A WordPress Site

Author: 459856pwpadmin

Meet the Dress Forms

Presenting Penelope Anne (forward) and Matilda (background):

Penelope is modeling the new pants for her human, my
DSD. They don’t fit her perfectly, as
well as they do DSD in the photos I took, but they are pretty close. I spent several hours this morning reconfiguring Penelope’s padding. In her original
form her measurements were mostly right (she was a little small across the
shoulders and lower hips) but she was too round and barrel shaped. She needed to be thinner in profile and wider
side to side. She is still not quite
right but she is the best I think I can manage without the actual person here
for comparison. I did manage to square
up her upper shoulders in the back and get a little bit of that back curve that
is needed, but she does not come close to having the kind of sway-back her
human does.

Still, I hope this is a good place to begin.

I also padded out Matilda who had remained frozen in my
shape from a couple of years ago. She is
now cushier through the waist and tummy, much like her human. Now we actually wear the same size.

January 29, 2006
A Bit of a disappointment

I finished Phillipa Gregory’s new book of fiction on Tudor England, The Constant Princess. It was a very enjoyable read, Ms. Gregory is a good storyteller, and it had enough imagined historical detail and political intrigue to keep me pedaling away on my exercise bicycle. The fact that I read it as a bicycle book, despite the weight of the hardcover, was a good choice, as I don’t believe it is up to the standards of her previous books and I would have gotten quite frustrated with it without the distraction of being strapped into an exercise bicycle. The historical detail in these books is always loosely tied into known historical fact, and often quite imagined. I am well aware that they are fiction and not accurate. Usually, the story, and the character development are wonderful though and this carries one through, not so much in this book. Many characters are lose stereotypes, barely sketched out, pops for the main character, who comes across as somewhat shadowy as well. The previous books have also given a more engaging view of the complexities of court intrigue and politics in the period. A bit of a disappointment really.

An escapist novel is always a wonderful thing but this one disappoints. A good historical novel, although fiction, engages the reader in alternative world and at the same time encourages the reader, or has always encouraged me at least, to want to learn more, to explore the actual history learn the facts about a time and person. This book does not accomplish that aim. It is quickly forgotten.

The next book is promising to be far more fulfilling. I started reading Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking today and was entranced. Poignantly and beautifully written, and yet very forward driving. I have trouble stopping and the book is difficult to put down. Still I will force myself only to read this on the bike.

January 27, 2006
In which I dream of sewing Armani and Chanel

Yesterday was one of those days were everything went wrong and I
got to be everyone’s errand girl. I had
hoped for some sewing time, thought I could whip up a sweater set, which
actually looks different every time I think about it, so who knows how it will
turn out, but that is another story for another day, a day of actual sewing.

Yesterday was a day of virtual sewing.

The day might have gone better if I had not spent so long in
the morning perusing the Paris Couture Collections at Style.com. I really don’t regret that, the couture shows are my favorite. I could post tons of photos, but Liana has
already posted all the photos that I thought best and her comments and
selections are much more astute and observant than mine. Truthfully, I love reading her take on the
collections as much as I love seeing the pictures themselves. If you are interested go have a look.

When I got home, about 7:30, after being in the gym at the height of the evening post-work
rush, I was tired and crotchety from running around all day, and not in my most
productive frame of mind. I collapsed in
my favorite chair and allowed myself to think back over the collection pictures
and start imagining what I would sew if I could sew everything I wanted from
these collections. It might have been
more productive to go right up to my sewing room and get to work, but in some
ways the dream time was more refreshing. About the time I was winding down my mental sewing and preparing for the
actual thing, DH had arrived, dinner had to be made, and my time was once again
wrenched out of my control. I
increasingly admire those who work all day, come home to feed and tend their
families and still manage to sew on a daily basis.

First I was thinking about Armani. Now there were several nice things in that
show, and I have several ideas, but primarily I was thinking of this suit:

Now of course Liana posted this on her blog and pointed out the directionality of the stripes. I too had to lighten the photo considerably to get a sense of what was going on here, something I might have missed if she had not pointed it out. Once I looked however, I was inspired.

Notice that the the stripes on the body do not go all in the same direction. The lower portion of the jacket is cut on the cross-grain so that the stripes encirlcle the body and emphasize the waist. This is contrasted with the fabric at the bodice or upper part of the jacket, which is cut on the bias. Notice how the stripes seem to radiate out from the top closure at the base of the collar, and how the stripes curve around the bust, emphasizing the curve. This contrast would provide a slimming feature even for those were no longer quite slender through the waistline.

I don’t know if these shoulder portions of the jacket extend right into the undercollar with the bias of the fabric aiding the drape of the collar or if the collar revers is cut seperately. Liana might have figured this out. She is much more observant than I.

Also notice the bias sleeves, except for the cuff, where the stripes go around the wrist.

To aid my memory I sketched out my interpretation of this jacket:

I really like the shape of this jacket and the angles of the
pinstripes. I think there is a lot to learn and be inspired by in this jacket particularly the use of grain and the bias, and the use of the directionality of the fabric to emphasize this. Not only do you have the drape of the bias to emphasize womanly curves, an Armani strength, but you have the visual lines created by the fabric which can emphasize or de-emphasize our strengths and weakness, creating a shape where it might not be all that obvious, as well as emphasizing what is there.

After my peregrinations on Armani, I started thinking about the Chanel show. Liana showed this dress:

which I think is very nice with the shrug-like
shaping and the slightly fuller skirt.

There was also this dress:

As you can see, the second dress is a variation on the first. I like the more geometric treatment at the neckline, but both are very nice and quite adaptable.

By manipulating the photos extensively in Photoshop I was able to make out some of the seaming, but my Photoshop skills are not so highly developed that, by the time I could see what was going, there was much of a presentable picture left to post. Both dresses have horizontal seams just at, or just below, the bustline, and both have horizontal seams at the hip as well, much like the lighter dresses in the show. On the second dress, the seam is definitely below the bust, but I am not convinced this is the case in the first dress. Both dresses also have princess seams which extend at least as far as the pockets below the hipline, and probably extend beyond that as well:

Here is my interpretation, kind of a melding of the two styles:

The potentials for this shape, with variations on sleeves, neckline (full or cropped shrug), and skirt width, are endless and I can envision it in various fabrics. Even though the waist seems to be the emphasis this year, the basic design of the dress is quite classic and could flatter many. Of course, for myself, I would leave the flaps off the pockets at that low hip level, as this would most definitely not be a flattering look for me. But then, that is one of the joys of sewing one’s own.

Even though my sewing explorations last night were virtual, I can see that the ideas generated will spill over into my actual sewing and who knows where these ideas might turn up?

January 26, 2006
Pants for DSD

Finally!

Here I am finishing up the hem on Miriam’s pants, closely
supervised by Tabasco (those
little lines do disappear with pressing).

In all truth I should have begun these before this; there
was no reason for the delay other than my own mental peregrinations and over-contemplation
of the task at hand. All that remained
were simple repairs, putting in the waistband, and doing the hem. In fact, it probably took me longer to remove
the elastic that I had “basted” at the waist than it took me to put in the Comfy Waistband from Pamela Isaacs Erny. I should have used that technique from the beginning. I had properly marked the waist at the first fitting;
fixing the completed waistband when I changed the darts would have been much
simpler than ripping out the overly complicated stitching I had used to begin
with. Live and learn.

The problem looked like this:

The pants came back from DSD with very few alterations. The right hip needed to be taken in where
there was an extra bulge of fabric below the hip curve (she has a high hip and
I misjudged the curve). The inexplicable
part consisted of two blue chalk marks
marking a “big fold” in the back, which I could not see for the life me, even
modeled on the intended recipient. I
could see the lines, I could see where they pointed (upper hip) and I could see
that the pants were perhaps a little snug across the upper hip in the back, but
I could not see any fold or wrinkle when she was standing in front of me. She and her DH insisted it was there, and I
do believe them.

I wondered if perhaps when I took up the excess at the side seam I eliminated
the problem but that seems unlikely. I
then wondered if perhaps when they pinned out the excess, not being very
proficient in the dressmaker’s art, they pinned a little tight and caused the wrinkle. I will never know. I didn’t see it but, just to be sure, I
released a little fabric from the upper hip in the right back just to be on the
safe side.

The test now will be to see if the pants fit now or have
been made worse by my fiddling.

I love the comfy waistband and I am sure DSD will too. It is so simple I am amazed that I have been
using more complicated and less attractive methods for years. This will also make it easy to alter if I did
indeed mess up the back with my manipulations, or if alterations are needed in
the future.

I did not like the look of machine hems on the texture of
this cotton knits and it looked kind of fiddly on pants that were otherwise
clean with on other exposed stitching so I decided to hand hem them. This has taken me two evenings and a little
extra since I like to put in three rows of tiny stitches as espoused by Cynthia
Guffey. I have about 4 inches to go and
then I need to take the pants and mark the alterations I made to the original
pattern so that I will hopefully know what I am doing to the next pair. I suppose that if I had planned on hand
hemming the pants I might have taken time and changed the thread on the serger
to be a darker shade of blue, although I kind of like the two rows of pale blue
serging at waist and hem.

January 24, 2006
Brokeback Mountain

I finally got to see Brokeback Mountain and I am glad that I did,
although I had been rather cautiously interested before venturing into the
movie theater. I am not sure that my
mixed feelings were really due to the movie itself, but were more brought on by
the whole issue of the disappointments that often arise from seeing movies made
from beloved books and my own mixed feelings about Annie Proulx.

I had seen The Shipping News and enjoyed it, which at the time
surprised me because I had been absolutely completely unable to get through the
book. I attempted to start it more than
once; each time I gave up before getting very far. Eventually the project was abandoned as
worthless. The problem here is that I loved the story by Annie Proulx.

Prouxl is an absolutely
masterful writer of short stories, and I view the art of writing short stories
as something completely different from writing novels. She is able to condense whole worlds,
scenes, or moments from life into a single line and imbue them with fullness
and life. To be able to write a short
story is to be a master of the microcosm, to be able to condense epics into
compact spaces without losing any of their meaning or resonance. In The Shipping News I thought Proulx was a
short story writer trying to write a novel and not particularly
succeeding. My judgment may be too harsh. Truthfully, I have never attempted to read any other novel she has
written, although I have considered trying That Old Ace in the Hole. But I seek out and treasure her
short stories.

Back to the movie: It
was certainly an excellent movie and it surprised me on several fronts. It was pretty faithful to the story. I think it was also pretty faithful to the
setting of the story and the people and places it is supposed to depict,
although I have no experience with the emotional lives of gay men and only a
little glimmer of a feel for the west and cowboys.. The cinematography is absolutely
beautiful. The movie itself is visually
breathtaking. The story is well done and
quite moving. People were sobbing all
around me. That I was crying as well is
no indication of anything as I will shed a tear at any particularly sad or
romantic movie no matter what my intellectual thoughts on the quality of the film
may be. Even Heath Ledger, an actor I
had previously not thought much about, considering him more of a pretty boy
than a serious actor, surprised me with a memorable performance.

But, for all its beauty and sentiment I think the movie does
not begin to compare with the story. I
suspect if I had never read the story I would think it is an excellent and
meaningful movie and the story itself would stay with me for some time. But the movie did not really stay with me: I walked out of the theater, and, although I
thought about the movie, it began to fade; the scenes remembered from the film
were replaced in my mind by the text from the story, and found wanting. It was
like the movie was a shadow. Annie
Proulx’s prose conveyed far more, far more elegantly.

January 24, 2006
What to have for dinner

Menu

Bluefish baked on a Bed of leeks and Potatoes

Beets with Mustard Sauce

Sautéed beet leaves with crispy stems

George and I have been doing the grocery shopping together
the last couple of months and I really enjoy going with him. I think we have both relaxed as time goes on,
he is more patient with my foibles and pickiness about getting this item versus
that, and I am more patient. Certainly
grocery shopping takes longer, but it is also so much more enjoyable and we can
discuss what menu delights might come
out of the new and unexpected things we see in the market. The whole process has turned out to be quite
wonderful.

Today I found some fairly nice produce, nice shallots and
peppers, even tiny hot Thai peppers. There was also some local garlic that still looked pretty good, some
fresh galangal root, and really lovely cauliflower without any brown spots or
yucky areas. Even the ginger was young
and still kind of pink, crisp and moist, not the old dried up stuff I usually
find.

Then, on top of everything, the first thing I noticed when
we walked into the fish market was a really huge pile of fresh bluefish,
George’s favorite fish. Bluefish has
been in short supply lately. We haven’t
seen any in the market since early spring, surprising as there is usually a
pretty reasonable bluefish season from mid summer to mid-late fall. When we talk to the manager, he tells me that
the bluefish he has seen at the market have just not been good, but he will
keep his eyes open. I know George
reminds him every week, but I think he was despairing of ever seeing bluefish
again.

It took G a few moments to notice, he was thinking tuna, as that’s what we
bought last week, and squid. I had to
hint that there was something he would really like in the case and when he
finally spotted it he could dance for joy.

As it happened, we had just purchased some really gorgeous
leeks at Hannaford and I knew they were sitting in the car. I knew I would sauté the leeks until very
tender and soft and then layer them on top of thinly sliced Yukon gold potatoes, bake them until the potatoes were soft and beginning to crisp
around the edges. Then I would add the
bluefish on top with some herbed bread crumbs and bake it until everything was
browned and bubbly.

I still didn’t have tonight’s vegetable, I had left today
open on the menu, but when I saw the beautiful beets in the produce section I
knew they were going in my basket. The
beets looked great, but even more telling, the stems were firm and crisp and
the leaves looked absolutely fresh and crisp and luscious.

The beets can bake while I make the potatoes and fish and I
can toss them with a little mustard sauce just before serving. I will mince the beet stems up really tiny
and caramelize them with onions until they are almost all soft and brown and
jam-like, then I will stir in garlic and the beet greens, finishing off with a
dusting of fennel pollen.

Ooh, I can’t wait for dinner time. Perhaps I should go down in the basement and
see if I can find a nice bottle of wine.

January 21, 2006
Out of Touch

I am still here and actually sewing, although at the moment the output has been more along the lines of muslins that are not working….I always reluctant to write about the things I am working on that never become anything (failure issues) but then, if I don’t overcome that fear then I will probably have nothing to write about.

Speaking of failure, my computer went down on the weekend during an ice/wind/thunderstorm. The power went out but it is on a surge protector/UPS and nothing else died…who knows what happened. At any rate I have been on the phone with Dell, the technician has been here, the problem was greater than originally suspected, and I am once again waiting for the technician to return with the new parts.

Meanwhile I have finally reorganized my sewing room so it is actually functional and I can easily work at my paying job or sew or do both in there. I am still hoping for a more major reorganization with a cutting table in the near future, but I needed a functioning room first. Since this is a borrowed computer, there are no photo opportunities but they will come eventually. I had better get back to sewing before the computer gets fixed and I have to catch up on all that work I am missing. Although now that I think about it, I am a little reluctant because the wind is high today and the power is a little wonky, the lights have been fading in and out all morning. I wonder what that will do to my computerized sewing machine? Probably best not to push my luck.

January 18, 2006
Confessions of a sloppy seamstress

I have a confession to make: the stitches on the patch of my DH’s red check shirt are not
perfect. In fact they are not even all
that attractive.

Oh, the shirt is fine. The patch and the stitching is invisible from the outside, but the
inside is a mess. I expect the patch to
visible, but I had hoped the stitching would be lovingly perfect. Alas this is not so. Oh there are no knots or dangling thread
tangles, just uneven imperfect stitches. I should redo it, but I will not. I seriously doubt that anyone will pull my DH’s shirt off him and say
“oh you poor man, your wife can’t even mend your shirts nicely”. I don’t really think anyone will see the
inside of DH’s shirt except himself and his laundress (me) and the sloppy work
will remind me about how upset I was that night.

I was upset because it was late, after 11 and DH was not yet
home from the office. In fact I had spoken to him and he said he had much work
still to do. Now, I don’t mind hard
work and late hours, ghee, if I did I would never have married a surgeon. When DH was in active practice, I had little
patience with other doctor’s wives who complained that their husbands were gone
all the time and they had to do everything themselves. I always figured I knew what I was getting
into. Besides I have always been a pretty independent sort, and I know
perfectly well that when I’ve worked a 14 hour or longer day, I don’t feel
inspired to help out around the house either.

But now that he is “retired” and working at his retirement
career, I hate for him to work that hard…it’s one thing when you are young and
ambitious and driven, and another completely when you are in your 70’s no
matter how fit and strong you are. I
still don’t mind him working if he loves it. But so far this year he hasn’t left the office before 9 PM any night, and when he comes home he
dreads having to go back. I am
increasingly thinking it is time for retirement. I want DH to enjoy his life.

I wasn’t upset at DH, I was more worried and concerned about
him. I was annoyed at all the other
peopled involved, the staff who book him so heavily, the clients who keep
plaguing him with increasingly niggling and pedantic demands that are, for the
most part, repetitive nonsense.

He finally called at 12:15 AM. I made dinner while the poor thing drove
home. He was not happy to go back to
work on Friday, even thought it was only for a couple of hours. After the late night, between work, and gym,
and grocery shopping, there was no sewing yesterday. Can we make it better? Is it worth it? Only time will tell.

January 14, 2006
It’s not that there has been no sewing around here, it is
just that the sewing isn’t really blog-worthy, or interesting to anyone who can
sew on a button. In fact, that is
precisely what I have been doing, at least in part…sewing on buttons.

Somehow we had a little button popping festival around here
lately and mending was in order. Not my
favorite task mind you, I would much rather be creating something new, but,
well old garments are old friends as well and I can’t resign them to the trash
or the consignment bin (which wouldn’t take them sans buttons anyway) without
offering up a little repair and restoration.

Of course sewing on a button isn’t always a question of
merely sewing on a button. For example
the collar button came off of my DH’s favorite red and white checked shirt. It
is not a new shirt, but then favorite shirts rarely are, by the time they are
elevated to favorite status, all the previous favorites have pretty much fallen
by the wayside. As a result the shirt is
a little worn around the edges, like my DH, and like me in fact. I like to think we all get better with age,
but truthfully, like shirts, we also get a little worn.

Back to the shirt, the button fell off not because it wasn’t
sewn on beautifully. All the threads
were attached. The button fell off
because it has pulled through the fabric which has gotten a little worn and
frayed in that area from years of pressure from buttoning those button-down
collars. It would be nice if shirts came
with little bits of extra fabric along with the extra buttons to facilitate an
invisible patch, but I harbor no hopes that this might happen. In fact I believe it is increasingly
unlikely.

And so I search high and low for a likely candidate. This shirting is very thin, everything I find
is too heavy, or, if it is thin, it is too flimsy; the next button will also
just pull right through, even with a layer of fusible interfacing between the shirt
and the new inside patch. Finally I find
it, a selvedge piece off an old white sheet that I have been using for muslins
of late, light but strong.. A little
interfacing is fused behind the hole in the fabric, the patch is applied on the
inside of the shirt and lovingly sewn down with tiny little stitches, and,
finally, the button is attached.

I don’t suppose you want to hear about hemming jeans do you?

January 12, 2006
Slinking down to Knoxville

When Miriam bought a pair of black slinky pants on sale at Chico’s I initially thought “no problem”. After all, the kind of double needle hem that came on the pants is an easy thing to sew, how hard could it be to shorten the pants? Hard no. Time consuming yes.

Initially I thought the pants looked so good on Miriam that I would willingly run out and buy her more whenever they came on sale and shorten them for her, now that I know the inseam length. That was before I realized that I had to take the existing hem out before shortening the pants. Obvious I know. But I’ve been known to walk right on past the obvious without even noticing.

The first time I tried to pick out the tiny black stitches from the ribbed black slinky fabric I thought my head was going to explode and my eyes were going to burst out of my head like cannonballs. Of course I had a headache and sinus infection at the time. Delay seemed the sanest option.

Even with a clear head, seeing the stitches was difficult.

They look pretty good here don’t they? By carefully
positioning the brightest (and hottest) halogen lamp in the house just so, the
stitches seemed quite evident. Piece of
cake I thought…

until I turned that edge up and tried to actually see the
individual stitches hidden in that cushy slinky fabric. Believe me, I saw no more than you do in the
above photo. There is a vague shadow of
a stitch across the blade.

Talk about tedious and time consuming work…2 hours later the
old hems were out.

That accomplished, it only took about 10 minutes to sew the
new hems. I shall subject you to the
boring hem shot:

I realize now of course that making slinky pants would take
no more time, and probably less, than ripping out that hem. The construction of these is quite
simple. I traced the pants to make a
basic pattern before I shipped them down to Tennessee.

January 10, 2006