Vogue 9022

When I first saw this pattern, I thought great. Something other than the Kristin knit dress for me to make.

It's fine to have a go-to, but after a while you just wonder if you should also be going to somewhere else.

A few things you should know about this pattern before I get into what I did with it:

• it is one of those odd ball patterns that says it is OK for both knits and wovens. Translated this means you probably won't need the back walking slit or the keyhole opening at the back if you are working in a knit. I just zipped up my centre back seam and that was fine, although I still liked a seam there so I could do a little shaping for my forward neck and my prominent behind.
• the pockets are a cool idea. You will note that even in the picture there isn't any top stitching, in fact there is no real stitching at all. The side panels are long and you make a fold in them that creates the pocket and the sides of this pocket bag are captured in the side seams and the seams where the front panel is attached.
• that's the good news. To make the side panel long enough for all this folding business you have an extra piece you stitch on, nothing more than an rectangle,and this seam is then hidden by the face of the pocket after you have done the fold up. This extra seam you sew to created this extra length doesn't make any sense to me, except for the probably reasonable desire to save on fabric in the layout. In a knit this seam makes kind a ridge that shows through and I will just tape this all together and cut the side panels and one long piece in the next knit version.

Now here are my pictures. One taken today by my long suffering friend at work in my natural habitat with my natural at work teaching expression on my face. Gives you an idea...

A close-up in case you can't believe your eyes, also lightened with my superior photo editing skills to help you see the detail, which it doesn't at all.

For that reason when I sent home to let the dogs out and have lunch I did something no one should ever do.

I took a selfie of my stomach.

Here it is with the note that the pockets are actually not crooked, my arm was up dealing with the camera:

This will give you an idea how the pockets are formed.

All in all I am really pleased with this dress, although I think the colour might be a bit dull. That's why I have the bright scarf with it and am considering also wearing it with a big turquoise "statement necklace" I bought in Florida where things like that look normal, as opposed to here in Nova Scotia where they do not.

The next time I make this pattern, which will be soon, I am going to work in a ponte.

I have to tell you about this fabric I used here, a so-called "scuba knit."

Let's not let the wool be pulled over our eyes folks - this is really heavy old polyester that we would have said "eeww" to before they renamed it and tried to talk us into believing it was anything but.

IMO this fabric should stay with wet suits or form fitting dresses that are more or less urban wetsuits and taken out of the hands of your average person making dresses like say me. I mean this stuff will outlast me, stand up in the corner by itself, but it sort of feels like it was manufactured from recycled tires.

My grandmother wore this stuff and had hot flashes in it at teas in church basements for the rest of her life.

I myself taught in it yesterday and noticed fog on my glasses.

Not to mention the stitching issues.

I have used this fabric before to make a straight skirt and had some trouble with skipped stitches that I eventually worked out.

This time, in a heavier version, no such luck. I tried every needle in my arsenal and in the end the only thing that did sew through it OK was my serger so this is a totally serged dress. Not ideal when the seams should be pressed open but best I could do.

So final verdict. Good pattern with potential, kind of knuckle head fabric.

On to the next thing.

Flypaper thoughts, last Saturday in September

• Just spent the morning replacing a zipper in a jacket for my youngest son
• This is the ultimate test of devotion
• I would change "in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer"
• To "would you replace a zipper for this person"
• That would clear the church out of the 50% who wouldn't make it
• Wonderful piece in the NYTimes on blogger burnout
• None of that happening here
• Explains to me that those wonderful DYI palaces are another business
• Not that if anyone offered me my own line based on my fabulous blog I would turn it down
• What would that be?
• Patterns for the apple shape?
• A waterpic for dog teeth?
• For my mother a walker with skiis for the winter?
• Frozen dinners that were healthier than from scratch and from the market?
• You all have my number
• Two more Renfrews and then it's back to shirts
• Joined the Archer shirt sew-along
• So happy there is now a paper pattern
• Sticking paper together on the dining room table is best done by someone less random
• Am considering throwing out one dull work outfit every month until I go part-time
• I think this is brilliant
• Better do an outfit count first
• One of the great things about being a mature type
• Is that you are old enough to see that what goes around comes around
• Very reassuring
• The kids came home with head lice
• They and every other kid in the school system apparently
• How did this happen when there are so many perfectionist mothers around these days?
• Our mothers gave us canned creamed corn and white bread and we were louse free
• Finished my first ever crochet project
• A lap quilt big enough to cover two king sized beds
• I got carried away
• Either that or I should have counted stitches as I went
• Might make a dishcoth next
• If I could sew all day every day would I?
• Love to find out
• Going to NYC end of October to see the kids and buy buttons
• Am holding my breath
• Why do 18 year old students wait for an elevator to take them up one flight of stairs?
• Another mystery of life

Thought for the day

When my husband was in Tennessee and I would go visit him we stayed at one of those extended stay hotels companies use.

There was a maintenance man there called John who was just lovely. I used to chat to him on my way to and from my walks.

One of his expressions, he used this a lot, was "don't get in a rush now". This made particular sense when it was hot, but I think he said it year around.

This has stayed with me because it struck me as such an unusual way to look at things.

Me being far more north than a Yankee and of a world where "I am so busy" and "have so much to do" are what everyone says to each other instead of hello.

I thought of John last night when I opened up a new shirt pattern with 12 pieces and I thought, that's such a lot of work I am going to be busy.

But then I thought.

Barbara you have already enough clothes in your closet for four people. You are not going to be standing by naked waiting for this shirt to be made before you step out of the house.

I can take my time with this, all 12 pieces, and the world is going to proceed just fine.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I need to do next in my life, doing more teaching of sewing is one thing, but it has occurred to me that one of the first things I need to do on a personal level, right now, is re-evaluate my relationship with time.

I'm thinking that if you are not in such a rush you have actually have more time.

Ponder that one with me.

More time maybe to chat with folks and have conversations they will remember.

Mr. Pinterest

You saw how far I took the birthday cake.

When the going gets tough the tough call in Poppa Leo.

So here is the cake under construction:

And at the party:

A good manager knows when to delegate.

Have a great week, talk soon.

Sewing and cakes

Yesterday between all other activities I finished yet another shirt, this one the grey bridges fabric, for my son in New York and mailed it off.

Did I have the presence of mind to take a picture of it? 

No of course not. 

But then again you are probably sick of my shirt shots. I did the flat felled seams on it, Pam Howard's way, and was very happy with them. Just so you know.

The thing is what is this blog anyway? A display case for production? I am not even in the running for that one, so better done elsewhere.

I have also managed to squeeze in a little sewing for myself while I work on my next shirt of bits and pieces. 

Since I am back teaching I sort of rushed through these projects and I am well aware my pattern matching was not up to par. 

We will file that under Oh Well and move on.

Another Renfrew in striped high quality bamboo knit from Stitches Halifax. I figure with my figure I can wear the banded versions of this pattern with skirts and will lengthen it into a tunic for wearing with pants. Here we go, I am in love with this cowl:

I also knocked off a short sleeve version of McCalls 6932.

I was thinking I need an easy shirt for tearing around the house and this is how that turned out:

I really like the way the collar sits but of course being a unisex pattern it has basically been drafted for a man, hence the really dropped shoulders and wide sleeves and more snugness in the hips than these hips require.

Still there is potential here and I am going to follow up on it by going down a size and adding hip ease. Stay tuned on that one.

And now onto cakes.

Today is Miss Scarlett's kid party and I am making the cake.

I made the mistake of going to Pinterest for ideas.

You have to remember that the folks on Pinterest are not operating on the 24 hour clock. They seem to be working with 78 hour days and none of that sleeping. I should have figured this out when I saw this easy craft:

OK. 

Now these are cute, but what does the rest of a life that has the time and patience to do this look like?

Me I am still trying to match socks.

But reality doesn't intervene much on my aspirations.

After all I sew.

So when I saw this on Pinterest I said perfect. How hard can this be?

Of course I cut it right down to my available layer cake pans, which is four, and hauled out my dusty old box of food colouring, deciding to reduce it to pastels because I am highly suspicious of food colouring.

Anyway despite giving that up and my best intentions here is what I ended up with at about eleven last night:

A brownish purple cake.

A greenish blue cake.

An organish pink cake.

A yellow cake that just looks like yellow cake which in fact it is.

Thank goodness for icing and smarties.

Wish me luck.

Percolating Butterick 6690

I am almost finished my next son shirt, yet another version of McCalls 6613 which is becoming my go to for a button-down shirt, and thinking of my next project for myself.

I am thinking of this one Butterick 6099 which I picked up on my last pattern BMV buying frenzy. I have an idea in my head to try to use as many of the pieces from my previous male family member shirts in it as I can.

Oh and here is what that pattern looks like:

When I wear this I intend to have a more cheerful look on my face. What's with this? " I knew thong underwear was a bad idea with these jeans"?

The idea has something to do with my visit this summer from my sister Nancy.

Nancy is quite creative and has an eye for decor. I asked her that old "what do I do with my house?" question. The homestead is in a bit of a state of flux, that place you get to when everyone has left home a while ago but left their odds and ends and things much larger than that (like five surfboards) with you.

The battering that happens when you have raised three kids in a small house has remained too along with the what do I do with their old room issue.

One of my sisters promptly sold both beds and turned one room into a sewing room and one into an office. Other folks, like Michelle's Obama's mother kept her old room just like it was in Chicago. I am sort of in the middle. I handed all their possessions over to the two that moved out and stayed local but have been reluctant to do anything with the room of the one who moved away to the US. Having a room that was left behind, like a childhood, didn't really make me happy either, but I don't want to erase his presence from where I am every day either.

I couldn't figure it out.

Then Nancy arrived and helped me out.

Her idea was to take personal things from that room, like some of the pictures and move them into the living room and kitchen where I can see them every day and to make that room into a better guest room so he and who ever else shows up as a real adult comfortable place to stay and not a remnant.

I have started to do that and it feels good to move parts of him back into the mainstream of the house.

This was also part of a process that Nancy calls shopping your house which means you move things you have put away into your main rooms and rotate things with the season. For instance she took old poetry books that were my grandfather's, he loved poetry, and moved them to a shelf in the living room. Lots of things like that.

So in the convoluted place that is my brain I have decided in this next project, rather than just using new fabric or even one piece I have, of shopping my sewing room and incorporating some of what I have been sewing into something that I am working on now.

Does any of this make any sense to you?

Craftsy review: Pam Howard's Classic Tailored shirt

One of the many things that happened to me over the summer was that my male relatives got a look at the shirts I have started to make for my sons and put in orders.

So many in fact that my fall sewing is going to involve alternating between projects for myself and projects for other people - with a required trip to NYC (great) for supplies.

I usually am not all that crazy about sewing for other people, because non sewers can be incredibly picky and request things that can't really be done (can you let out this wedding dress 4" - I forgot to tell you I was pregnant) but family, and those who want basically the same garment, are different.

Also let's face it my vanity took a nice boost to actually have requests for my sewing when the response around here to some of the things I make for myself can run along the lines of "well I wouldn't wear it."

Since I appear to be on a shirt making roll I decided to sign up for Pam Howard's shirt making class on Craftsy.

I will be honest with you, my Craftsy experiences have been mixed, ranging from a fabulous beginners crochet and some interesting cooking classes to a design your own knitwear class that, I should have known better, seemed to require a Phd in advanced mathematics - something that a person who was bribed to finish her grade 10 algebra by her teacher father with promises of pickled herring (I will pretty much do anything for pickled herring) is unlikely to ever get.

Back to Pam Howard's class.

It really wasn't what I was expecting.

In my mind, based on no evidence, I was hoping for some more tricks and tips - industrial methods or maybe a new way of doing the tricky parts, sort of an expanded Off the Cuff style.

I was surprised to find instead that Howard uses fairly conventional techniques and this really is a woman's style shirt, as opposed to a classic man's shirt (which is exactly what the course description promised).

For instance she hand sews down her collar bands and cuffs (no burrito method here) and uses a continuous placket rather than a real tailored placket. I was also surprised that she does her final press with sizing, which I am pretty sure is hard to get in Canada.

So at first impression I was a little disappointed.

Then I watched more closely.

What makes Howard's sewing amazingly precise is her technique at the machine and the ironing board. Like the best of professional sewers she really knows how to manipulate fabric with her hands and that is the secret to her accuracy.

She also has an amazingly calm and serene style and approach - you just feel yourself relaxing when you listen to her - and this, I realized, the perfect anecdote to the mentality of the quick and very experienced sewer who has got into the habit of rushing through sewing.

Pam Howard's message is - slow down, be careful, try holding it this way, enjoy the process - exactly what someone who has been sewing forever, like me, needs to hear.

So this morning as I took it a bit easier and used her simple but careful "finger felling" technique on the current shirt, I actually produced my best ever flat felled seam, no mess, no fuss and no stress.

So my verdict: great class, great teacher, more for even an experienced sewer to learn that may first appear, a great way to get back to some precision sewing and, most of all, find the zen in the process again.

Thank you Pam.