My sister Nancy is a genius

One of my sisters is famous for her spontaneous problem-solving. She is a creative person and sometimes she just gets an idea, a good one, out of the blue.

"I don't know, it just popped into my head," she says.

Take Christmas.

O.K. if you are male you are now rolling your eyes, but women, involved in large far flung families like ours, have this in the back of our minds 12 months of a year.

The thing is if you care about people you want to show that, and get it right.

Another issue of course is that there are a lot of us and the younger set has many different financial obligations. The things that come with babies, mortgages, working and trying to get a career on track. That pretty much uses most of the cash and all of the time.

What got to me was this Easter my son-in-law lay on my couch after a great, funny dinner and said "I like Easter so much better than Christmas. No pressure and everyone just has fun."

This got my daughter and I thinking.

So my daughter called Nancy.

A few years ago we went from everybody sending everyone a present to drawing names, except for the kids under 18 or adults over 80 who of course need a gift from everyone.

The name drawing worked for a while but really, depending on the name, it could be hard. If you haven't seen anyone in a while how do you know what is in their closet, on their bookshelf, or in their kitchen?

Putting an Amazon gift card in the mail was fine, but it didn't really feel like a connection.

And connection, in a meaningful way, is what the whole object of the exercise is.

Enter Nancy and her brilliant idea.

O.K. here it is.

We maintain the 18 and 80 rule.

However for the rest of us each person prepares one gift that gets given, by email, to everyone on Christmas morning.

That gift is the instructions for something the giver does particularly well.

A sharing of themselves and what matters to them.

For instance:

My husband may do a video of his home-made yoghurt routine.

My brother-in-law who was once actually interviewed by CBC on his famous oatmeal may tell us how to do it.

My deaf sister could give us an ASL (American Sign Language) refresher.

I might do a seminar on hemming jeans and sewing buttons (the right way).

Nancy, who is a florist, could show us how to arrange flowers so they don't look like a bunch of stuff dumped in a vase.

You get the point.

So imagine this. 

Christmas morning you open your email and, in our case, there will be a multitude of messages that really share some of that person with you.

Now isn't Nancy so smart?

My head hurts

O.K.

Let me explain. 

One of the few words of wisdom I am able to offer my students is one of my own personal discoveries.

That is when you are learning new things your head actually hurts. It's those new neuro pathways being built (I actually have no idea what I am talking about but this sounds great), new muscle memory being laid down, and all that activity hurts more than say slumping on the couch watching Mad Men and wondering what kind of foundation garments Joan must be wearing.

I use this line, and wait to use it, when my students complain that something I am saying, or trying to teach, makes their head hurt. "Good" I say "Great. That means you are learning."

Well all those years of being a total smart ass and annoying year after year of undergraduates has returned to haunt me.

It's karma man.

Karma and it's called golf and fair isle knitting.

The thing is, despite decades of my family insisting I have zero athletic ability (that was assigned to someone else and in my family once these things are doled out they are taken) I actually really like golf and am a not as bad at it as you might think.

However I am having a skill distribution problem. When I get my drives working, my irons go to hell. When I get my irons working better, my drives act like they need Viagra. Can't get them up.

Back and forth, one or the other. Never both.

This does not make me happy. And having my husband says things like "those are different shots you know" brings out my need to be a nice wife and not a person who, well you remember Tiger Wood's wife.

After about 40 games in the last two months there are a few mountains I would have hoped to climb over by now. But then again there is next season.

Not sure I can say anything quite so optimist about my fair isle vest project. I am taking this course on Craftsy and having put it off as long as I could by knitting this sweater:

This picture is pre-blocking, it looks better now, much smoother, but I had to strike while the model was hot.

However I have got to the end of the video lessons and no where to turn but to actual knitting. The instructor is very knowledgable, but fairly dippy (and coming from me that says something), there is more telling that she likes to knit samples than technical details like how not to lose you mind with 47 dangling ends going on and what to do with jogs. I suspect it has been so long since she found this hard she forgets to tell you how to overcome that part.

I figured this fair isle was a skill I should learn. I spent 4 nights winding skeins into balls and knitting samples trying to get gauge and getting used to the pattern. I have knit and unravelled and this is what the vest looks like at the present time:

All I have learned so far is I hate the bright yellow and am going to be making a substitution.

Fortunately my gauge is still wrong so I am emergency ordering in some more needles in a smaller size from Amazon and that gives me some breathing room to settle down before I go once more into the fray.

I am finding all of this really hard. My head hurts. 

But then I remembered what it was like to learn to sew. 

How many things did I screw up before it got easy? 

A long long time, like until last week.

And at the end of the day I guess I would rather be someone who was still in the process of painful brain expansion than letting it roll out of sight like those bowling balls that go down the alley. (This is my head analogy I just realized).

I will keep telling myself that, primarily because I have spent a fair amount of money on this whole project without actually having knit one decent inch.

And in closing I figured a shot of my golf coach is in order. Here he is in one of my sewn creations, doing one of the things he does best:

I think we call this a par.

And now my own open letter to Vogue and company

Some very wonderful sewers, Robin and Shams, have articulated something I have had in my mind for a while now. 

A while ever since my intelligent and highly capable sister-in-law, who does meticulous needlework so should be able to sew, told me she can't get sewing patterns to fit and, as a result, has more or less given up.

We spent a nice half day working on some basic alterations and I think got things figured out for her. I would like to share this experience with the powers that be at Vogue and company, so here is the letter from me.

Hi folks,

I have been working with a family member to help her sew a basic skirt and shell that fit her. This was an emotional rescue operation.

My sister-in-law's issues were sooo simple. Larger bust and narrow hips, small boned with a slight upper bust and a waist that was a few inches smaller than her hips.

Like so many women, so many, she has been following the directions on the pattern envelope and buying by her full bust (and swimming in totally disastrous necklines and shoulders) for tops and buying by her larger lower body measurement, her waist, and suffering baggy skirts.

All I told her where the basics:

1. It is always easier to add than subtract.
2. Therefore select your pattern by the smallest of your measurements and add where required. Except for a FBA this is actually pretty easy for a simple garment, and when motivated anyone can do a FBA.

I think we got her situation figured out and this very smart woman is now good to go.

The thing is, through our whole session she kept saying to me "WHY DON'T THE PATTERN COMPANIES TELL YOU THIS? "

This is just lousy business.

Imagine a car dealer who sold cars but sent everyone home with the wrong key and left the customers to break the windows on their new cars to get in, or sign up for two year machinist courses so they could make their own keys.

After a while don't you think people would start taking public transport (RTW) or move over to the European models (indie patterns) where the key was handed over on a ring when you parted with cash. I mean wouldn't the extra for the import be worth it? 

And wouldn't you think someone in Detroit or NYC or wherever the head office is would say "hey folks you are killing business here, give the folks their keys or we are not going to ever see them again."

"And BTW photographing our models on window sills or beside a bicycle aren't going to make up for the fact no one can actually get in and drive."

You would think this would be happening if the business was one of those that actually wanted to make money and survive.

But apparently this is not the case.

Personally I feel the issue might be even more structural.

Like the fact that the patterns are drafted for measurements not seen on this planet.

Fixing that would be a good place to start.

Listen.

I have taught or participated in sewing classes for about 30 years and I have never, not once, actually met a size 10 with a 25 inch waist. 

People are built, and certainly the ones that sew are, with middles large enough to contain stuff like vital organs and lunch.

If there are 25 inch people out there, and not on IV nutrition somewhere, they are most definitely the minority, right up there with people who have one blue and one brown eye and also are double-jointed and have perfect natural pitch and can see the puck out of the corner their multi-coloured eyes like Wayne Gretsky.

My point is these measurements are not a representation of a reasonable or even unreasonable cross-section of the population. 

These measurements certainly have no business being printed on pattern envelopes in metal cabinets in fabric stores in cities and towns all over the world, where they are waiting for some optimistic 14 year old to chose her very first pattern which ends up being such a dog's breakfast (actually Rascal's breakfasts are home made and lovely so you need to know this is just an expression) that she spends the next eight decades chiming in that she "can't sew, nothing ever turns out, I am not just creative."

What I thing to do to nice people, Vogue and company.

Just because you have made a mistake with these stupid measurements and don't have the grace to warn people like my sister-in-law ahead of time that there are compensations to be made (since you won't change she has to) so she doesn't waste her good time and good money.

Money which she earns in an office where they do top secret work for the government - tell me how a woman can figure that stuff out at work but can't get the right skirt size?

I mean is that nice Vogue? 

Is that any way to treat a customer? Or even just a decent human being.

The real fact as I see it is you all got in a rut working off the wrong dimensions to build your patterns but are in so deep that it is too much trouble to back out again and start from scratch in a new place, like say, reality.

This reminds me of the time my mother made what they call Matrimonial Squares in the prairies (but the rest of the world calls date squares) using salt instead of sugar, because they were both in jars and looked sort of the same.

You got to have the right stuff. If you don't things just won't get any better the more you mix it up. And until you do things are not going to be looking up in your corner of the sewing industry and there isn't a focus group or new lighting or material give aways to turn it around until you do.

Sincerely,

Babs

Now this how to pack

Sewing supplies in outer space. 

Of course.

The best dress pattern

For a while all spring I have been looking for a new basic dress pattern, something simple I can make into 2,000 variations a la Carolyn.

I knew what I wanted. 

A front and a back and sleeveless with a neckline that wouldn't make me too hot. Something that was adaptable and basic but not a just a fabric envelope with holes for your head and arms to stick out of.

Something basic but with a bit of style.

Well try to find a pattern like that. Simple, comfortable and well-drafted.  

I looked and looked and finally ordered the KISS dress from Brensan Designs I admit I have a blouse pattern from this line but haven't made it up yet, and as a non-quilter, as a garment sewer, I wondered if these patterns were for me.

Here is the pattern envelope:

Now in my opinion this is one dynamite dress pattern, beautifully drafted, with these cool features:

• There is a pullover, more house dress, casual option that is made by placing the back seam on the fold and not sewing in the vertical back and front darts - only the bust darts are sewn. I made myself one of these directly out of the envelope in black and white cotton.
• There is also a more fitted version - to get this you use the same pattern, just sew in the front and back vertical darts and put a zipper in the back.
• There is a one piece back/armhole facing piece and a one piece front/armhole facing piece - so the whole top is sort of lined without any facings that can flip up or out.
• There are instructions to bag the facings/dress involving some pulling through the shoulder seam that is really slick. I can't explain it here because I am not sure I totally understand it but I followed the instructions on two dresses and presto it turned out. Very fast, neat and RTW.
• Most interesting, and you really need to pay attention to this, is the suggestion that since this dress has a scoop neck to sew the first 1" or so of the top centre back seam and then to put the zipper in below that! This means the back neckline is nice and smooth and faced and the invisible zipper is set a little way below in the seam. This totally dispenses with that horrible finishing the top of the zipper at the neckline hassle that has disappointed me in about 500 dresses.

Here is a picture of what that looks like in a photo that shows nothing and it totally non-illuminating but might make the point that this is one nifty way to put in a zipper in a dress with a neckline that goes on over your head:

That little bump you can't really make out about an inch below the neckline is the white zipper pull. Isn't this a totally cool idea?

So now the dresses. 

The first one is the vertical dartless pullover version I made with pockets to hold my dog leash, car key, and vegetable peeler as well as any other odd stuff I find on the floor.

Made this when I first got here and have worn it a lot. Notice just arrived from Nova Scotia pale legs.

Side view so you can see what the effect of not sewing those darts is. I might make this with only the back darts in for another casual dress, or make the darts slimmer.

And now for the very same pattern made up with the darts sewn front and back and the zipper in. 

Much more fitted and IMO an A1 dress to have. Note in both dresses the darts were perfect as is. In the second version I took in a little at centre front neckline to accommodate my scrawny neck:

 And this is me apparently holding up the house:

Back shot to show that if I had more fabric I would have matched the print:

So there you have it. A wonderful dress pattern.

Now I think I will go and have another look at this line.

Scenes from the golf course

We are playing 18 holes every evening and one of the things I enjoy most is the wildlife. Some scenery sharing.

And an actual sewing post tonight.

Brace yourselves.

Knitting in the round

I actually have done a bit of sewing, which I will be posting when my second dress is photographed, but I have been doing a lot more knitting. It is sort of cool to be learning something new.

I have always enjoyed knitting, the therapeutic slightly rocking in the corner of the mental institution soothingness of it, but I am not very good at it - owing to the fact I haven't invested enough time and attention in it. And there is all that counting. (I was once actually a paid counter of items in incoming orders in a warehouse when I was a student and held the company record for never getting the same number twice, counting the same order. Myself and a Phd in Medieval English, worst counters they ever had.)

Back to the present.

My quiet days here in Florida are giving me some of that time and, well, here we are.

There is one part of knitting I absolutely hate however and that is the sewing up pieces part.

My neat sewer, 2.5 stitches, back tack, 5/8 seam allowance, seam roll pressing, serger finishing self just finds knitted seams sort of substandard and, well, sort of weak and sloppy. I just can't believe they will hold up, and as my surfer son has proven, they often don't. (Eventually I had to machine stitch the armholes in the Central Park Hoodie I made him a few years back).

Also sewing up knitted pieces does not appeal to me on a philosophical level.

I mean fabric, which we don't make ourselves, comes to us flat. We have to take the flat and make it round because people aren't flat. This requires seams and things like darts and stuff like that.

However with knitting, which aptly has been described as two sticks and some string, (as opposed to a $12,000 sewing machine if you believe some machine dealers which I don't) you have the ability to make it round in the process, to sculpt around the body, not imitate flat fabric.

(All this intellectualization is a justification for not repeating a trauma of my past which was the time, when knitting the Central Park Hoodie, when I took so long I actually knit three sleeves because I had forgotten I had already done two).

To cut a long story shorter I invested in Ann Budd's top down ebook which I got from Interweave I believe and is nice can convenient on my iPad:

It offers formulas for multiple size sweaters and as experiment number one I have been working on this alpaca version for my husband for our not-in-Florida life. He claims to hate scratchy wool so hence this nice alpaca brought to the State Road A1A by eBay.

Now it isn't perfect, and there are some hole weirdnesses going on under the armpit where I did something odd when I picked up stitches, and I am going to work on narrowing the body below the chest which seems appropriate for the male shape so we are not dealing with a rear peplum thing, next time. I read a Mary Thomas idea about changing to smaller needles as you go down that sounds like a possibility, but really it is fine, and he likes it.

And there is zero sewing up knitting this way, so I am sold.

This of course has kept me up late on the iPad searching books on Icelandic sweaters ( I love how they are constructed, although the last time I wore one my Icelandic sweater felt a lot like wearing a sweaty bush) and Nordic knitting, and resisting the impulse to eBay them all, and making me think I should get up my nerve once this is done to cast on that Fair Isle Vest project for the Craftsy class I signed up for.

I have watched the videos but got sort of frozen when I got to the diagrams of 47 different kinds of Shetland sheep, going to take me a while, me who has armpit holes, to feel up to standard for that class. So I have been knitting my first round sweater and thinking and listening to ebooks.

Guess who is thinking about the beauties of retirement?

And even preparing.

My Diana interchangeable needle set - probably one of my major, gee I actually didn't waste money purchases. I love these, I can change around needles to get gauge which is a task I more or less find impossible, and don't have to keep running to the store to buy a different size needle every time I screw that up.

This actually looks better on, you can try on as you knit with this method, and my husband smooths out that chest crater.

See how nice the stitches look? Next time you see this sweater it should be on a man in shorts.