I have pretty basic tastes and to my mind you can't beat a good picnic table. 

You can eat outside on it, sew on it, and if like me you are going to be taking care of grandchildren 2-3 days a week, it works well for lunches and you can hang the baby seat off it so the baby can eat outside with you too.

My husband like projects, particularly ones that allow him to destroy/rip out something first, in this case the bushes at the front of the house. Even better if he can rope an acquaintance to come over with some heavy machinery to do it. Nothing that man likes better than heavy machine marks all over the front lawn.

But of course all of has cut into his photography time.

We fixed that this morning with me standing on a bed in the guest room because on a grey wet day that room seemed to be collecting most of the natural light.

I usually don't wear this colour but I had some of this ponte downstairs and figured why not? I intended it to be a wearable muslin but now think I will wear it to the rehearsal dinner for my son's wedding. This kind of nice surprise with a new pattern rarely happens does it?

The top pattern was this one, good for folks with cylinder shaped bodies as it implies more shape than there might actually be:

Stylearc's Madeliene

The skirt is my TNT knit pencil from Pamela's Patterns. I sewed tricot to the side seams of each piece for body (left the hems free and unfinished):

And finally here is me in the result, if I look a little wonky you have to remember I was standing on a bouncy bed when these shots were taken:

And finally here is a shot of the happiest, wildest little dog in Canada. Our little Daisy at one brief moment when she wasn't tearing around the yard:

Now off to do some shirt-making today, don't think the rain is letting up.

Flypaper thoughts Sunday afternoon version

• Regrouping
• Ex son's girlfriend is settled and it's all for the best
• Good news is that the fabric that I had for her dresses works for my step-daughter
• I am practical like that
• So is she
• Beginning to think that sewing is my core activity
• Might as well come out about that
• Have organized a convoy to head to DC for the wedding in September
• Four people under 5 in two cars and five adults
• We will rotate those who cry
• Wonder who will be first
• The men think we can drive right through in two days
• That's a lot of I spy
• Change your needle when you are making shirts just before the buttonholes
• Will save you from skipped stitches in the zig-zags
• Bumper load of blossoms on the crab apple tree this year
• Hope that means a bumper crop of apples for crab apple jelly
• I have names on my waiting list for it
• I am stopping at Cracker Barrel for chicken and dumplings en route or I will cry
• When you interface a collar and band interface them both with something lighter
• That way all pieces that are going to attach to each other will be the same size
• And behave the same way
• No force fits
• My sister and niece are coming here for two weeks and we are going to sew their wedding dresses
• My husband will be away so we will take over the whole house
• I will get my sister to cook
• Nice Greek food conducive to creativity
• Miss Daisy is full of beans
• "That's a feisty little one" says the man on a walk
• Can that dog run
• And smile
• I want to take a picture but all I get is small black streak blurred on a bunch of grass
• Her message is don't be giving up
• There might actually be an act two
• Or somewhere to go home to after all
• Rhubarb jam is almost as good as crab apple jelly
• Got it growing in the front yard
• Took out the bushes underneath the front window and put in two raised vegetables gardens
• That is where the sun is
• Like why not?
• So far the mailman is impressed
• Going to come by after work and take measurements so he can do it at home
• Who says we don't need door-to-door delivery
• Next month we are moving to community boxes
• Can't have a conversation with that
• The shirt for my son will be done this week and then doing one for my husband
• Considering pattern idea #913 for myself for the wedding
• Then I have to think of shoes
• What do you think of those ladies who were barred from Cannes because they were wearing flats?
• Heels that kill your feet are part of the dress code
• I mean honestly
• Put those officials in 4" stilettos for the board meeting
• Best cure for insomnia is a dull book
• If you need some titles I have a few without punctuation
• Is a sleeve board really useful?
• One thing I don't have
• Back to marking

Well, well Simplicity

Yes I know I have often been less than impressed by some of the Big Four releases, but this morning I decided to take a look at Simplicity.

I was surprised by the usefulness and interest of some of the new patterns I saw.

Too bad that Simplicity seems to have written off Canada as a place where they sell their patterns. You can get them but have to order them in and at a premium. 

How can a country where I sew get written off?

Makes no sense.

Too bad because there are some intriguing patterns this season.

One introductory comment.

You know all those vintage/retro patterns that you never see anyone actually making or wearing in the other big pattern lines? All those 50s wiggle dresses and those big skirt numbers that really require a girdle or modern equivalent to get the waist they require?

Well Simplicity seems to have gone retro but skipped to the the 60s or 70s, with an emphasis on comfortable.

Maybe that's why some of these are more interesting to me, and maybe because they reflect a time of housewife wear, backyard wear, doing the real work wear. Some of them are cleverly made patterns that might be interesting to sew.

Know what I mean?

OK, back to the patterns that I noticed this morning and why:

Really nice skirts here, and another way to look at dressing up. A fancy skirt and a nice top (maybe not this one if you are not into boxy) if you are dressing up this summer.

Old school and ingenious. A maxi dress with a flattering neckline made just by a wrap.

How smart is this, a nice gathered front that is modest and easy to wear, and cross over back high enough to hide the strapless bra? Love it.

Contemporary patterns, very much like ready to wear, pleated back one is interesting.

Good basic wearable shell, get a lot of mileage out of this one if you happen to have one of those real lives.

Nothing exciting maybe but tell me if you had one of these in your closet would you put it on when it got cool after supper?  Rest my case.

Modern short skirt. This is in the stores and would be easy to move in.

Not sure I am running off to make a pantsuit, but the separates are useful when you just want to whip up something cool.

I am delighted to see this pattern, a swimsuit on a real body. Good for Mimi G and good for Simplicity.

More than a little nutty but just might be fun to wear. Clever is OK with me.

Does Joann's ship to Canada at sale prices?

Stripes

I have to say something came in through my inbox this week that disturbed me. It was this picture for a new Morris jacket pattern from Grainline Studios:

You know I have had excellent experience with Grainline. I have made and worn both the Archer shirt and Adler dress and I like them both. 

A lot.

But this sample garment disturbed me because the stripes don't match along the very obvious centre back seam, and judging from the difference of the stripes at the front points, the stripes don't match along centre front either. The side seams I can't comment on because the sleeves cover them.

Listen you all know I am not the world's most fussy sewer. 

I worry a lot more about the outside looking good than I do about the inside looking as good as the outside. (Sorry mom and both sewing grandmothers).

I am after all the person whose nerves were so frayed by a largely hand-stitched Chanel jacket that I almost took it out onto the driveway and drove the SUV back and forth over it. I would have done that in fact but the garbage men came first.

But I am just disappointed to see such an obvious lack of care here. That these stripes are out of whack in a promotional photo for a new pattern described in glowing terms bothers me.

It is like when you go all out to a very nice restaurant and then you notice that there is someone else's bright red lipstick on your glass - sort of makes you wonder if they are wearing their hairnets in the kitchen.

Bit of a let down.

The thing is matching stripes is real easy.

The trick is to cut out single layer. 

You will never get it right if you are working blind with one layer hidden underneath. Fabric, particularly striped fabric, likes to move around under there.

If your pattern piece is in two parts like this back with a centre back seam, all you have to do is cut out one, flip it over so you're getting same sides together, and fiddle around with it so the stripes on the bottom piece are in the exact same place as you see the stripes on the top piece. Then you just cut around the pinned pattern piece as it lays on the bottom layer of fabric, and you are done.

Two identical striped matched patterns pieces that with a bit of care can be stitched up so the stripes stay matched.

And of course if you are cutting a piece that  needs to be cut on the fold, just pin your pattern to the single layer, cut it out carefully stopping the cut exactly at the fold line, then flip that piece over, folding it along the fold line. Then, sandwiching the pinned paper pattern between the two layers of fabric, adjust so the stripes all match, and cut it out.

That's how to do it in words, the illustrations are clear here in my mind's eye. If I had an Apple phone I am sure I could press it to my forehead and you could see it too.

I mean no disrespect to the pattern designer here. I do understand that some samples are made under pressure and when you are tired, but really if it is the picture you are using to sell your pattern you really need to just call me and I will come right over and do this part for you.

A good pattern should look like it is.

Heartbreak, sewing and new starts

Where do I start?

We have been home for almost two weeks. 

An hour before we drove into the driveway we got a call from my youngest son to say he had broken up with his long time girlfriend. The girlfriend who was living in my house and filling  it with her transplants.

I really like this girl but the family saw this one coming. Different directions.

What it meant to me immediately though was a heartbroken very nice girl in my house when I arrived home. To make a long story short she stayed with me for a week and a half. I did everything I could to support her. It really, really tore me up to see her heartbreak. But at the end of the day it became clear to her that living in my son's childhood bedroom crying and having the mother of the guy who broke her heart make her tea wasn't the best way to heal.

I am sure she will be just fine. I expect I will hear from her from time to time in the future. She really is terrific, but the right guy for her is just not this guy.

That happens.

Between you and me having someone that sad in the house wore me out. You want to say, listen hearts are stronger than you think. One of the best things about getting older is knowing that, but of course you know that only because when you were 25 someone broke your heart and there are no shortcuts. When you are older you can see the humour in even the really terrible things, if only fleetingly, and you are better able to take care of yourself. For instance if that had been me I would have sat myself down and started ordering fabric - that always helps.

In fact when all this was going on I did some sewing. I made a knit straight skirt and this top:

The Madeleine from Stylearc.

I was pretty pleased with it (pictures pending, my photographer is out of town right now) and wore it to an extremely weird event where two former politicians who have each written books stood on a stage and accused the other guy of lying. I was supposed to be moderator.

How do I get mixed up in things like this?

At any rate here is my in the outfit sitting down. 

Pictures are interesting.

I realized that all that extra fabric bunches up when you are not standing in your bathroom admiring your wonderful sewing in the mirror and I have since taken in the side seams and tacked up the wrap a bit since I wore this then. That's what I will show you when I get the shots snapped this weekend.

Anyway here I am dumpy on the stage:

Finally I was so sorry to hear Nancy Zeiman is dealing with bone cancer. My daughter who is a paediatric oncology nurse always says that the reason folks get nearly all cancers is just bad luck, but I was so sad to see that this is something Nancy has to deal with. Hopefully her treatment will go well. She certainly is one tough cookie and so many of us are rooting for her.

If you haven't seen the statement she put on on youtube here it is

Sewing with Nancy was such an important part of my life when my kids were small. Catching that show was a highlight of my week - a time when I got to concentrate on something that interested me. As soon as they could walk my kids knew that when Nancy was on mom wasn't going to do anything for you until it was over. Not get you a bandaid, make you lunch, rescue you in the bathroom.

In fact I can remember standing with the three of them in the grocery store unwrapping a book from Nancy I had just picked up at the post office she had sent me because she had used one of my hints on the air. My hint was actually published in the book and I was thrilled. To my little kids this made me a star because they sure knew how important Nancy was.

You know I was probably far prouder at that moment than I have ever been at anything else I have done, the world reflected in the picture above included, maybe particularly.

The things that the world thinks are important or impressive so often aren't the things that really matter to you most, you know, but only you know that.

I heard from an old boyfriend this spring, a source of a broken heart 40 years ago. We have both gone on to happy lives, me with Leo, he with Stanley, and I am so happy our friendship has returned to us. In fact I am sending off all those photos from years ago to him. They have his mother and a brother he lost in them and those belong to him not me.

In one of his messages to me he wrote that he had read my blog and was happy to see I was still sewing, because "sewing was always in your blood." I found that someone remembered that about me enormously comforting in a tough week.

All this is in my mind because yesterday I think I may have found the person who could replace me at my job. As of the end of August I am leaving full time teaching and going to be doing only a course or maybe two some terms. I love my teaching but need to open myself up to the projects that have been waiting for me.

It feels good.

Crochet

It turns out this two month stay in Florida has been about two things: teaching my classes and learning new things.

One of the new things is golf. 

My husband would rather golf than eat (he once did 72 holes in the rain after a course was closed and they said he could keep playing). I like being outside and particularly enjoy the Florida landscape. When many outside the state think of Florida they think Daytona and high rises, but we stay in a small place where nothing is more than two storeys and the locals still far outnumber the tourists. 

The lushness and the wildlife make the visit for me.

I decided this year however to start working on being a good golfer. 

You see I started to think about sewers I know who have sewn for a long time. Some will say things like "I have sewn for thirty years" and then complain that things still don't fit. 

I have finally figured out that having done anything for a long time does not mean expertise, in fact it can just mean repeating the same mistakes a whole lot of times. In fact some of the best sewers I know are young women who really worked at it over a short period of time. 

It's about application.

So I had this sort of epiphany after yet another wild shot, that I didn't want to be golfing this exact same way for 20+ more years. I don't want to be one of those women who can golf only with their husbands.

My ambition is to be good enough that I can join in on the Wednesday night scramble where they put you with anyone and you just golf. 

You see they have a buffet for the players after the scramble every week. I have seen them setting up the tables through the window.

It looks pretty good.

The second thing I decided to do is really learn to crochet beyond making crooked dishcloths. I really like any kind of knitted top because they are so comfortable and you don't need to iron them. 

Trouble is I am a really slow knitter. So slow in fact a lady in the waiting room for bloodwork even offered to show me how to knit faster but unfortunately her number was called before she could do that.

I figure in the snippets of time I have available I am good for one sweater a year, which is a pretty depressing number when you consider I have 400+ patterns favoured on Ravelry.

Then I heard crochet was faster.

That was it for me.

I have never really liked the look of crochet however which was a bit of a problem. Then I figured out that crochet culture seems to have involved a high proportion of really stiff polyester yarns and a lot of orange and brown stripes. However the newer designs (you seem to have to look in the crochet magazines to find anything fashionable) are much better.

So I started.

So far one top in three weeks made between teaching and golf and another is halfway there. 

The fast thing is true.

Mind you what I am making is not loopy hole free and it is super simple, but I am starting. I figured if I hadn't just gone on and worn things I had sewn even with the mistakes I would never have kept sewing. 

You have to just do it.

So here is my first project, essentially two giant dishcloths sewn together, but at least the sides are straight. It hasn't been blocked but here it is:

Not a masterpiece but the main thing I enjoyed doing it.

That really counts.

Dupioni

Here we go as requested:

Here we go. Slightly more wine coloured in real life than this shows on my monitor.  How about $45 for all 5 yards plus postage. 45 inches wide.