Finished skirt

Here we go, this skirt finished, complete with crazy person sewing hair, and worn with my Jalie tie front top.

I love, love, love this skirt.

Mainly because I love, love, love the return of real waistbands right up there, waist high.

I like my skirts to stay put.

This is a super comfortable skirt (I interfaced both the facing and waistband piece for support) and I am pleased with the kinda of A line not quite straight skirt style.

It also shows some of the subtlety of designer patterns - the waist piece was very curved and shaped (versus those rectangles many skirt patterns have) and the gores, this is a gored skirt, were gentle and not too exaggerated. A super wearable skirt I would make again, although maybe not with the heavy zipper, not sure how many of those a wardrobe needs.

And finally a shot of the inside with the silk lining showing. This is why I sew.

I know there are going to be those mornings. 

Those mornings when you get up and remember you should have got milk, or that you were supposed to go in early to get ready for the meeting, and your mother calls to ask if you remembered someone's birthday and you didn't, you were supposed to get dog food when you got milk, if you had got milk, and it's late, and you feel you work too hard and no one notices.

And then you unzip this skirt and it's silk inside. And you are glad you took the time on a day not like that day to do something nice for yourself.

Because if you notice, that's just fine too. And quite enough.

I am so happy

It would take another sewer to understand just how totally happy you can be when you step into a new, unknown sewing project and it turns out fine.

I feel that way about this Tracy Reese skirt pattern.

For a start I usually only sew straight skirts, seems to make sense when your fridge could be your dress form; I have so little waist to hip definition, carrying all my definition behind me. But I am in a stepping out and trying new things frame of mind. So I cut into some stashed wool crepe yesterday and thought I would try the skirt.

I also have some wild silk charmeuse bought from Fabricmart a while back in a kind of fabric feeding frenzy I was involved in at the time. In the spirit of doing things interesting with my required skirt sewing, I decided to cut into that for the lining. You can see that pictured below with the facing sewn on to it, ready to install:

Now the thing about this pattern is that it calls for a heavy metal back zipper, teeth exposed of course. I figured, well why not, and went out and bought the right kind of zipper. BTW why do pattern companies always call for speciality zippers to be in odd sizes? This pattern calls for a 9" and YKK sells 8" and 10" as far as I can see.

Anyway the destructions for setting in this zipper were scary. I mean I took one look at this:

And I knew that I as looking at an accident waiting to happen. 

I am working with wool crepe. Am I going to be cutting right to the seam at the exact end-of-zipper spot where the pressure's going to hit when this rear end hits the chair at work?

I think not.

I also was highly suspicious of the advice to do all this clipping before you were anywhere near the sewing on facing/waistband part, and the zipper is supposed to go to the top of the waistband.

I know how that stuff turns out. You are too short or too long and a metal teeth zipper is not going to be any help at all when you have to fake/adjust it.

So this is what I did instead:

1. Sewed up the skirt and applied the waistband/facing.

2. Folded under the top tape edges of the zipper as suggested and placed this at centre back and figured out exactly how long an opening I needed.

3. Stitched up to the zipper opening as per usual for a traditional zipper.

4. Working from the inside placed the edges of the zipper tape even with the edges of the seam allowance and with a zipper foot stitched close to the teeth. Looked at it from the outside and cleaned up the stitching a little.

This gave me the result you see here with the end of the zipper tapering into the seam rather than being set off in a nice square. However my method was super easy to do.

However when I finish this up today the last step is to top stitch and I figure I can stitch a nice square box around the bottom of the zipper and it will look fine.

I try to anticipate and reduce the stress points in my garments and my sewing if I can.

BTW I like this lining a lot when I see it cut up and stitched. Since I can't source anything decent for the top for this pattern I might try to use it for that - providing my Debbie Cook research helps me figure out the FBA adjustment in a style like this.

Being a tall and not small person I have avoided loud floral prints and my social calendar doesn't run to many events where I say to myself "damn if only I had a loud floral charmeuse top" but I am thinking about this.

Final results for the skirt later.

Role models and skirts

In the middle of the night I thought of two things to add to my ageing list. 

One was prompted by the thoughtful responses to my post; the other just made sense at 3:00 a.m.

It is interesting how many of us refer to the great examples of our mothers.

Add that to the list. 

Do a good job of ageing so our kids will have some points of reference when this is their life stage. Think of the people you know who are really proud of their mom/dad/relative who is off doing things and very busy, they speak of them like legends. The real unspoken thing they are telling you is "old age, my old age, doesn't have to be scary, look at them."

I think we have an obligation to do what we can to have other people take heart and to show our children how not to be afraid when we can. This is a real gift to give them.

My second thought it that you have to devote, devote, yourself to being creative. Being alive is about creativity isn't it? There is nothing more age-defying than continuing to create. 

It's about the adding to, not the taking away of life. 

Craftspeople of any age are age-irrelevant. I have a friend whose 80 something mother was up Christmas Eve knitting dishcloths on order. Beats being the old dear sitting in the living room while they talk in the kitchen "someone go talk to Grandma."

See, I knew in some way this was all going to justify me buying more fabric.

On another subject I marked a paper last night from an interesting student who was supposed to do an organizational audit. Instead she did a project on behaviour in the military (she is in the reserves) and one of the things she looked at was the wearing of skirts by female personnel. 

You see they have the option of wearing skirts instead of pants in the military when they are in dress uniform or doing office, not in the field, work. 

I, of course, was fascinated. 

What she discovered from interviews was that the skirt is a "gendered garment". Men don't wear it, so some of the women wore it in a male environment because when they put on a skirt they felt they got some of their identity back. This is interesting because other women said they had initially worn only pants to fit in or to be taken seriously, but that once they were more secure they liked wearing a skirt.

I had never thought before really about skirts and dresses as being a gendered garment, and I then thought of the pants I was wearing (fly front) and wondered at how I wear things that are unnecessary and male.

I personally find skirts and dresses the most comfortable garments to wear (and yes thanks Carolyn the easiest to sew too) and I wonder about the transference to pants wearing in the work place and in home life. 

There are many occasions when pants are best - cold weather and some kinds of work but tights and leggings have extended dresses and skirts here too - and when I just will always wear them.

But the question is does wearing a skirt or dress change how you feel about yourself?

Ageing

A sewing site I visit recently directed me through a link to something on Ageing Gracefully.

Since I am sure I am not going to do that right, I read it right through. I realized that most of the ageing well stuff you read is all about skin and freaking out about looking older. Since it hasn't been my looks that got me what I needed my whole life, this is not my own particular crisis.

Let's face it I am older. So what? But there are some thoughts and observations I am putting together and I expect this list to grow. This is what I have so far:

1. Have younger friends. If all your contemporaries are going to die or get sick around the time you are that's got to get you down. If you have younger friends you will still have someone to talk to who understands you. My best examples of great ageing are my mom and my professional mentor. Both have friends 20-30 years younger, in fact nearly all their friends are in this category. Over the next two weeks I am having dinner with each of two younger women I worked with in the past, both in their thirties. One girl is making me dinner and serving me wine while I alter some pants and we catch up. Sewing is a great connector.

2. Go to your kids, don't expect them to go to you. This is not your first choice, but it is theirs, so you do it. Let's face it, all we want our whole lives is for our parents to be interested in what we do, and that involves being where we are. Naturally it would be far nicer to have them back asleep down the hall than staying in some hotel waiting until they wake up to call, but this makes the difference and if you want to keep part of their lives, move on with them. The parents who complain that no one calls or visits are the ones who sit at home and wait. I am noticing this.

3. Babysit and sew and cook and not just for relatives. Be useful and be glad every time you can do it.

4. Don't over invest in things your whole life. I am starting to see people de-clutter and downsize. What was the point of working your ass off for most of your life so you can spend the last part of it trying to get rid of all the stuff? I have a message on my answering machine from a relative who are moving out of a huge house I always admired asking me if I want "first crack" at buying their stuff so they can move into a condo. They have worked so hard and been so house proud not everyone knows them, and now they want to offload their life's work. BTW I have all the stuff I need.

5. Keep working, at something. I hate to say this because so often I figure it would be great to retire and cruise around but you really don't see that vacant look in seniors who have a job to do. This can be some kind of work, taking care of family, and even treating your sewing as a real job (I know that is completely possible to do and one day I am going to do it). I have an 84 year old father-in-law who says "there just isn't enough hours in the day" because of all his building and gardening activities. My husband puts it another way "if you can contribute, you should."

Anything you would add?

Fall is starting, at least the sewing part

There is a moment every year in August when I open my door and I can smell Fall. This doesn't mean the days can't still be warm, but it does mean that the change of seasons is in the air. When happens I know it is time to put away all my unfinished summer sewing projects and start thinking about fall.

I have a dilemma.

I am thinking about nothing but dresses at the moment but at the same time I know my skirt wardrobe has just about hit its expiry date. There are two black gab skirts that can and should be updated and shortened but the rest really shouldn't see the inside of a classroom this year.

That's the thing about skirts. Your old regular straight skirt is a classic and you can wear it to death. That's what's happened here.

I need a plan. Starting Tuesday if I finish all my summer term marking, I have some sewing time opening up.

I have decided that the thing I should do is this:

Two skirts, one dress, two skirts, one dress. Repeat until I get those dumb skirts out of the way.

To give myself a boost I am going to try some new Vogue skirt patterns and on the TNT attempt to add one cool designeresque feature to keep my interest. I have some wild silks I mistakenly thought might make cool coat linings (that impulse to be completely gaudy, clashy every time I opened my coat has passed) that I might put inside some of these old skirts.

I figure I should really rip through my skirt sewing this way, because really all I want is some new dresses.

Vintage pattern give away a day late

My apologies. My son is home for a week from DC and the place is hopping with family related events and meals. Not to mention the end of summer term marking I am supposed to be doing.

No sewing is getting done either, but all for the best reasons. Next week I am giving myself a sewing staycation and looking forward to that so much.

In the meantime here is a Large (bust 38-40) Bishop Method coat pattern.

It will go out to the first person who emails me with her address.

More later.

Butterick 5277

It has been a while to get this pattern posted and the shots are in the early evening sun so I hope you see what you need to. 

The collar attracted me to this pattern and it still is what I like most about it. My fabric was a heavy rayon crepe and I am not nuts about this fabric (this was sort of a muslin) but this pattern needs something heavy. The collar pieces are cut on the bias and not interfaced.

There were only french darts in the front and back and I added, semi-successfully, a bust dart by copying one from another pattern and adding the extra to the length. I just couldn't figure out how to do a FBA with these raglan seam for the sleeves.

The extra ease that would be accommodated in a bust dart was allowed for in this pattern with easing at the side seam (I absorbed this into my dart) and some easing at the top of the bust incorporated into the front raglan seam. I did use this ease into the raglan seam and did it carefully but I think it still produces a bubble above the bust that you can see as sort of a wrinkle under the collar.

My other issue with this pattern is that these little sleeves are lined to the edge (tricky to do without any wrinkles at all with all that bias going on) and with the way the collar is supposed to close at the back neck.

The edges of the collar (each piece, right and left is essentially just a large rectangle) go straight up even with the centre back and the theory is that you sew hooks and eyes to hold it all closed. Now remember that this collar is not interfaced and on the bias. I spent 3 1/2 hours putting hooks and eyes on and taking them off trying to get it to lie right and not pucker.

In my opinion it is a dumb idea to trust your whole dress to something like a couple of hooks and eyes. 

Which reminds me what's with there only being eyes in those packages these days. Eyes wooble and are weird, those little metal bars were good - nice and sturdy and they held things in place (thread bars are totally useless IMO - I never saw one that the metal hook didn't saw through in 20 seconds). Who decided to take those bars out of the packages? I want to know.

So in the end I just took them off and let the collar do its thing, but really this collar should have been angled out to overlap nicely and naturally at the back.

Finally I thought the underarm was cut away too much. As far as I am concerned it's the armpits that are the first to go and there is not a damn thing you can do about it so don't cut away those armholes.

My verdict?

I still think this is the cutest collar ever and I am going to save it and trace off the neckline (I love that this is a big collar but not tight around your neck) and put it into a TNT sheath.

I am not a thin person but I think I look that way in this dress because the collar is just so balancing. I kept thinking this would have made a dynamite plus size dress if the pattern companies had any sense.

BTW the brooch in the last shot is from my son-in-law. He is one of the best things that ever happened to this family, many a family event he looks at me and I know he is reading my mind. 

He is one of my blessings. I will be glad to wear this brooch.