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I’ve been Tagged!

Mary Beth at The Stitchery has tagged me! Initially I started to panic, hoped it was a mistake, and wondered if I could disappear into the bowels of the earth. Well, secretly I was thrilled, like the child I was once was who was always one of the last ones chosen to be on a team during PE. Terrified, but thrilled.

Here are the rules (lifted from Mary Beth’s blog). Thank you Mary Beth!

1. someone tags you,
2. you post five things about yourself that you haven’t already mentioned on your blog,
3. you tag 5 people you’d like to know more about

1. I mentioned the first one in that first paragraph. I was the kind of child that was never picked in school. When I was very young it bothered me terribly but I learned that the harder I tried the more I was teased. So I started pointedly ignoring everyone else, trying to be different, deliberately walking a different path. I think I was trying to fool myself as much as the others and it didn’t always work, but I think I became much more resilient in the long run. And although I still secretly want to be "chosen" the popularity game is one game I can’t bring myself to play.

2. I grew up in a small town in the bible belt in a very protected environment. Although I was not completely ignorant — I read widely and was familiar with literature, science, world politics, I was completely naive about the world. I knew racism existed but I didn’t know I had ever encountered it. I knew homosexuality existed in an abstract intellectual way, but I had not been aware if I had ever seen or encountered it. I traveled 1500 miles across the country to go to college in the age of sex, drugs, rock & roll, and cynicism as a complete naif. Although I knew first hand that people were not nice, I believed that liberal intellectual people lived their lives seeking a platonic ideal of goodness and knowledge.

3. When I moved away to college I knew the words to every song John Denver and Barry Manilow had ever written. I still probably know most of them.

4. At one of my first jobs, the company I worked for offered to pay my way through Law School. I turned them down because I thought I was too shy to be a good lawyer. I now think I probably would have made an excellent lawyer, but other opportunities have presented themselves.

5. I knew that I would end up marrying my husband the first time we spoke. I have never regretted that decision.

Now who to tag? Always one to over think these things I worry, what if I tag someone who doesn’t want to share things on their blog? What if they don’t do tags? What if? What if? Will I commit some king of faux pas (there is the girl who wasn’t chosen speaking up again). Oh who cares. Consider yourself tagged. Respond if you wish…or don’t.

SewIntriguing , DiaryofaSewingFanatic , Life in LaLaLumay Land , Hungry Zombie Couture , Bad Mom Good Mom

January 18, 2007
Pretty in Pink

Some time back, Elann had some Austermann Bombola on sale and they showed a rather intriguing pattern for a cabled pullover with the yarn. I was intrigued, but I didn’t succumb. Still, I kept coming back — a bad sign as well you all know.

Then, just as I had almost forgotten the temptation, Liana posted that she had made that same pullover and also commented on how much she liked the patterns in the Austermann book. My fate was sealed. I ordered the yarn and the book, even though I was not fully convinced that it would look as good on me as on Liana. I can’t seem to escape that urge to copy everything that inspires me.

I started the project yesterday. Well, actually yesterday I recharted the project because I need to lengthen the sweater a bit to accommodate my taller, longer-waisted frame. It is fortunate that this pattern is knitted on such bulky needles (12 mm) that I only needed to add 4 rows to the pattern, but even that required a little adjustment in the patterns to make sure that all the cables ended up in the proper place with the addition of the new rows. Now for years I did this by hand, with reams of graph paper, and often, if I made mistake much swearing and cursing. I would dread regraphing things, not that they were all that difficult, but they were enormous time drains. But computers make things much easier, and although it took some time to enter the charts into the computer, and alter the cables to accommodate the new rows, I pretty much redid the charts in a couple of available hours on Tuesday.

This morning I got up and instead of doing the various things I usually do early in the morning before my beloved gets up, I curled up in my chair and started knitting. At 6 1/2 stitches to 4 inches, it goes fast, but not as fast as one might think. I still find a 12 mm needle much harder to hold in the hand and much more tiring to work with than a finer needle, 4.5 mm or smaller let’s say. Even the tiny sock needles are easier on my fingers than the big bulky ones.

Despite that complaint, my morning knitting and an afternoon knitting break when I returned from a perhaps ill-advised trip to the gym and a pretty intense workout left me exhausted with a return to full-sinus distress, yielded pretty impressive results:

I’m a bit more than half-way through the back of the sweater. At first, I wasn’t sure what I thought, but the more I see, the more I like the sweater. It will be warm, fuzzy, fast, inexpensive, and very, very pink. What is there not to love in that combination? Well, once I would have said I am not a pink kind of girl, but obviously that is not true. It looks like it will be fun and funky too, the perfect thing for a winter’s day and a pair of jeans.

January 17, 2007
Soft and Warm and Fuzzy

Just in time for the arrival of winter temperatures; I present Haute Luce:

"Haute Luce" from Anny Blatt Book 197, Intemporel
Yarn Bouton D’or Candide, Color Zinnia.

My sweater is not quite like the original. As you will note here:

The original sleeves balloon just above the cuff, and have knitted and crocheted motifs appliqued to the sweater after knitting. Since I was basically attracted to the simple shape of the sweater and the YARN, I dispensed with both of these features.

Also, I messed up the shoulder shaping. As you see in the next photo, although the sweater is knit in reverse stockinette stitch, the shaping is done so that the stockinette shaping shows on the outside of the fabric, in short it is done in the reverse. I did not realize that as I knit the sweater. I was working in the car and I only had a photocopy of the instructions with me, no photo of the garment. The instructions made no special mention of technique for the decreases and I therefore did not think about making them decorative.

One thing I really like about Anny Blatt sweaters is the shaping and this sweater is no exception. I probably could have bought the yarn and knit any old raglan sweater but the results here are very nice and the shaping is wonderful, hugging my curves rather well. I did have to do some juggling with the pattern, I needed to lengthen the sweater about 2 inches above the waist shaping and 1 inch below, and my row gauge was off; matching row gauge to a written pattern is very difficult for me, even when I get proper stitch gauge. So I had to recalculate all the shaping, since I always count my rows and make my decreases by row numbers not vague measurements on a ruler. Rulers lie, or more exactly the knitter is not always meticulous about how she measures.

I started with a larger size at the hips, tapered to a smaller size at the waist, and then back to my normal medium size at the bust. It all worked rather well.

I was somewhat concerned as to whether I would get the shaping right for the raglan sleeves, what with recalculating everything and all, but it turned out beautifully. One of the nice features of this sweater is the shaping at the shoulders — the front edge of the sleeve is shaped differently from the back edge of the sleeve. This makes sense of course, our bodies are not identical in front and back. And I think the resulting garment is one of the nicest raglan-sleeve sweaters I have ever worn. I shall keep a note of the technique and the shape for the future.

One thing I did note however, is that I still get a fold along the front raglan sleeve, something that I always get on every sweater, but it is much smaller here, and pretty much follows the seam line., as you see in the photo below: ( I have no idea where that rather imperious expression came from)

Normally I get a lot of bunching in raglan sweaters. The fact that I only have one small wrinkle, and it follows the seam leads me to think that the shaping is basically good but that I should have decreased a little more at the beginning of the raglan sleeve cap, taking almost another inch out of the front edge.

I have made a note of this for the future. It will not affect my enjoyment of this sweater. I absolutely love it and it is deliciously soft and cuddly. Bring on the winter weather.

January 16, 2007
A Dash of DAring

A Dash of Daring was a fun, entertaining read about a very interesting woman. Not many remember Carmel Snow, she was a star before fashion editors and magazine editors were stars. Still, reading her biography one can easily see how much of the fashion publishing business, the role played by editors and the fashion industry was created in large part by her influence.

It is a fascinating read, and lots of fun too, there is enough juicy gossip mixed with the fact and the photographs to keep one wildly entertained. Although it is not a particularly serious book, and the writing is not stellar, it IS a lot of fun.

If you are interrested in fashion, or fashion magazines, this book is highly recommended.

January 15, 2007
Operator Error

I have a system for storing fabric. Well actually I have systems for storing most things. Occasionally those systems fail, not so much because there is a problem with the system, but because of operator error. In short, lazy creature that I am, I don’t always do what I am supposed to do. Now if I never did what I was supposed to do I would obviously have a bad system, but this is not the case.

Therefore there was no excuse for today.

There was a box of fabric in my closet. Fabric is not supposed to be in my closet. I originally put it there thinking I would move it there temporarily as I planned on using the fabric right away. 4 years later is not right away. In the meantime I had emptied out part of the box, and I had added more fabrics at various intermittent times when I was to lazy to index new purchases and incorporate them into the proper storage area.

Most of these fabrics were indexed with the exception of a couple that were large remnants from other projects. (maroon linen in the upper right corner and the gray wool below it). I suppose I thought that since I already had a garment, I did not need to re-index the remnant. Short-sighted don’t you think?

Other fabrics had never been indexed at all, although I do remember buying them, I would have been hard pressed to find them using the "system". There was more fabric than I had anitcipated because I had forgotten that I had sureptituously added pieces here and there. There were fabrics that don’t belong in the fabric collection at all. There were several pieces of bemberg rayon lining, and a few lightweight silks that were meant to be linings. They should have been stored separately.

There were UFO’s hidden in the box, where there should have been no UFO’s. Obviously I was trying to take "out of sight out of mind" to new levels, hiding the UFO’s outside of the UFO storage area.

The beige texture knit is stable and not too stretchy. It has been cut; the pattern pieces are still attached. I had planned to make the Sewing Workshop’s San Diego Jacket. I cut a size extra-small? I recall it is fairly oversized. Is it so oversized it will still fit?

The green silk matka was supposed to be a suit. The pants have been cut. Again the pattern pieces are still attached (along with a sizable portion of my pin collection — I wondered what had happened to all my pins.). These I know are too small, I haven’t work the previous pair of pants made from that pattern for over 3 years. But I love the fabric and still have enough to cut a jacket, or another pair of pants.

What to do? What to do?

I think I am going to cheat a little on the UFO front. The San Diego Jacket may fit. I know I have some navy wool suiting cut out for a jacket that may or may not fit. I will check and put the fabrics that are cut but two small in a rubbermade bin and set it aside for a few months, until May or June. If they don’t fit by then, out they go. If they do fit, they get made. No more excuses.

And I think I better pull those pattern envelopes and put them with the respective UFO’s, or remove the pattern tissue from the fabric and file the pieces.

And I found this lovely piece of linen which I had completely forgotten. Well, I recalled purchasing it when I saw it, but prior to that, I had no memory of it at all. Isn’t that terrible? I usually have pretty good recall about what fabrics are in the stash; I might need to look up precisely where they are stored or how much I have, but I remember what is there.

It is definitely time to sew more. And this piece should go on the list for spring.

January 15, 2007
Donegal Scarf and Hat

The garter stitch hat and scarf are done. I had more than enough yarn for a child-sized hat and scarf, so I ended up making the scarf longer and re-knitting the hat in a larger size. They are now mine, but not to wear with Rogue:

I like the width of the scarf, it is about 5 inches, actually narrower than I would normally make it, so it is extra long. I will have to make a note of this for the future, It wraps easily multiple times around the neck and is not too bulky.

There will be no photo of the white-faced and red-nosed Mardel showing of the scarf and hat. I have been holed up with a cold or flu, I am not sure which, as I have had symptoms of both; whatever it is I seem to be on the mend and will be back to normal activity early in the week. I should have realized I was coming down with something when I came home from Knitting Group Thursday night and went right to bed, sleeping over 9 hours, an almost unheard of feat for me.

As I have not been up to much but mindless knitting and light reading there is also progress, slow but progress nonetheless, on the purple sweater.

January 14, 2007
The Demon Under the Microscope

I finished reading Thomas Hager’s The Demon Under the Microscope two days ago, but have not really had a chance to put my thoughts together.

It was a fun book to read and interesting because although I knew a little bit about the discovery of penicillin and its role in shaping modern medicine, I knew very little about sulfa drugs, their discovery, and the major role they played up until penicillin came to the fore. It is a fascinating story and because it is told in story form more than as a scholarly tract, it really made me think about how this discovery affected life and the practice medicine. It certainly gives one pause to think about the changes in the knowledge and practice of medicine in the last 70 years, one lifetime really. Oh I knew this intellectually. But what we know in our heads doesn’t always make us think about what how we perceive our lives on a daily basis.

That said the book is a very easy and entertaining read, and in some ways is more gripping and suspenseful than some novels I have read. It is obviously written for a lay audience, and a broad-based one at that. The language and the story line reminds me, in attitude at least, to some of those biographies and histories I read when I was young, the ones aimed at the "young adult" market. I would plow right through them, reading them like I was eating candy, learning something on the way that often led me to pursue subjects further, in much more scholarly works. This book is like that: fast, readable, not too difficult but full of information. It seems to be well researched and well thought out. The lack of footnotes were frustrating at first, when I wanted to find a reference for something, but soon I just sat back and enjoyed the story. Generally I did not look up the notes at all while reading, just enjoyed the act of reading, eager to find out what would happen next, although the end result was obvious all along. In the end, when I had questions about this or that, the notes turned out to be handy.

The book has its biases. At times Hager does not sound at all happy with the modern world of scientific drug research and physicians who hand out prescriptions right and left. He seems to prefer his noble researchers and their "selfless" pursuits. I would accuse him of romanticizing the past somewhat. And I am not saying that modern medicines and drugs are perfect. We have solved so many things, but we do get carried away with new inventions, using them far more heavily and more things that perhaps we should. It is good to be cautious. To a certain extent we are a population of guinea pigs (Hager does NOT say this) growing up using and be surrounded by things that were unknown to generations upon generations of human beings. There are bound to be side affects and effects of things that only turn up after 30 or 40 or 50 years or more. But at the same time these inventions have also done so much good. We take so much for granted today, we forget that a simple infection, the flu, pneumonia, could kill not all that very long ago. Reading Hager’s account reminded me of how truly far we have come, and how easy it is to become excessive in our enthusiasms for new things.

January 13, 2007
Vogue Patterns is here!

The new Vogue Patterns magazine arrived yesterday and it was a welcome treat after a couple of long days with no further opportunity to work in the sewing room.

I have to admit that I was thrilled from the moment I saw the magazine and it took some discipline to put it aside and wait until I had finished with the day’s tasks before losing myself in its pages.

I am afraid it was rather late by the time I got to the magazine, after 10:30. Although I had taken a break to eat dinner, I wanted to finish my various accounting tasks before the weekend officially began and I still had a few bills to pay. Friday had been supposed to be my day to close out the 2006 office accounts and finish up the payroll and payroll forms for the year, and it was estimated tax day at home as well so I was busy just doing general end-of year accounting as I went along.

But the daytime hours ended up being occupied with a plethora of conversations with carpenters, contractors, and the engineer, as I learned that a few things hadn’t been communicated to other parties involved. we were behind on an inspection, the blueprints hadn’t been updated to show the new changes even though the contractor had told the carpenter to go ahead with them, and the engineer did not approve the plan. Something that had been in the plans didn’t work with the aluminum substructure for around the pool, in another area the deck was going to end up being 1 inch higher than the door into the house because we had to raise one side of the pool to level it. It all seems to be standard little problems that no one thinks about until it bites them, and then no one is responsible and no one is at fault. Meanwhile it was getting on toward late afternoon and I needed a new set of blueprints that matched the actual job before the building inspector comes on Tuesday or Wednesday, and it was looking like there would be less and less chance of an agreement and time to draw up new blueprints over a long weekend.

What a headache. Even paying taxes felt like a relief after the afternoon’s negotiations. I was very happy to curl up with my magazine and a glass of white wine for a bit before rolling off to bed.

And the verdict is……I love the magazine. Oh I have subscribed for years, although for a while there the magazine had gotten pretty boring. I would look at the patterns decide which ones to buy and toss the magazine. But recently the articles have been more interesting and more informative. And the styles and patterns pictured look very intriguing as well.

First off, there is that blouse on the cover. I have been thinking about a ruffle front blouse, somewhere on one of the smaller back burners, for some time now, but I haven’t found quite the pattern I wanted. I am behind enough that I didn’t want to draft my own either. Voila! Pattern found! Just in time for spring as well.

Then there are several intriguing looking new patterns coming out; a couple of them already have me reassessing a few fabrics in my stash that might be slated for spring sewing. I will have to wait for the patterns to be posted on Vogue’s website, then I can let you know what interests me, but at the moment I am still in the "everything" stage. I like everything, I want everything. I want it all.

January 13, 2007
A little garter stitch

As I pinned Haute Luce to the blocking board I envisioned finishing it last week and I was so thrilled with myself, figuring I would have a completed sweater before the new year was two weeks old. I thought I might wear it to knitting group on Thursday night.

But here it is Wednesday night, over a week later, and the sweater still languishes on the floor. Part of me doesn’t mind because I have been happily occupied with other things: reading and sewing mostly, aside from those necessary evils that must be done before boss and family revolt. I spent more time on a sewing project than I planned and I have continued knitting the remnants of the Tahki Donegal tweed. The hat is finished and now I am working on a scarf.

It has been the perfect kind of week for a little bit of mindless garter stitch, and I have been quite happy to have it. The thing is I really don’t mind garter stitch, and it is nice to have a really simple project I can just pick up and work on for a few rows before moving on to something else. I even worked in a couple of rows on the blue sock, but I was at someone’s house and the lighting was not good, two dropped stitches on those 000 needles was enough to put an end to that project for that night.

In fact I could go on like this forever, working in the sewing/fiber/knitting room. The world could just go on its merry way and I would be content, for a while at least. I have been missing this sense of just enjoying myself with my hobbies and it is lovely. It is too bad that laundry, vacuuming, and other worldly activities must intrude, but nonetheless, when I have time I am relaxing in my space, happily engaged.

I know I will get the purple sweater off the blocking board. It is the next major thing on my fiberly agenda, now that the sewing project is out of the way. It is unlikely that I will get it sewed together in time to pick up the stitches and knit the neckline at group tomorrow night, Thursdays tend to by rather busy with no real personal time until I get to knitting group/class. I for one can’t sew in my lap while I am talking to other people. A garter stitch scarf is a much safer bet.

I am still contemplating the VK cover sweater. I will knit it, and soon, but so far I prefer to knit a few other things first. It is a subject that I am finding infinitely satisfying to ponder and about which to dream. Knitting and dreaming; how nice.

January 10, 2007
Siimplicity4047 – Jacket

The black and white jacket is done (finally).

The pattern is a reprint of a vintage style swing jacket with cut-on kimono sleeves.

The pattern seems to be well drafted and went together well. The only tricky part is the way the neckline is designed, where the collar is cut in one with the front, involving a right angle pivot. I found one of the illustrations confusing here, although the directions were perfectly clear. For me it was just easier to look at the garment and the pattern and it made sense.

The jacket turned out nicely, I like it, and I will wear it.

Here are a couple of detail photos of the back:

I originally planned to use the same black and white trim I used above the peplum between the facing and the lining of the jacket, but when I started to put it in I felt it was too busy with the checked jacket fabric and the print of the lining. In the end I left that transition unadorned:

Although I love the jacket, and am happy to be done with it, there are a few things I think I might do differently if I were to make it again.

To begin with, I have two basic fit issues:

First: after making the muslin in San Francisco we decided that I needed to lengthen the peplum by 2" but not the bodice of the jacket. Now it looks OK as is; it fits correctly and I tend to be short from shoulder to bust-point, so even though I am tall I don’t usually have to lengthen patterns in that area, but the seam might look better a little lower. I think a lower seam would reduce the appearance of length in the lower torso, especially when wearing pants. After making another muslin, I would check the final length as I might lengthen the peplum as well. I am not yet convinced this is the best length on me.

Secondly I added shoulder pads to the jacket even though they were not called for in the pattern. This was another design decision based on the muslin. My shoulders roll forward, one more so than the other. On the muslin I had deep creases running from the shoulder line of the jacket. I originally thought I could recut the bodice, redrawing and reshaping the darts to accommodate my personal fit anomalies. Sandra had the brilliant idea that I could probably use the pattern as is and use shoulder pads to even out the inconsistencies in my own frame. This does work well and the jacket looks good. I used almost twice as much shoulder pad on the right as on the left, and it was a little tricky getting it positioned just right, but it makes a big difference.

BUT I am still not perfectly happy with how the shoulder hangs. The collar does not lie symmetrically (because I am not symmetrical, and one side of the jacket is too big. If I make this again I would cut a smaller size on the right front and have to do some finagling to get the sizes to match and reposition the darts.

The last problem I had with the garment is with the collar. Oh it works well and was easy enough, I just have a design issue, which is of course compounded by the unevenness of the fit on me as discussed above.

In the pattern photograph shown above you see how nicely the jacket is shown with the collar turned up partially. I had a good bit of trouble getting my collar to achieve this effect and lie smoothly. I don’t know if anyone else has had this problem, or if it was created merely by the addition of shoulder pads and my own asymmetrically, but I don’t think this is the case.

Look at the line drawings:

Notice that in the sketch, the collar lies flat and is spread rather widely. My jacket did that quite well:

But I didn’t like the way it looked on me. I liked the way it looked much better when I tried to flip the collar up more, but when I did so , the collar and front facing piece buckled and left rather unsightly wrinkles and bumps, quite visible to anyone standing within about 5 feet. This was not acceptable.

I checked reviews on pattern review and noticed that there are a couple of reviews by more accomplished seamstresses than I, neither of whom mentioned having any problem with the collar. But then, when I looked at their photos, I see that they both showed the garments with the collar down flat, as shown in the line drawing.

Either I messed up the construction, my fabric was not particularly suitable to the jacket, or there is a problem with the way the collar and facing go together if one wants the collar to stand up more.

Luckily the wool was pretty amenable to shaping with steam and although I did not get the collar I wanted, I got a pretty acceptable alternative. I spent a lot of time at my ironing board with the jacket on Matilda, a roll of wool, a pressing roll and my handy silicone Orka oven glove, steaming and shaping the collar. I eliminated most of the wrinkles and got the collar to stand, forming more of a roll than a jaunty angle, but it was enough.

Despite this, and despite the fact that I spent a lot more time on this than I originally planned, I am pretty excited about the jacket. It was supposed to be a quick jacket to wear while I lost weight. It still is; it is not perfect but it is good enough. Someday I will learn that I am really happiest when I spend the time to make separate pattern pieces for left and right side, and spend more time altering and perfecting patterns. But I, like most of us I suspect, sometimes just want to sew and not have to fret with pattern making. The problem with coming back to sewing is that I have to make a whole new set of base patterns and that is a lot of work, work I usually, but not always, enjoy.

Finally, here is a picture of me in the jacket. I am not sure it is the most flattering thing I have ever made, but I love it anyway as does G, and in the end, I suppose we are the only ones whose opinions matter:

One of the good things about going to sewing camp is I learn lots of new ways to "get by" and pull a project out of the fire without going through extensive machinations. And the results are often good. If I hadn’t started this under Sandra’s watchful eye, I would have struggled much more with the fit, and I am not sure I would have been happier with the final result.

A success!

January 10, 2007