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Author: 459856pwpadmin

  • Damn the Computers

    I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth.  But I haven’t sewn either. Matilda is still wearing the unfinished butterfly top; she is not sure she wants to give it up.  I washed some knit fabric for a simple top.  My sewing world stopped and is in a holding pattern.

    My computer died Tuesday morning;  I was not happy.  The thought of having the Dell technician come crawl around in my sewing room to get at it did inspire me to finally clean the sewing room.  No more dust bunnies, no sewing stuff piled up willy-nilly.  A small pile of ironing still exists, better than the 9-mile high pile I started with though. 

    While I waited for the missing technician (he was supposed to come Wednesday but showed up on Thursday instead — after I spent a day and a half waiting) I caught up on a lot of housework, not usually my favorite task but good restless make-work, and a lot of weed pulling.

    After the technician came and installed a new modem (such a little card to bring down a whole computer) I thought everything worked.  He played around with my desktop, "cleaning it up" and turned off all those programs that start up with the computer, like my firewall and anti-virus protection stuff.  Annoying I thought.    Apparently something else happened as well.  I could get on the internet but could not access any site that required any kind of password protection.  BIG PAIN.  HIgh frustration level.  I checked all the settings on my computer.  My internet provider checked all the settings on my computer.  MIcrosoft checked all the settings on my computer, reset them and checked them again.  Dell did the same.

    By this time I am starting to run around, steam coming out of my ears, ready to uproot not just little maple seedlings but capable of pulling whole large plants out of the ground.

    No one knows what to do.  I have backed up all my data and saved all my photos.  The agreed upon solution is to erase my hard drive and reinstall everything from Windows on up.  We know what I will be doing next week.  Putting the data back is the least of it.  Getting all the programs back is the painful part.

    If this doesn’t work —

    Well, If you hear a really loud noise that sounds like an explosion and see a large cloud rising in the sky it is not nuclear armageddon.  It will just be me losing it.

    Siberianiris2005 I will close with a flower.  This one opened on Thursday.  I hope it is a barbinger of good things to come.

  • There’s No Place Like Home

    Danger, no sewing ahead, only distractions!!

    It has been so long since we had a weekend at home with no plans, well except for Friday, but that still left three nice, long, unencumbered days.  What a pleasure.  I had almost forgotten how nice it is just be able to relax and putter about the place; even doing necessary tasks seems enjoyable.

    I was terribly behind on garden work, but then, since I hadn’t had a free weekend since early April, that is probably not surprising.  The maple has been very prolific and there are thousands of little seedlings to pull.  Luckily I genuinely enjoy weeding, and the weather was glorious this weekend with the exception of a couple of thunderstorms.  Luckily they usually came at the end of the day and saved my having to water newly planted plants.  Sitting in the yard, looking at the flowers and the various textures of the greenery is such a joy, rooting delicately among the leaves, uprooting the undesirables, while the breeze gently blows… well, it is all an almost zen-like experience.  What a lovely way to welcome summer.

    Of course there was harder work, lugging bags of mulch, digging and planting, dragging the hoses out of the basement and installing new hose reels.  All of those tasks have served to make my arms and shoulders, not to mention my back, a little more tired than usual.  It is a good tiredness though, a tiredness derived from a job well done, somehow far more gratifying than the exhaustion that comes from wrangling with recalcitrant computers and annoying phone calls.

    The irises are blooming:

    Iris2005 I just love seeing them.  Even though the season is short, it is worth every moment.  Last year I had the Dahlias in the iris bed as well and the color was wonderful.  The yellow irises re-bloomed last fall, but the purple ones did not.  This year who knows:
    I have to rebuild that bed once the blooms are finished and there is no point in planting the dahlias until that task is done.  I can’t see uprooting them twice.  The plow  pushed up one side of the bed into a mound, and the winter lake that forms in the neighbor’s glade drains right through the middle of this bed, washing the soil away.  I need to put in a drain channel.  If I dig up the irises, even relocating them into a temporary bed, I am not sure if the second bloom will be affected. 

    The other major distraction of my weekend, has been cooking, which is always one of my favorite tasks anyway.  The farmer’s market is open for the season, as is the Migliorelli farm stand so cooking is getting fun again.  Late winter is always so depressing because the produce is less than stellar.  I was away too much of the spring and was afraid that I had missed all the wonderful early spring produce.  I needn’t have worried:  produce abounds and I had a wonderful time in the kitchen. 

    The asparagus is up in the garden and the mushroom man had morels:

    Morels You probably have to be a mushroom lover to appreciate this photo, but here is a plate of about 50 morels waiting to be transformed into tonight’s dinner.  Cornbread and a bowl of oven braised morels in broth is not a traditional Memorial Day dinner, but it is great comfort food for weary bodies after working in the yard, getting the pool open, and various outdoor tasks.  A salad with roasted asparagus and shaved Parmesan will round out the meal.  We did give the grill its inaugural fun  run for lunch though.

    I have had so much fun cooking, I have not even had time  or energy for sewing.  If I was lucky I would get a little knitting done in the evening, but last night I was too tired even for that .   Housecleaning is the recourse of the body and mind struggling to stay awake.  My sewing room is still piled up with booty and detritus from my various trips.  The kitchen island was fully occupied with food so cutting out was impossible.  Do I care?  No.  Cooking and eating are such pleasures.  We had fresh bok choy cooked Thai style with pork and wide rice noodles, Chicken with asparagus and morels, risotto with veal and morels, fresh tiny Japanese turnips stir-fried with beef and the wonderful turnip greens. 

    Do I know how I managed to gain weight the past few years?  Of course I do.  I enjoy the pleasures of the kitchen far too much.  Sometimes I envy my friends who don’t enjoy cooking, or even eating all that much.  But then I just take a bite of something wonderful, savor the sensations on my tongue, and know that it is all worthwhile. 

    If only I had more time to indulge in everything.  I really do want it all.

  • Skirting the issue

    Ahh, the famous headless shot…

    Featherskirt3_1 Not that you really need to see my head anyway.  Besides I really wanted to show off my cute new shoes, purchased just because I was making this skirt.

    I actually saw the shoes the day I bought the fabric for the skirt, but was too tired to buy them then.  I had to be back in NYC a week later, the shoes were still there, and I knew that it was fate that brought us together.  They actually go with quite a few things in my wardrobe.

    Note the cute yellow heel, that’s what really brings a smile to my face and a little skip to my step.

    Featherskirt4

    The skirt is probably a little loose for a pencil skirt, but I am still trying to work out the fit-when-I-am-sitting issue.  A narrower skirt looks great standing and walking, but since I bend funny due to the fused back and lack of lower lordotic curve, I need extra room to sit.  Now I personally don’t mind just hiking my skirt up to my hips, especially at home when no one is around, or in the car when I am squirming around, but it is not something that is generally done in polite company.  Actually, if I sit in a short, meaning knee length or above, skirt that is at all fitted, unless it is very roomy, it hikes itself right up there anyway.   Good thing I have nice legs.

    I am going to continue to mull over the purple top options a few days longer but all the wonderful comments are really helpful.  I am leaning toward greater overlap and still torn over short or long.  I may just have to make another one in different fabric.  The long version will certainly take better advantage of the water repellant treatment on the fabric.

  • Dream On

    One of the pieces of fabric I took with me to San Francisco was a beautiful piece of mudcloth I had picked up several years ago at a sewing expo in Baltimore.  I love the fabric but had never made it up because, although I had a vague image of what I wanted to make in my head, I was not sure that the fabric was my best color and I was therefore not sure how to pull it off.  I took it to San Francisco with a vague idea that I might be able to use a new pattern of Sandra’s for it, but that did not pan out, and also thinking that I might be able to find some coordinating fabric to use with it.

    Well I was successful in finding coordinates and I am very happy with the results:

    Mudcloth1 The grayish fabric on the left with the yellow pattern is the mudcloth, I have about 4 yards and it is 30" wide.  Although you can’t see it here, there is a greenish cast to the gray, that is the problem shade.  On the right are two Japanese cottons I purchased to go with the mudcloth.  The lighter blue/gray one will be lining and perhaps carried up onto the collar to frame the face.  I was originally planning the black one with the taupe squares to be cut as a bias binding between the lining and the mudcloth, but I bought extra to use as a top to wear with the skirt I plan on using with the bottom fabric, which is an upholstery fabric, silk and rayon that I plan to cut on the bias for a skirt to wear with the coat/jacket.  I will probably also use it somehow in the jacket but that is still rather vague.  The top fabric picks up the beigy-yellow of the bottom upholstery fabric and the grey of the mudcloth and will be incorporated somehow, probably as trim.  This is all still rather vague in my mind; all that I know is that I like the way the fabrics work together. 

    Mudcloth3 This is a close-up of the texture of the bottom fabric with just a corner of the black and taupe Japanese cotton.

    I envision the whole jacket as a kind of coat or topper, roughly 3/4 length although that may not be possible given the yardage on the mudcloth.  I would like some kind of standup or dramatic turned back collar.  The day after I bought this fabric Sandra came in with a coat which is a draft for a swing coat pattern she has coming out for Vogue in September.  I tried on the model, which is a size D, and it fit me very well through the shoulders so there is little I would have to do in the way of alterations.  It is basically the style I am after so I will wait until that pattern comes out. 

    In the meantime I want to put these fabrics where I can see them and let them inspire my sewing fantasies.

  • Help Me if You Can

    I took the plunge and opened the box I sent home from San Francisco.  I knew the purple silk top/jacket was in there hiding after I banished it from my sight the last sewing day.   Happily it is not as bad as I remembered.

    Here it is in its current (unfinished) state:

    Butterfly1 It is not bad but it does look a little better on me than on Matilda here.  However it is much easier to photograph her.  I am not usually fond of drop shoulders but I decided to keep them here because I was not sure how easy the laminated silk would be to sew.  It is easier than I thought and I can even manage a little easing, but not much.  Of course drop shoulders look even worse when you have no arms…

    I still don’t like the way the front hangs.  It looks more like it was cut incorrectly or is too small, neither of which is the case.

    I tried moving the button over, not fastening it at center front as specified in the pattern, Butterfly3 and there is plenty of room to do that, as can be seen here:

    If I did this I could not use the pretty butterfly button because it looks best in the center and I really don’t think a large butterfly perching on the center of one’s breast is all  that attractive.  In fact the bust point centering issue is the main problem with this plan.  The closures for the two sides would end up being right at the bust points.  Now I forgot when I cut this that I usually have to take fabric out of the center of my garments, from between the bust points and move it to the outside.  I guess that means that my bust points are closer to the center front line than most patterns.  Given the slanted fronts, I am not sure how I would have done that anyway.  It is also possible that moving closure to provide more overlap throws off the hang of the sleeves.  I can’t tell that on me because my hands are busy holding the top together so I can’t look at how the sleeve hangs, and Matilda, well she doesn’t have arms anyway so it is hard to tell.

    The other plan is just to shorten the top:

    Butterfly4 As you will note, I just folded the hem up, and not all that evenly either.  Still the point gets across and I think the top is much nicer in the shorter length mostly because the opening is not so wide and does not look so much like a mistake.  When I tried the top on over pants it also looked nicer short, trust me on this.

    Aside from the fact that this is the much easier fix, I really think I like this better but I am going to think about it a few days.  If anyone is reading this, please tell me what you think.  Any help really is appreciated here because I still alternate between loving this and hating it.

    Of course, no matter what happens, I really enjoyed sewing the fabric and the pattern anyway.

  • San Francisco Skirt

    Featherskirt2_2 Here is a skirt I made last week in San Francisco.  I was inspired by a Max Mara skirt in the May Vogue Magazine, although that skirt is really more ornate than mine and is made from a more summery tweed.

    I purchased the feather trim at MJ trim in NYC and also bought the matching ribbon trim. The feathers and trim are deep brown with a deep violet/purple/fuschia color.  The color of the wool is much more fuschia/navy than it appears in this photo, giving the overall cast of the skirt a deeper, red-purple hue.

    The feather trim came sewn to a tape which inserted between the bottom of the skirt and a hem facing.   The ribbon trim is machine sewn  to the skirt, anchoring he hem in place.  The skirt is lined and has a petersham ribbon faced waist with no band.

    My next project was not as successful.   I was working with this silk fabric from EmmaOneSock.com.  I have never worked with a laminated fabric like this and thought it would be an interesting project.  The fabric was part of a bundle I purchased and although I think it is quite pretty there is no great emotional investment here. 

    I decided to use this pattern:   V8090_1 which is still available from Vogue Patterns. 

    Everything went together well but I was just not sure I actually liked the garment.  My friend Mary says it looked very good from the back but in front it looked like it just didn’t fit, almost unfinished like it was buttoned in one place because there was not enough room although I actually had lots of extra ease in the front of the garment.  I was thinking that the silk was just too light.  I had originally thought of lining it but had not felt like adapting the pattern to that or doing the extra work.  I am not yet sure what I think, I packed it up and sent it home.  We are going to Knoxville next weekend so it will be at least anothe week before I get it out and take another look.  I think that I like the pattern and I like the fabric, but it was not a good marriage between the two.

    Saturday is shopping day for the Power Sewers and Sandra’s husband Dan spent the day driving 9 eager shoppers around the bay area.  We went to STone Mountain and Daughter in Berkley and Thai Silks in Los Altos and I purchased fabric at both places.  Those packages were sent home and I will share the goodies when they arrive.

    We also went to Poppy in Oakland.  Poppy has great trim and great upholstery and home dec fabric and a few other unusual things.  I bought a bolt of fabric to upholster the conversation pit in my living room there a couple of years ago.  This time I was very moderate and only bought once piece of trim, shown below:

    Poppytrim It is really just a piece of flat binding with buttons sewn down the center.  Each button is topped with a tiny bead.  I think I will use it as trim on a jacket but it also inspires me with ideas of how to use old buttons, old pieces of bias binding and many other things.

  • Biased,part 2

    My first project in San Francisco this past week was to work on the blue linen pants I had abandoned before the Amazon trip.  Admittedly I was not sure whether the problem was a fitting issue or a construction issue and I tended to assume that the problem was caused by seamtress error, namely that I thought I had cut the right leg off grain.

    On Monday I tried on the pants and asked Sandra (Betzina) to mark where the seam lines should have been on the right side.  I explained that I was going to take them apart and use the markings to draft a new pattern or at least cut new pieces for the right leg.  I had extra fabric and the existing right leg could be sacrificed.

    She drew two new lines in beautiful fuschia chalk and I took the pants apart; the results are shown here:

    Bluelinen1_1 Reassuringly, I learned that in this case the problem was not caused by an error on my part, just an asymmetricality in my basic architecture.  As you can see by looking at the red lines I needed to move the inseam forward to the front of the pant and move the outseam toward the back of the pant.  Note that the angles were not the same.

    I pinned the pants together along the seam I as working on for each piece, lay my old pattern pieces over the flat linen pant pieces, and drafted new patterns to match the actual lines drawn by Sandra.    When I looked at the pattern pieces, they looked perfectly normal, but when I pinned them to the fabric, aligning the grainlines, it became evident that for the pants to hang on grain, the side seams were definitely not in the same line as the grainline of the fabric.

    The new pants went together perfectly well except for a little trouble with one seam lengthening a bit because I was actually sewing a bias seam and not a straight-of-grain one, something I knew in an intellectual way but had not accomodated in actual practice.   I finished the pants on Monday and new they looked good and hung straight.

    Bluelinen4

    Tuesday I finished the pants:  I cut the lining, constructed it, and attached it at the waist.  I used petersham ribbon to face the inside of the waistband.

    Bluelinen3

    As this particular linen is rather ravelly I also felt it was better to completely attach the lining at the hem, something I often prefer to do, even though almost every sewing book I own and most instructors have not recommended this technique.  After attaching the lining I hemmed the pants with two rows of hand stitching to be sure they were well anchored.

    Bluelinen2 The white layer is the fusible wigam that I used to line the hemline and add weight to the hem so the pants so they would hang well and add strength to the hem.

    Bluelinen5

    Finally, here I am in the finished pants.  They are really simple, and I think I will be using this pattern quite a bit.  But I seem incapable of whipping out a simple pair of pants without doing all kinds of extra work.  Pardon the wrinkles.  I had been sewing on my next project for a couple of hours by the time this was taken.

  • Thank you, Karl Lagerfeld

    Sewing week has ended but I am still in San Francisco and have a computer connection.  I also have a little bit of spare time to catch up with everything that has been going on here.

    Here is a top that I made the morning I flew out to San Francisco, May 7th.  I cut it the week before and had every intention of finishing it before I had a major computer crisis at work and managed to squeeze in no more than 15 minutes of sewing time a day.  I woke up early Saturday morning obsessing about the unfinished top and got it made in time to wear that day:

    Blacktop1_2 The top is inspired by a Chanel top I saw at Neiman Marcus when I was visiting my Mom in early December.    The original was wool jersey with silk tweed at the bottom and on the bottom of the sleeves.  What really inspired me is the way it was sewn.  The silk and the jersey were just overlapped and stitched with a straight stitch and then fusible interfacing was fused over the seams on front and back to frinish the seams and keep the silk tweed from unravelling.

    This is my version.  The black knit is a wool/poly jersey and the white/gray and black is a silk suiting; both are from CandleLight Valley Fabrics.     I used Kwik Sew 2900, the same pattern I used for a periwinkle top in March.  I changed the neckline from having a band at the v-neck to a facing with a triple row of topstitching around the edge to add stability.

    I originally wasn’t sure about the finished length and ended up pinning on the fabric and adjusting the length just before sewing.  The silk tweed was just stitched to the jersey with a straight stitch.   I cut separate pieces for the outside and inside pieces of tweed, using the seam as the hemline.  After attaching the tweed to the knit I fused So Sheer on both the inside and outside.

    Blacktop2    It is hard to see here, but the so sheer reflects the light slightly differently than the knit.  The interfacing extends about equally above and below the line between the knit and suiting.

    Here is another picture:

    Blacktop3

    This one shows the inside of the hem with the hem facing and another layer of the so sheer.

    I like the way this top has turned out.  It is attractive and light; the interfacing keeps the silk from ravelling and the idea of having something that is usually part of the inner construction of the garment as a design detail.  I think I would use it again.  It would be really cute as a short, high hip or shorter top, perhaps a shell, with a short cardigan with the same treatment on the bottom.  I would be limited in choice of colors,white or black, but white knit with one of the pretty pastel silk tweeds or white tweeds with brighly colored flecks which are available now would be very pretty.

  • Sewing Week

    Here I am at the Marines Memorial CLub in San Francisco for Sandra Betzina’s Power Sewing Week. Just the name power sewing is encouraging and I am ready to jump right in and have a lot of fun.

    Yesterday was the first day and Sandra had a lot of garments to show us, including her new patterns and some glimpses of things coming in the future. We got fitted and each got to work on our individual projects. I started with the blue linen pants which were giving me problems.  I had Sandra draw lines on the pants illustrating where the side seams should have been and I cut them apart and used the pant pieces to draft new pattern pieces for the right side.  I still used the same crotch and waist shaping  that had been previously perfected by Monica (the pattern drafting expert).  In that pant lesson she showed us where to place the grain line, 1/2 inch outside the center of the pant leg, and perpindicular to the crotch line. When I look at the new pants leg  they look normal,until I look at the grain line as compared to the waist and side seam shaping. Definitely some bias going on there.

    I do hope to have pictures to show you all later.  The internet connection in my room is down and I cannot upload my photos through the internet  connection in the business center here. 

    Today I will line the linen pants and then start something else.  The pants look really good and I can’t wait to show them.

  • Chado Ralph Rucci

    I’ve been lying low and not really sewing but I have been catching up on a few knitting UFOs. 

    Chado2 I was fortunate enough to be in NYC on Wednesday and have time to go by Bergdorf Goodman to take a peek at the Chado Ralph Rucci fall trunkshow.   (photo courtesy of www.style.com)  By the time I arrived I was tired, having been on my feet far too long, and was feeling a little shy.  The boutique was busy with Mr. Rucci talking to people who were actually buying the garments  so I pretty much stayed out of the way and just fondled and examined as much as I could.

    The clothes themselves were really incredible although I am having trouble putting my impressions into words.  It is rare that I see a collection of clothes that strikes such awe.  The online photos really do not do the clothes justice. What really amazes me is that the basic silhouettes of the garments are quite classic and simple, he works with a fairly well defined set of shapes,  but the workmanship and the design detail were absolutely fabulous.  The fabrics were incredibly high quality, the techniques were unusual, and few garments had seams in the expected classic places yet they looked exactly as if they were the way they were meant to be.  The collection really combines great tailoring skill, with an understanding of the architecture of women’s bodies and an artists eye.  There was no piece that was ho-hum and yet each piece was quite wearable. I am constantly amazed at how he uses seams, combining interesting design with fitting and structural support.  There were many garments of double-faced wool, cashmere or chinchilla (I am not sure what) butt-seamed together or constructed and bar tacked, joined with leather strips or joined with pieces of stretch illusion like fabric.  Often spectacularly detailed seaming added design interest and structure in lieu of layers of interfacing — the structure was a part of the design, not hidden behind the lining — and yet, none of these clothes would look out of place or "funny" in any part of the country.

    They were, for the most part pretty formal clothes.  Suits, beautiful coats "I’m mad about coats" I overheard Ralph Rucci say to a customer, beautiful tailored, fitted dresses that were perfectly timeless and modern all at once.  The work reminds me of Geoffrey Beene, if anyone, in that it has that modern almost apart from fashion look that was so appealing in the best of Beene’s collections.

    I have been thinking about the collection a lot.  I did overwalk, and my battered leg was swollen and painful the next two days so I was pretty much holed up at home.  Mostly I think looking at these clothes reminds me to take pride in workmanship and to be more daring in solving fitting problems, trying to incorporate the solutions into the design of the garments.  I am reminded to be more open-minded, to take chances and to be less bound by "rules", ever realizing that it takes great understanding of the process and the techniques involved to break the rules.

    There are definitely things I could learn from these clothes, although they are definitely "city" clothes, and as such, not as appropriate to my wardrobe as they once were;  simple but far to sophisticated for puttering about the garden and running to Home Depot, the farm stand, or the local nursery. 

    Increasingly I am learning that I have a closet full of beautiful clothtes, many of which I have made, although by no means all, and which I wear less and less frequently.  I don’t need to wear a suit everyday anymore.  Will I still make signature garments?  Yes, in time, as I enjoy the process too much to give it up.  But now is the time to make quick causal things and simple garments and oddly, that is what I am leaning toward doing although it is really a different kind of sewing for me.  I have not come to this easily.  There was a time when I hated to sew quick simple clothes.  It has taken me a couple of years really, but I am settling into my new lifestyle and I am finding I like more casual and even arty styles than I would have once imagined possible.

    Well, sewing is always an education and often and adventure.  Have fun.