Style Arc Tops installment one: Adele top

I have had a great week in Tennessee with much to report.


Let's start with my Style Arc tops.


I really have a huge backlog of Patternreviews to do but first of all I want to just show you how these patterns are working out on me.


I think it would be helpful to know more about the body shape I am sewing with so you can put the fit into perspective. I really have no shame:

• I am 5'9". Some of the tops I have lengthened, but realizing how long this patterns already are I have cut off that amount in many cases and will tell you if I have made the out of the envelope version or not.
• I am about 20 pounds heavier than I was 10 years ago, and I am 58 now. How do you spell menopause?  What I am saying is that I am carrying excess on the middle. Consider that. My photographer has been well-trained to say "you look slimmer in that" even before he really looks at what I have made.
• I have a D cup and usually do a FBA. I didn't do that in most of my tops but will have to do it again in one, you will see that in the next couple of days as I work my way through these.

The Adele top: 

Fabric: 

Nice rayon knit from Fabricmart. I am kicking myself for not bringing more of my stash with me. The print is a little loud but I think the diagonal lines are slimming.

Pattern alterations: None except for 2" added on that I wouldn't do again - these patterns are already pretty long. Note I did not do a FBA and am pleased with the fit, fitted through the chest (I made a size 12) but full enough through the bust. I suspect Style Arc grades more intelligently than some other pattern makers. Note the narrow sleeves, not an issue for me since I have a weak upper body but might be for you.

Construction notes: 

OK did as suggested but scrapped the overly complex, in my view, instructions for stabilizing the neckline. Why do this? I have a head.

Instead I measured the neck opening, cut a 3" wide piece with the stretch knit as long as 3/4 the opening and used my now favourite method of applying neck binding:

1. Stitch the short ends of the neckband together making a ring.
2. Fold the band, wrong sides together and lightly press. This will give you a double layer neck ring of fabric.
3. Pin the neckband to the wrong side of the top, which will then be the folded neckband right sides up against the wrong side of the top.
4. Stitch using a tiny zig zag for stretch (I left my serger at home).
5. Flip the neckband to the right side and stitch close to the folded edge to secure.

With a light knit this gives a good clean neck binding that is nice on both sides. I also use the same treatment for woven bands and will take some pictures of that up close.

I will definitely make this top again. Five stars.

Hotels in NYC

I am now in Tennessee for a month after a quick over-night in NYC. My time here, and the sewing I will be doing, will be the subject of many other posts (I have already had some hilarious fitting sessions) but before I start that I want to answer a question that has been asked.

Where do you stay in NYC?

Well, since my son is living with two roommates in an apartment in East Village, not with him, although the roommates are lovely. Not quite a place where a middle-aged mom on the sofa, sewing at the only table, or scrubbing down the baseboards would work.

When I first looked at NYC hotels I sort of freaked. $450 a night in the areas I wanted to stay in would have a serious impact on my fabric buying budget.

I was worried.

However, after a few stops and a few good hotels and the realization that NYC is just one very, very, large small town (and I get those) unlike London or even Toronto, which seem to me to be more less human scale, I'm good.

So here are my recommendations, to be taken only as the recommendations of me, no sophisticate, but someone who likes to be comfortable when I am not at home.

In my mind there are two kinds of establishments, dog-friendly and woman-without-her-dog friendly. Also I would only stay somewhere within walking district of fabric.

1. Dog-friendly and dog-friendly in the Garment District:

Candlewood Suites Time Square:  West 39th

Although this is advertised Times Square it isn't really. It's a short walk away on a smaller quiet street, one of those tall narrow (6 rooms a floor) hotels you get in NYC.

The attributes are:

• Dog-friendly. Although you have to take them up and down in an elevator I note some very nice potted trees outside the entrance...
• Quiet, few rooms a floor.
• Fully equipped kitchen including dishwasher. This is handy if you are married to someone who walks you 7 miles to a Whole Foods for soft-shell crab and wants to go back and eat them with beet salad and feta.
• A sort of corner store thing on the main floor. This is useful if you are putting your feet up and realize what you really need is a little ice-cream. You can send the person who cooked the crab down in the elevator to get it, and maybe take the dog out to those tree things while he's at it.
• On the same street, only down a few blocks, from the notion store where I saw Kenneth King and other landmarks of interest.
• Not all that expensive, can use up points of various kinds if you have them, suitable for those traveling with an entourage in particular.

2. Hotel for the girls, or girl, on the edge of the Garment District:

Hotel Metro  West 35th

The attributes are:

• This is a "boutique" hotel which means it is old but they have fixed it up and have extras. Marble staircases and bathrooms, umbrellas in the closet, excellent service.
• I loved it here, nice pretty, big rooms.
• A restaurant and bar on-site for times when you lug back huge, heavy bags of fabric and don't want to face going out to eat.
• I only could stay a bit and spend most of my one day there with my son and his girlfriend, but this is just around the corner from MJ Trimmings, which is my equivalent of a museum.
• Quiet. The clientele had sewing ladies written all over them.
• More expensive but I got a deal on Priceline which I remembered because of the William Shatner commercials.

Speaking of William Shatner traveling has made me think of national identity. Let's just say some countries have given the world Lincoln and MLK, and some countries, like mine, have given the world William Shatner and John Candy.

I think you get my drift. More later, got to resew some bust darts. 

Road trip

I haven't blogged for a bit because things have been active:

• my husband is home at the end of his third winter away. I have learned to live alone, a life stage I skipped up to now, and learned too that the absolute happiest I am is when I am doing my own thing (translate that to fooling around in my sewing room) with the sounds of someone else knocking around the house and interrupting me.
• my youngest son was in a terrible car accident, failure of a friend's vehicle, a limited concussion but otherwise fine, back at work today. All four of them are OK. A miracle. That cat has many lives and don't think I'm not counting them. That's all I can say.
• I am wrapping up work before heading out Friday for a month in Tennessee and two months, with family visiting, in Florida. I am so lucky to be working online until the fall because I can go off and do things like this. 

On the sewing front I have finished those 12 pairs of StyleArc Peta pants/capris/shorts.

I fully realize this is crazy but I am just so pleased I can make pants that fit that I couldn't stop. One of my sisters said to me, "where are you going to wear all those new pants?"

"Around," I said, "around."

It has to be the crotch curve and here that is:

Flat short front crotch and L shaped back - it works on a lot of women

I am currently involved in the usual paper stopping - mail re-routing - dog food buying - clothes packing jobs of getting ready to go away, which in my case also involves intensive discussions about how many machines and how much fabric to bring. This is where I am so far, piled up in the grandkid's room:

It is a delicate balance between enough to keep me busy and not so much that this stops feeling like a vacation. I am going to be with a golfing husband after all and Mr. Rascal, and have my daughter Misses Scarlett and Heidi and my son-in-law down for three weeks, and hopefully my mother-in-law and sister-in-law too.

I realize that for many people time away involves beaches and books and quiet time together but that's not just us. We have in fact never really had a holiday without family and I have never gone on a vacation without a sewing machine.

I have been thinking about this lately, seeing many early retirees around me, and have realized that my life is always going to be about an entourage, always going to be busy, always going to have sewing going on in it when a rational person would be doing something else.

And I will keep working, I like it.

I will tell you a story about work off site.

About a year ago I was on the road and teaching online. One night, just before I was due to go live with a class, we got stuck in one of those awful rush hour traffic jams on the Baltimore DC corridor. My husband is never late, always precise, and more or less was losing it with trying to get me to the hotel so I could use the wireless. 

When it became clear that wasn't going to happen I looked around and noticed we were driving by some pretty fancy suburbs.

"Those folks all have to have wireless," I said "Take the next exit."

So I put on my headset, opened my laptop, and put it on my lap and we drove around until we picked up a signal.

So if you looked out your window a year ago and saw a car parked in front of your house and a stressed out man and a talking woman in it, that was just us, not some sneaky security firm.

I got my class taught without a hitch, went online two minutes before the start time.

The class was, coincidently, called "crisis communication."

Off to the dentist now.

Talk later.

Aren't we lucky

Thanks to my fascination with politics and another of the innumerable Republican debates I finished a pair of Stylearc Peta pants tonight, two pairs of shorts, and two pairs of capris or whatever you call the 7/8 versions. By the end of tomorrow night that will make 12 pairs of bottoms from either this or the Cargo pants pattern.


This whole exercise has reinvigorated my interest in TNTs, and an appreciation of their utility.


I mean really.


Once you have a pair of pants that fit, or in my case a pattern line, what's there to change that is any real trouble? 


What I like about this is the ease of an elastic waist in pants, like the Linda pants, that don't have a dopey cut or leg. These look like normal stylish (oh that's where the style arc comes from) pants rather than kind-to-my-middle pants.


In the process of unpacking my summer clothes, because I am going to warmer places soon, I tried on an old pair of store bought pants that fit me pretty well, apart from the droopy bum part and the girdle like feel of the front.


Well tonight I tossed them and thought, baby I can do better myself thanks.


I have a horrifying thought for you to think.


Can you imagine if you had to depend entirely on strangers, on stores, to cloth your own particular life and body?


Can you imagine if you could only wear what you could find in the stores in that season? 


Can  you imagine having to wear pants or shorts all summer with big pleated pockets on your butt when you knew they just made you look ridiculous and that was the last place you needed anything extra, but you still had to wear them because that is all you could find?


How lucky for us that we are independent of all of that and can do for ourselves.


How lucky.


O.K. there are so many things I could say that are political but I won't. 


But I will say one thing that really, really burns me.


I have read several spindoctor type articles that have emphasized how Callista came from such a modest and in fact almost poor background that, get this, "the only clothes she could wear were those her mother handmade for her."


Poor, poor girl.


The only thing poor about this is the reporting because I have read the original quote (in case you are wondering, I googled Callista because I absolutely wanted to know if the hair was a wig, or a hat, or a something - if that's all because of the hairspray then that woman's lungs have to be plastic).

O.K. back to the original. Apparently Mrs. Gingrich blames her expensive taste on the fact that when she went out on her own to the places she was going to go, she found out she had to go designer to match the quality she was used to in the clothes her mother made for her.


O.K. so that's one thing about this one I can understand.


Handmade. Really.


That reporter should be so lucky.


Over and out.

Catch up on the fabric shopping tour, family and points between

Gorgeous wool knit with couched yarn illustrating why a person goes to NYC. This stuff is not at Fabricville.

First of all I need to wrap up my New York trip with some trim shots to say, yes Carolyn I did hit those too, as part of my long slow runway onto my Channel jacket. My husband, who trooped around with me, did ask a few times if I didn't already have enough black trim since we were already carrying multiple yards from the last store doesn't fully appreciate how trims could be so different, but I am sure you can.

The black stuff is for the black boucle with zebra print silk lining that is waiting for me to get started, the red for some Linton tweed I picked up because after all that princess seam muslin fitting I am certainly going to be get some kind of return by making more than one:

This is crazy wool ruffle on an elastic centre so it will stretch - I love it and have no idea what to do with it.

Some poodle type trim that I now need to buy some pink boucle to go with it - sort of invoking the poodle skirt colour scheme which maybe is too literal an interpretation of the poodle resemblance.

Can't get an thing like this here - think I might try lacing some white something through it because I am so creative and the jacket lining is black and white.

What do you think about this next one? Is the red trim too much or not? You have until 2018 to make your mind up about this - I still haven't started even one Chanel jacket remember:

Of  course I followed the garment district to go to visit family in Winnipeg and to hit up Northwest Fabrics, the place where most things are $5.99 a meter, including some excellent pant weight. I saved so much there that I had to pay a $50 surcharge for a super heavy suitcase, a fact you better not mention to my husband who doesn't understand the cost of doing business completely all the time.

First the family.

Later this week the pantweight that may even be in the form of pants, or shorts, or capris, since I am not sure how much of each I bought.

My mom, 84 and sharper than I am and most other people too. She's the person who taught us all to sew even though she hates doing it herself. Great mothers do things like that.

Miss Scarlett getting to know my sisters' kids, in a sort of great grandchild on top of grandchild pyramid.

Now off to measure my fabric.

Happy Valentine's Day!

From my sewing room to yours.


Have a great day today.


I will be celebrating mine with Miss Scarlett running errands before her mother sister and I fly off tomorrow to Winnipeg to see my mother, sisters, nieces and nephew and finishing up with a talk I am giving at the sewing guild on how to sew knits.


I actually think they all know how to sew knits so I am hoping somewhere between dropping the key off at the dog walker and buying heavy duty blanket sleepers at Sears that inspiration hits.


If any of you have some super knits sewing hints to share now would be the time to do it.


I have been wrapping up a huge amount of work for work to liberate some time and hope to start catching up with my blogging.


Carolyn I did the trim stores too and that deserves another post. OMG they are something else. I am still recovering.


Off to start the my day. You enjoy yours.

The tenement museum

One of the most affecting things we did in New York was visit the Tenement Museum, a walking tour of a tenement, organized by my smart son.


Really if you are in NYC you have to do this.


From the sewing point of view it was interesting to see how the garment workers managed, and the conditions in which the earlier home-based piece workers lived and worked.


Absolutely unbelievable.


What has stuck with me most though is a story about Fanny Rosenthal. Fanny lived in one two room apartment (toilet down the hall) with her husband and five children. Her husband died young from TB (he was a garment presser) and she stayed on there after the kids had grown and gone.


Over time the building owner decided that to bring the building up to code was going to be too expensive, and he asked all the tenants to move out.


Fanny refused. Refused to leave the place she had first lived in when she arrived in America, raised her family, lost her husband. 


In the end the building owner upgraded her apartment only and she lived on there in one apartment surrounded by every other apartment vacant in the building alone for 14 years.


This story really got to me. For a start as a social person I find the thought of living alone in a vacant building for all that time horrifying. Just imagine that. At the same time I also understood her. 


I understood that when Fanny looked out her window she wasn't seeing the street as it was, but she could still see her own children playing out there, her husband coming home from work. Those were her best years and she didn't want to walk out of that apartment and close that particular, precious, door behind her.


At the same time I heard that her kids eventually forced her to move, they still lived in New York, in other places where they had moved on. It made me wonder what Fanny missed in those 14 years. What listening could she have done to her complicated adult children, new times she could have shared, grandchildren maybe playing on other streets.


It made me think of sewing, and of grainline. You know how sometimes when something doesn't hang right? Often it's because the grain is off, the pattern piece is not parallel to the selvage like it's supposed to be?


What do you do? You can't change the arrow on the pattern piece, can you. If that's your direction of grain that's your direction of grain. But you know what you can do? Rearrange the pattern piece on the fabric, move it a little bit. Sometimes you just have to do it.


Then it works.