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June Capsule Contest

After much deliberation I have definitely decided that the June Capsule Contest entry will come from grouping number 3:

I have found that I have quite a few things in my wardrobe and my stash that coordinate and work into this wardrobe and given the available time and my own tendency to distracted mental wanderings, this seems to fit the time best now. This plan also calls for at least one TNT pattern and another garment based on a TNT pattern with slight modifications.

Although this collection will evolve into something bigger than the JCC, but the Capsule Contest provides the perfect jumping off point.

I can't get my story board attempt (version 1) to show up here so I will just go through my plans garment by garment.

All the garments discussed here are part of a collection but they will not all necessarily be part of the JCC, mostly because the more I look at the fabric and its coordinates in my stash, the more I realize that there are more than 4 pieces to this collection as it is evolving in my mind. At the moment I am calling it either "Elegantly neutral" because I love the soft neutrality of taupe as a color, or "stones in the dessert" because the color also reminds me of dessert stone outcroppings. Actually neither description probably fits but it is all my poor brain has come up with so far. I hate naming collections.

I would like to make this thin, mesh-like knit from Emma One Sock into a top with some soft draping. I am hoping that it will work for something like the Sandra Betzina pattern shown in the photo.

I will need to make a muslin or this pattern before making the top to work out any fitting details as shoulders tend to be one of my problems, but from what I hear this is not a particularly difficult pattern to fit.

This is a lovely lightweight linen. The subtle plaid still says pencil skirt to me, but I would hate the wrinkles in the linen and a pencil skirt would drive me up the wall. Instead I am going to make my TNT pleated skirt pattern. I will underline it with silk organza because I would like the skirt to have a little body and it would otherwise be rather limp (especially since I washed the linen) and it will be lined as well.

These two garments are the two definite players in my JCC submission. I think I can do both of these.

Other options follow:

I want to make a skirt inspired by this Doo-Ri skirt. I have been thinking about it, in various iterations, since I first saw it in a fashion magazine over the winter. My first thought was going to be gray and purple organza, and that is still a possibility, but for this collection I am going to make this skirt in four shades of beige and taupe silk, using chiffon for the layers.

It should not be particularly difficult. I think I can work from my basic pencil skirt pattern for the lining and silk underskirt, then I just have to add the layers of chiffon.

So even though I don't really have a particular pattern, and I don't yet have all the fabric, some of which is on order, this skirt looks pretty much like it can be accomplished during June.

Then I get into the undecided part of my quest.

I want to make a blouse inspired by this one. I would use a chiffon that matches one of the layers in the Doo-Ri inspired skirt. And rather than leaving it full through the body and belting it, I plan on reigning in some of that fullness with tucks at the waist, adding a little shape.

I definitely want to make this blouse. I can probably find a pattern that will work for the silk under-layer. But I will have to do some draping to get the outer chiffon layer to work just the way I want it. That might take time and I don't yet know how much of it will be able to get done with the June deadline.

So far I am OK with the rules for the contest. Both tops go with both skirts.

I also have fabric to make this jacket:

The fabric is a stretch cotton from Emma One Sock. I am going to line it with a soft yellow stretch silk charmeuse.

The pattern doesn't look that difficult so I might be able to pull this off if I can't quite manage the chiffon. However I will also have to make a muslin before cutting the jacket fabric.

So the choice is really whether my time and my attention span is adequate for draing the chiffon blouse, which may be easier but the fabric is more difficult to work with, or doing the jacket. The cotton fabric should not give me many problems, and hopefully the jacket is easy to fit as well. But I am always a little reluctant to count on those "should be easy to fit" plans.

If it all falls apart, I also have some taupe silk knit that is destined to be made into a simple tank or sleeveless top which will also work with both skirts.

May 31, 2008
Compare and Contrast

I finally competed all the finishing work on the vest portion of the Compare and Contrast sweater set.

This is a pattern by L'Atelier in Redondo Beach , CA and it was a "sweater of the month" selection for May 2007. I finished this April and May, only one year late, really not that bad.

I finished the long sleeve tee first, and posted a couple of pictures over at the other blog. Here is the picture again, you can see me wearing it with a cotton turtleneck. It was too cold most of May for me to even consider wearing this with merely a tank underneath, or with the vest either. Apparently I finished just in time since Memorial Day weekend ushered in some summer weather.

In fact when I first saw the vest pinned out on the blocking board, I was a little nervous — it just looked short to me:

But I gamely sewed it together and even knit the button band before I looked at the sweater again.

Spread out on my cutting table, where I was trying to determine button and buttonhole placement, I nearly panicked. Now it really looked short.

I started wondering how I could lengthen it. I figured it was about waist length, and a quick try on proved that this was the case. Aack!! that is not a length sweater I normally wear. I figured I could just cut and knit down: that works perfectly well for stockinette, but would be tough with the cabled section on the left front. I considered knitting that up and grafting it. I quickly calculated I needed 4 more inches.

But then I realized I only had two skeins of yarn. I was not sure that would be enough.

And then I thought to read the pattern.

Yes. I did lengthen the vest, by two inches. Yes it was meant to be waist length, and waist length for me is two inches longer than most patterns. Since the tee (knit from Trendsetter's Binario) is meant to peek out beneath the vest, knitting the vest longer would alter the look of the ensemble I decided to give it a try and I gritted my teeth, crossed my fingers, and finished.

Matilda is pleased to model the new ensemble. We agree that it looks pretty nice, and yes the proportion of the vest is perfect with the tee. Live and Learn.

I see, from looking at this on Matilda, instead of myself, that the front neckline looks uneven. It is actually perfectly even when placed flat on the cutting table, but Matilda and I both have uneven shoulders, one shoulder is higher than the other, one shoulder rolls in more, and there is more of a hollow on one side. I see that I am going to have to start altering my knitting so that the shaping fits the part of the body underneath — meaning I should allow for that unevenness when I am knitting. I do this when sewing. I don't know why I haven't bothered as much with knitting.

And even thought the cable is less distinct because of the multicolored yarn, it is still pretty, with no badly aligned bobbles at the bust.

May 30, 2008
Team of Rivals

Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals is a fabulous book and the fact that it took me nearly a year to finish it has nothing to do with the book or the quality of the writing.

Each time I picked up the book, I practically devoured the pages. Each time life intervened I had to literally tear myself away…and I had to leave the book behind, untouched, because there was no way I could read it at a measured, practical pace.

Granted I have long been interested in books about Lincoln. I have a small collection on my shelves, but none of them address about Lincoln's character and his political and social acumen the way this book does. I am not a scholar. I actually knew very little about Lincoln's cabinet members although now I am itching to learn more about Seward, and generally, although I love biography, I would not think that politics or the inner workings of politics or a Presidential cabinet would be interesting. I was wrong. I was fascinated.

The book has played a tremendous role in how I look at so much going on in the world today because I was so wrapped up in the details of what was going on in the world, at least the American World, then.

I started the book last fall. Then I had to put it down. I started again in February or early March and got about 3/4 of the way through before I put it down again. I finally finished it early this month, and even though I knew how the book would end, who wouldn't, it tore me apart. Although the book is long and it is a work of history, seemingly assiduously researched, it is not a book I so much read as absorbed. With each page I felt transported into another life and time. I mourned with the nation when Lincoln died even though I knew it was inevitable. I finished late at night and went to bed in tears. I was that wrapped up in the story.

Another time I cried was when Lincoln was re-elected. Here we are involved in an unpopular war (but then all Amreican wars have drawn considerable protest). The Democratic candidate was McClellan, a popular general, running on a platform to end the war. I was stunned by this quote:

Most impressive, the soldier vote had swung overwhelmingly in his favor. In the armies of the West, he won eight out of ten votes, and even in McClellan's Army of the Potomac, Lincoln earned the votes of seven out of every ten soldiers. Many of these soldiers still admired McClellan but could not countenance the defeatist Democratic platform or the fact that the Confederacy was obviously hoping the young Napoleon would win. But there was something else, something Democrats had failed to understand. Over the years, Lincoln had inspired an almost mystical devotion among his troops. "The men had come to regard Mr. Lincoln with sentiments of veneration and love", noted an Illinois corporal. "To them he really was 'Father Abraham,' with all that the term implied." By supporting Lincoln, the soldiers understood that they were voting to prolong the war, but the voted with their hearts for the president they loved and the cause that he embodied.

I can't imagine anything like this happening today.

May 26, 2008
Coming Home, knitting-wise

What can I say??

In the end, my life might be more integrated, but my interests remain scattered all over the map and my mind has difficulty organizing them into one coherent whole. A single blog, although probably more interesting that scattered bits and pieces, does not seem to work for me. All the while I felt like I could not fully explore everything I wanted to explore, both in knitting or sewing, and I decided that I was trying to do something that might make sense in a logical world when I have often been accused of not being at all logical. If I had looked around my environment I might have seen the experiment was ill-fated: After all I keep sweaters in one closet, shoes in another, spoons neatly stacked on top of each other, and I hate utensil drawers where everything is just tossed in willy-nilly.

Why would I like a blog where all my ideas are jumbled together?

I didn't.

The consolidation was an attempted stress-reliever which failed. I am dealing with stress in my crazy life, but I don't need to add further stress by trying to be or write or sew or knit something I'm not.

So I am back here with knitting and those random purls of thought that wander through my mind while the yarn runs through my fingers.

I'm not going to pull the knitting posts from sewdistracted, but I will post pictures and links to the few works I completed, hopefully in the next week or so. I have so many things I want to write about though, that I may get a little backed up.

Here is what I am working on now, meaning this week so far:

It began with a familiar refrain: I needed something to knit that was simple and relatively mindless. I couldn't find the pattern for one yarn, I couldn't remember what pattern I wanted to use for another. But I needed something right then.

I found a bag of mixed yarns centered around an old Filatura di Crosa Missoni yarn called Shanghai.
A few skeins of solid-colored cotton in complimentary shades had been thrown in. I have no recollection of what I intended to do with this yarn, which meant it was perfect for an off-the-cuff design. Because the yarn provides all the interest, and would hide detailed stitches, the design should be something simple.

Someday I may look at a particular pattern and exclaim to myself "That's what I was saving that Shanghai yarn for" but by then it will be too late.

Desperation reigns supreme here.

I did not make a gauge swatch. I looked at the recommended gauge on the ball band. I figured that I usually have to go down two to three needle size in cotton, picked my stitch (a knit 3 purl 2 rib) and cast on in the round. I will figure it out as I go.

I do have an idea of how I want the shaping, and when I have knit a few more inches I will put it on a larger circular needle (I have a 60" one in this size, which should even give a clutz like me more than ample squirm room) and try it on.

What is the worst thing that can happen?

I'd have to rip it out.

May 26, 2008
A clash of cultures

My views are apparently more subversive than I had thought.

There is a bit of a hullabaloo going on in my town over sheep. Actually it is more complicated than that.

Apparently someone is raising a few sheep in their back yard. I believe this is illegal. Apparently one of the sheep was slaughtered. I don't believe there is a law against slaughtering animals on your property, only against keeping farm animals as pets.

What strikes me about the situation is the moral outrage, the quivering voices, the tearful hysteria, the sense by thy neighbors that they have been violated by having this animal killed in their neighborhood. Why not object to the presence of sheep in the first place? There was no mention of any complaints about the presence of the sheep. Are the neighbors more upset that the sheep in question was slaughtered outside in full view of the neighbors or the fact that it was raised and slaughtered (presumably to be consumed by its owners)at all. Would they have objected less if the sheep had been dragged indoors to be slaughtered, perhaps in the bathroom?

The objection was that the slaughter was carried out "in broad daylight". That the sheep was hung from the basketball hoop in the backyard so that the blood could drain (except for the use of the basketball hoop, a fairly traditional technique). That neighborhood children might see the carcas.

Yes, small American children who think meat comes packaged in a grocery store would probably be upset at seeing an animal being killed for food, and I am not convinced that I would want them to watch, but this could be a teaching opportunity. It is not innately harmful for children to know that meat comes from animals, or how these animals are slaughtered.

I don't live on a farm, and there are reasons I might prefer that my neighbors did not slaughter sheep in their backyards. But I see this more as an unpleasant annoyance than as something about which I would feel moral outrage. After all, this is the purpose of the zoning laws. But did anyone file a complaint about the presence of the sheep? Or did they just think they were pets? Did the owners of the sheep even realize that they were not allowed to keep sheep? My neighbor used to have chickens. They were pets. Unfortunately the local fox population solved the problem before any neighbors could complain.

And have we grown so complacent and so distant from the origins of our food that we think meat comes only wrapped in plastic? Are we so squeemish that we cannot bear to face the idea that the food on our plate was a living breathing animal not so long ago? And yes, I am well aware that watching an animal being slaughtered is not necessarily a pretty sight, but it doesn't hurt us to realize and even think about where our food comes from.

I think I was more shocked by the tone of the outrage, that a group of citizens feel a crime has been committed against them because a neighbor killed his sheep to feed his family.

May 23, 2008
Choices…Choices…Choices…..

So, I joined the June Capsule Contest over at Stitcher's Guild and I have been struggling to put together a workable capsule. The problem is not that there is nothing I want to sew, more like there is so much that I want to sew but it is scattered all across the map in terms of styles and garments. Many things don't work into a capsule that fits the required parameters, or is too complicated and will require several muslins or attempts at creating the perfect pattern, and I really am trying to make this as stress-free as possible.

I had three basic ideas in my head, involving three groups of fabrics (click on photos to enlarge in another window):

FIRST IDEA
You might recognize three of these fabrics from my recent trip to Fishman's in Chicago:

Clockwise from the upper left:
>blue duoppioni for a blouse
>blue/brown linen for pants and a jacket
>darker gray organza for a blouse
>Gray wool/silk fabric from Michaels (a while ago)

The problems with this plan are:

!. I haven't refined the pattern choices

2.None of them are TNT's (I know this much)

3. I think I would like the glen plaid in a pair of pants but fitting them will take a while due to issues in pants fit and wandering side seams I have in all pants. My previously refined technique works for solids but not for plaids or stripes. I have an idea that I am pretty sure will work, but I have not begun to test the technique so a contest might not be the best time.

SECOND IDEA

My second plan revolved around this printed linen/cotton blend fabric that I picked up from the sale table at JoAnn fabrics a couple of years ago. It is a home dec fabric and therefore has its issues, but I absolutely love the print and the colors. I want to make a casual jacket but once again I haven't picked out a pattern. For this piece I suspect I am going to have think of a few likely choices, and then I am going to end up laying the pattern out on the fabric and figuring out which shape style I like best with the print.

Below the cotton are two pieces of silk matka which match the colors in the print perfectly. The green will be a sleeveless shell of some sort. I plan to use the red for a dress.

I believe that the jacket fabric will work with all kinds of light colored chino and khaki-type summer pants or white, but obviously to form a capsule, I need at least one more piece and I haven't yet found the perfect coordinate.

Well, there is one possibility:

The middle piece of fabric in this photo is another silk matka, this one is a greenish gray and I think it works with both of my first two capsule plans. It works well with the Michael's wool and although it doesn't match any of the colors in the JoAnn floral print, to my eye it seems complimentary.

Of course, if I use the gray-green, which capsule do I work with? I am sure that I am going to make something with these groupings, but at the moment I am really having trouble focusing my attention on just what I am going to make.

So perhaps my best choice, for the June Capsule Contest, at least is to go with option number 3:

THIRD (AND MOST SUCCESSFUL) IDEA

Again, here are more of my Fishman's fabrics, as well as many of the fabrics that I had swatched for my trip to Chicago. From the top Center:

>two pieces of pink/coral silk duoppioni for a blouse
>yellow/gray/coral cotton/spandex print from Emma One Sock. Jacket weight.
>light weight linen from Michael's.
>light weight knit from Emma One Sock
>taupe silk/linen/nylon rainwear.

This grouping is coming together much better in my head at the moment.

I know I want to make a skirt out of the Michael's linen. The weave of the fabric says "pencil skirt" to me but the light weight and the fact that it is linen tells me I need something with a little more volume. I have two or three patterns in mind which will work and I can narrow my choices from there.

I also have good ideas as to what top I want to make with the deep taupe floral knit from Emma One Sock.

I have plans for another skirt and a blouse which will work with these fabrics, but I don't have all the fabrics out yet and there is one fabric I need to order. The two tops would work with both of the skirts so that should not be a problem. The skirt could be adapted from my basic pencil skirt pattern. The blouse will have to be draped, but will hopefully not be too difficult.

I could also make a jacket using either the rainwear or the printed cotton. I will make both jackets eventually, but I need to refine pattern choices, and I suppose I need to commit to which garments will be my contest entries.

More as I refine my plans.

May 23, 2008
Knitting Update

Typead has upgraded the post-editing features and although everything looks promising for the future, at the moment it is driving me crazy. I couldn't get links in yesterday. I haven't mastered getting the pictures the way I want them, and I just don't have the patience right now.

Here's a rather blurry photo of me wearing the binario tee that I finished a few weeks ago. It is part of a set designed by L'Atelier in Redondo Beach CA, called Compare and Contrast. I call the tee Compare. As you can see, I am wearing it over a turtleneck rather than a camisole — although I am generally loving the extended spring we are having, I admit that I would like it even more if it were cool and sunny so that I could bring out a few more spring and summer clothes.

The knitted fabric of this tee is very fragile and easily snagged. As I have been working around the house today, I have folded the ends of my turtleneck sleeves over the end of the binario tee, to help prevent future snags.

We still (at 4 PM) don't have water. We were told that we were the third in line when I spoke to the pump person this morning. He really was not convinced he would get here today but he did call me when he went to the second house on the list at about 12:30 to tell me that if he didn't make it, we would be the first on the list for tomorrow — so it looks like another night in the hotel. Luckily we reserved a room this morning "just in case" as it is a busy holiday weekend with an antiques fair and two college graduations.

[ updated to add that the pump repair person will be here at 8 AM tomorrow ]

I did use a little bit of water to wet the pieces of the contrasting vest (Contrast) which is supposed to go with this tee. After the soak, I heated the water, which had turned pink, to wash up a few lunch dishes. It has been a long time since I have washed with hot water from the stove, and I keep forgetting and reaching for the tap. We are able to get water from one of our neighbors, but it is a long haul up an down the driveway with full two gallon water buckets.

Here is "contrast" on the blocking board:

I have started a new project: I was just too tired and too distracted to do any complicated color work, or to try and figure out where I was in some previous project, or to match yarn to pattern, so I just grabbed some old Missoni yarn and am making a sweater in the round without a pattern. In fact I am working with out a gauge swatch either, as I started it in the hotel last night and didn't want to wait. I'll just keep my fingers crossed until I get a little further along and see how I am doing (I have less than an inch so far)

The yarns are Missoni Shanghai, Missoni Caprera, (cream), Gedifra Crocheta (light olive green) and GGH Monsun (dark green).

At any rate, although the water issue is a bit of a pain, I am happy to have power and internet service, as well as a phone. Most of my neighborhood is still without phone service — there are only two of us who switched our phone and internet service to the local cable company last year. That came back up within a few hours; the phone company is telling my other neighbors that they will have phone service by tomorrow sometime. Luckily I also have cell-phone service as the town of Red Hook put a tower in near the Hudson a year or two ago and my house, being close to the river, picks up it's signal. The people on beyond the ridge behind my house don't pick up that very well either and my town is embroiled in a discussions about when and where to put a cell tower.

May 22, 2008
Fishman’s Fabric Haul

I promised to post photos of my haul from Fishman's Fabrics after my Chicago Weekend, a month ago now. I did have swatches of a group of fabrics for which I was trying to find coordinates. For the most part I was successful.

First are two pieces of silk organza. They are two separate shades of gray, a very nice quality of organza.

They were purchased to go with another piece of organza, to work with a particular set of garments:

Unfortunately in the intervening time my plans have changed so the garment I described to my companions is now going to exist in a different fabrication. Needless to say these organzas will be used. I am fairly picky about organza, the cheap stuff really makes me itch and is not worth the agony incurred when using it in a garment.

Two colors of silk duoppioni, the perfect shades to coordinate with a particular fabric, and another piece of duoppioni which coordinates with my original fabric as well as with a stunning piece of linen I found at Fishman's.

Here you can see all the fabrics that I was planning to work with, the original fabrics which were already in my stash, and the new additions:

Well, actually, I don't have the organza in this photo, but you get the idea. I will be telling you more about these fabrics over the next few days as I plan the garments I intend to make. At least some of these are also possible for the June Capsule Contest over at Stitcher's Guild, about which I will also be writing.

There is one last piece of fabric I purchased at Fishman's, A stunning piece of linen, destined to be a dress:

I want to write more but now I have to head out to dinner and my hotel for the night, where I unfortunately do not have internet access (because my portable computer is still not working and not yet in the shop).

We had big thunderstorms here this afternoon and lost power briefly, phone/internet service for several hours and we also lost our water supply. There was one big, really really close lightening strike. I suppose that the electricity in the ground fried the pump that operates our well.

I won't know more 'til tomorrow. DH thinks we are going to camp out here without running water for the weekend. I am not convinced.

May 21, 2008
Yipee Ki Yo!!

When Marji told me that the May Knipmode had the pattern for a particular Bottega Veneta dress I knew I had to get a copy.

It arrived today and I am thrilled. I can’t wait to make the dress. And there are couple of other things I like as well — a Valentino suit perhaps? A blouse with a fabulous ruffled neckline?

So now I am officially overwhelmed with ideas of things I want to sew. Just think a year ago I thought I had lost my style and I found just getting dressed to be stressful, now I want the world to go away and let me sew, sew, sew. Well, I also want time to go out and wear all these new creations once I have made them.

I know I also promised to post pictures of the fabrics purchased at Fishman’s. Those have arrived too, I just need to get them photographed.

May 19, 2008
Last Concert of the Beacon Season

We went to a fabulous concert today, the last concert of the Howland Chamber Music Circle, and it was truly lovely. In fact I rave about most of these concerts and the last two have been exceptional.

Today we heard the Peabody Trio perform the Beethoven Trio in B-flat major, the "archduke" and the Schubert Trio #1 in B-flat major. Somehow it didn’t connect in my brain that both were in B-flat major until I wrote this, I suppose it is not the kind of thing I notice or would notice, another sign of something lacking in my education and perceptions of the world I suppose.

G tells me that the Beethoven "archduke" is one of his favorite pieces of music and this performance was fabulous. I love this trio, and although I wouldn’t quite call it a favorite, there is something about Beethoven that just thrills me to no end. I love the mix of fun and seriousness, humor and pathos, like everything in the world is wrapped up in a piece of music. In the B-flat major trio, the third movement is incredibly ethereal and moving, one can almost get lost in its beauty.

But then, just in case you have allowed yourself to wallow off in a fog of otherworldly beauty, Beethoven slaps you upside the head with the beginning of the fourth movement, which proceeds without pause like a jolt of lightening. Now that the listener has been shocked out of his or her reverie, it is hard not to smile at the irrepressible humor in the final movement, bubbling along and escalating into the fabulous conclusion. The audience almost rose up in unison at the last note with great applause (and this must have been the practice run because the swell of rising listeners was perfected for the repeat performance at the end of the Schubert)

Ah Beethoven and Schubert, how better to end the season. Not only that but we had more Beethoven three weeks ago, when I was indulged in a breathtaking performance of my favorite quartet. The Alexander Quartet played Beethoven’s String Quartet #13 Opus 130 with the concluding Grosse Fuge. I don’t know why I don’t think of this piece more often. Each time I hear it in its entirety I think it is just perfect. I don’t believe I always heard the quartet played with the fifth movement (the Grosse Fuge) and I do remember that the first time I heard the complete original work with the included Fuge, I was STUNNED. I can’t imagine the quartet without that ending, it ties everything up . I am amazed that it was dropped, although not surprised at Beethoven’s chagrin that it was not liked. I believe he is reputed to have said "asses", or did I dream that?

Now of course I was aware of the Grosse Fuge before, and I don’t really remember if my father’s recordings of Beethoven’s quartets played the 13th in the original version (5 movements) or in the altered version as I heard the music and absorbed it but didn’t really think about it until after I left home. But I certainly know that I have heard quite a few performances of the four-movement 13th, more than the five-movement version. It is such a shame too.

So, two fabulous concerts.

Oh yes, the Schubert was nice too, how could it not be? It is such a fresh, bright, cheery piece, and as I said before it was followed by a great welling-up of the audience in appreciation.

May 18, 2008