Life in the sort of medium lane

I swim at our local pool when I have a chance. It is beautiful and not all that crowded and swimming, not requiring much coordination, is something I can do.

A lot of people around here, on the ocean, aren't very enthusiastic swimmers. The ocean is not the best place to actually swim. The ocean interferes. 

However I grew up in Manitoba, the province of 10,000 lakes, many of them about 2 1/2 feet deep and muddy which is perfect for learning to swim. Most of the time a person can just put her foot down and touch bottom and probably a few leeches, but apart from that lake swimming is a reassuring way to learn how to do it.

At the local pool there aren't any leeches. 

In the morning it is often ladies vigorously doing water aerobics and retired men standing in the middle of the lanes talking but not swimming. There were two characters at the end of my lane today discussing cauliflower recipes, I can't make this stuff up, and how they felt better since their heart attacks now they are "in the water" most days. In the water just about described it - if these guys could have smoked cigars in the pool they would have. 

Eventually they climbed up the ladder and were off to the sauna, to discuss broccoli I suppose, but no longer au gratin, and I kept swimming.

OK this is the thing.

I used to count my laps.

Then I would go home and google a converter to see how many miles I had swum. However it mostly turns out that after a hard, non recipe talking, aquatic workout I more or less put in about the same distance I would if I went over and visited Mrs. Smith across the way - and I can see her reading her paper in the living room window from my own living room window. 

No one is going to be recruiting me for the master's team any time soon.

So I have stopped counting laps.

It seems to me this is pretty smart and a parable for birthdays. 

Since I just had one, a birthday, I am aware that as you go on you start to count the birthdays like laps and that can kind of take the fun out of the swim. Better just to feel how it feels.

Starting next birthday I think I am just going to celebrate being born and leave it at that. After all I really think getting in the water is what matters.

Maybe my two cooks know that.

Auditioning patterns

I have a thought for you - a thought based on a few things I have done right and a whole lot I haven't.

Let me explain.

I have made another version of the London jacket and I just love it. So much so I wonder where this pattern has been all my life, mixed with regret for all the time and trouble I took to find something like this.

I would show you a picture now but resident photographer is putting some corner bead around the kitchen window and it is against policy to interrupt a husband when they are doing something you have been wanting them to do for nearly a year.

And might have mentioned once or twice.

And he could be down in my sewing room creating utility items couldn't he?

Well I have a weakness for patterns. 

I buy too many of them, usually late at night when that mouse is so damn easy to click. The thing of course is that with random fabric purchases you can always use it for something else (and usually each piece of fabric I have has been mentally sewn into about 45 different ideas before I actually get to it - and invariably what I end up making is not what I had thought I would use it for when I bought it).

But with a pattern you are sort of stuck.

Stuck with that dumb idea you had one night after seeing a sharper-thinner-younger person dressed up in it on some blog. Stuck with it because it was this season's shiny object and it turned your head so you forgot you lived in a ranch house in the suburbs and drove a van and read library books in the bath while you drank Ovaltine, but for a brief moment thought you lived in Manhattan or London or Paris and wanted to wear really high heels and ate in boutique restaurants and had Martinis with friends who not only owned but actually wore long over the elbow leather gloves and coats without closures or collars to keep their necks warm.

Patterns that you bought when it was too late at night and you sort of thought maybe you should be dressing like that and if you did you would become that person with that life, forgetting that you really like library books in the bath and that the love of your life doesn't wear cashmere coats, and in fact wears Tennessee Vols T shirts and plaid pajama pants after 10 at night, although he will get up and let the dog out if you pretend you are asleep.

If you forget all of that you can collect quite a lot of patterns that you never sew and they just stalk you and make you feel guilty.

It is as if they are auditing you and you have failed the test.

However.

If you look at your pattern collection from a TNT point of view and you are the decider and decide say that you need a jacket or a blouse that you can make up a hundred ways because you trust it and it trusts you, well then you can look at all the patterns that swirl by and just decide which one are worth auditioning for you.

Recognizing that once you have the role figured out you might have to deal with a few walk ins from the street to find the stars but that at last you are in charge. And it's your show.

Update from the you can't turn you back for a minute department

I was out of the house for an hour this morning and while I was gone my husband, who is also working from home today, decided to make some of his excellent heating pad Greek yoghurt.

The only issue he has had is a good straining system, but guess what?

Problem solved.

He went down to my sewing machine and made up his own yoghurt straining bags - they work perfectly.

They should - they are constructed out of good silk organza.

I think he should have matched the thread colour.

Storms and new Vogues

I was up a bit last night. 

Got a 2:30 a.m. call from my son in East Village to say he was on his room mate's cell and they were fine, despite being pretty close to the power station that blew up. 

He was eating grapes which I take as an indication that he did not follow my storm preparedness advice. He will be fine. My children are all survivors.

They survived me.

Now I want to talk about the new Vogues. I know everyone has reviewed them but me, so I better get on it.

This collection really struck me. I believe it was Sullivan who said form follows function and Chanel who said that if it isn't comfortable it's not style. 

I am wondering if they know all that at Vogue.

To my mind a new style should make you feel sharp in a new way without being something that you make because it is "on trend" and without being something you would look at next year (on in the family pictures) without you saying to yourself "what was I thinking?"

There is only one I ordered actually and it's not because it is particularly new but looks comfortable and reminded me of the potential impact of border prints:

This simple style is all about the fabric and that is where I am going these days, but I have to tell you I am totally mystified by the fabric requirements in my size - about 6 1/2 yards 45"-60".

That is a lot of fabric, even allowing for the border layout, particularly when it looks to me as if the yoke and sleeves are laid out on one repeat. 

I am going to have to get this pattern for myself and do my own trial layout, my sense is this is nuts.

Now onto other patterns, the ones I am not getting, with my editorial comments:

Who would possibly look good in this? A few gathers over the belly to disguise that concave stomach? A baggy top to disguise the shape you might have? All of the style of a canning apron with none of the charm.

In general I like this, but it probably the fabric that is attracting me. The wings are something I will have to get used to, but I suspect the way I crash around they would just get caught on doorknobs and rip perfectly good fabric. If they were on the front they would be good though if you had to go to an event and had a broken arm or carpel tunnel and needed to support your arm, not a lot of patterns provide for that, so you might want to hold that thought and wear it backwards if you were ever in that situation.

Gulag fashion and even the model's face knows that. Note they put a turtle neck underneath to make up for the fact this jacket combines a stiff body and a drafty neck.

Wow. A turtle costume. Might look cool for two weeks but think how it would be trying to strap this little number into the seat belts. And you would spend most of your time trying to move the shell out of the way so you could drive.

Just in case no one noticed you have boobs. Imagine doing a FBA on this one. Makes me want to draw eyes in those specs. Waste of good silk.

For those of you who have always wanted to unzip a seam and leave them flapping like a couple of ziplock bags. Although the pouches are sandwich size so might be handy if you made them into actual pockets. Not sure how this look enhances feminine beauty.

And there is trying too hard, way too hard. I can achieve the prominent rear end look without any assistance but this takes function follow form to the outer limits. Must be 6 1/2 yards in that plumage. 

There you have it, a sleep deprived pattern review, not that it shows.

Take care all of you impacted by Sandy and hope your sewing machines all have power soon.

London jacket building site shots

I know I know.

The rest of the blogging world has nice styled and shot photos. 

Not me.

This particular set of pictures was taken in the doorway of my kitchen as the door was being replaced. Since resident husband-builder-photographer was otherwise engaged the only way I could get these pictures taken was if I stood in the doorway, took the power tools out of his hand and put the camera in.

And of course it is styled in my sewing clothes, yoga pants and tank top.

I am really super pleased with this as a pattern with genuine TNT potential. I found the shoulder/chest fit to be nice and smooth and if you take a close look at the sleeves those aren't the clunky boxy sleeves you would expect in a very basic one piece sleeve.

The sleeve cap was pretty high and the armhole up quite close to the body but the sleeves went in very easily.

Of course the pockets were meant to be lower but I got the idea in my head that with such a short jacket  they would look cooler up higher.

This jacket is made in a patterned denim and what you can't see here is that the facings are really generous, the pockets' topstiching catches them, and the back neck facing is really deep and large , almost like a back stay which I feel gives the back of the jacket a more tailored structure.

If I didn't presently have a grandchild asleep in the room where the jacket is now, I would take more pictures of these facings to show you.

Listen I am really happy with such a simple pattern that can produce fairly slick results.

I have been frustrated a lot lately with my busy life.

It currently isn't giving me all the sewing time I need - no more course overloads next year. However I can see that one thing I have achieved is a series of TNT patterns that I will use over and over again with confidence.

The Linda pant
The Sasha blouse and the Annie blouse ( these three from Style Arc)
Pamela's Perfect T
The Magic Shirt (also from Pamela's patterns)
Butterick 5760 cardigan

and now this jacket

This makes me even wonder if I should attempt SWAP this year, it will depend on the rules and I have my eye on Stitches Guild to see if they are released soon.

Who knows?

On my mind and my work table this morning

I have had an interesting week.

The markings done until the next deluge. Both the students and I survived. Some of my students I suspect are brighter than I am, some I suspect put less work into their submissions than I put into marking them.

Which is just about right.

I also talked to a a very nice political reporter this week who wished me happy birthday.

"How do you know about that?" I wanted to know.

"Read it on your blog" he said.

So much for not having my worlds collide. 

But then I thought, so what. People are multi-dimensional and that would include me.

So Dave you are going to find a lot of this pretty boring and I don't drop political hints here. At least nothing local. But thanks for reading.

But on that note I went by invitation to a political event last night. This served to remind me why I am no longer in that business. Thank goodness there were a few students in the room. Folks move on and I have.

While I was out, my husband worked on dinner and installing a new kitchen door. He said he knew he had taken multi-tasking to new levels when he realized he was hammering with an oven mitt on and turning the ribs with a crowbar.

If you know my husband you know that this is exactly what happened.

The ribs were great BTW and I love the new door. I was glad to be home.

I have many things on my to-do list this weekend and I am not going to do any of them.

I need some sewing time- time to bring my spirit back to the mother ship.

A few days ago my daughter and I went to a quilt store to get things she needed. I don't quilt but I am good at taking three year olds to the bathroom and keeping them out of the notions.

But of course I had to buy something, so I picked up this pattern on a whim:

It is your basic simple shape. I have been thinking one of those in the arsenal would not be a bad idea for elaborate fabric that doesn't need a lot of seaming, or for Channel drop-outs like myself.

I hope to finish a sort of wearable hopefully muslin today out of some random denim and some cotton that I am going to have to use for facings and hem finishing because I am that short of denim.

Here it is on the mannequin shot at an angle so I wouldn't fall over all the machines I have on the floor since I am in a reorganization phase:

There is a center back seam for shaping and a very good dart in this pattern and the sleeves are pretty good. All in all, since I was expecting a fairly crude shape from something with so few pattern pieces, this is a nice jacket, even if this version is a little short.

I see potential here and will definitely finish this today.

My sewing room clean up is part of my list writing for my fabric scouting trip to NYC is a few weeks. I have realized that I am going to have issues with bringing fabric back and I have to figure this out. I won't be going by car this trip which is the best option for bringing back fabric, and I am on sort of a don't lift really heavy things restriction since the big fix up. So throwing 50 pounds of fabric on the carousal isn't going to cut it.

And you know how helpful they are at the airlines these days.

I am thinking of not taking any clothes, just my Visa and my passport and an empty suitcase, and wondering if I shop somewhere if they would ship it back for me?

Might have to investigate that.

Now off to the sewing room.

Talk later.

Making yourself happy

Today is my birthday.

It's shaping up to be a pretty nice day. 

Dinner cooked by my husband, cake from my daughter, and everybody coming over here which is what I really want. I also got an exercise bike, a non-rickety one, which was something I really had my eye on too for a while.

I have been talking to the family.

On one of my calls one of my sisters she told me how her whole family did zero, nada, nothing, for her own recent birthday. That was two weeks ago and I can tell she still feels bad about it, and she really is one of those wives and mothers who does everything for everybody.

I told her if birthdays matter to you make sure you get everyone organized to celebrate it.

Took me a while to figure this out.

The thing is when you get married you might connect with someone who comes from a different approach to these things than you do. 

In my own family all events, everything actually, was A Big Deal. Not in my brother-in-law's family and not in my husband's family either.

So rather than being miserable on a day no one remembered, I start early and make it clear that if it makes sense or not to my significant other having something happen on my birthday is a good thing.

Listen, I said, a card for these events is nice. A meal is better, and a something of any price range is much appreciated. Just to make sure this hasn't gone down too far on the to-do list I have asked a couple of times this week "well how are the birthday plans going?"

At the risk of being totally sexist I have to tell you that marriage and sons have taught me that most males just want to be told what to do rather than being the recipient of a lot of post-event sighing or The Look. 

Of course it is perfectly reasonable to say that if you have to ask for it, it doesn't matter. If you were dealing in a world of women that would be true. 

But since we're not I would counter that with, if it matters to you why not ask for it?

You can't always count on The Look or for the dinner plates hitting the table loudly being translated appropriately.

Women always do this.

I have read in the organizational literature that many women on the way up in their careers think if they work longer, harder, above and beyond enough, Someone Will Notice and eventually they will get their reward.

In fact the evidence is that the world, workplaces in particular, are not meritocracies and in fact no one probably will notice. More likely they will just get used to the idea of being in a one way relationship where the benefits flow only one way.

How many of us have seen some over-worked woman passed over for a promotion in favour of someone who did only what was required but did so publicly?

Sometime smart outdoes fair.

I was also struck this week by a quote from Gloria Allred of all people. 

She said a woman should decide what she wanted in a spouse and then be that person herself.

Sure would take the pressure off.

So if the person who makes sure you have a great birthday is yourself that's OK.

One year older and that little bit smarter.