sewdistracted

Flush

I'm still cleaning out the closets.  I spent a lot of time for a couple of days doing the basic stuff, things I wear every day like pants, skirts, and knit tops.  And I've worked a little bit every day since, but there are still things I am avoiding, like my sweaters.  But I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff, really an amazing amount of stuff.  

 So what I have I found in the closets?  Quite a bit actually.

I have 8 pairs of pants I can wear now, and one pair of summer pants, over there on the far left in the photo.  By summer I will need pants as the striped pair shown here are anything but basic, unless perhaps I run away and join the circus.

 Pants are perfect for right now when it is cold and windy, snowy and slushy outside and the fact that I have so many choices amazes me.

The pants are grouped by heel height, and within that by color.  I always aim to have basic pants in at least two, if not three lengths, to accommodate different heels. 

From left to right:

2 pairs of black pants I can wear with flats:  one Saint John knit pair, and a pair of slim fitting matte jersey pants, that will actually be comfortable well into spring.

1 pair of gray stretch cotton chinos.  This sit a little higher in the waist than is currently fashionable but they fit so well it is almost uncanny.  None of the problems I usually have with pants is evident in this pair.  I should trace them off and compare them to my pant pattern from November.

1 pair of yellow cords.  I need some color to keep me sane.  

Then there are two pairs of black pants to wear with mid-heels 1 1/2 to 2 inches or so.  One of these is solid, the other is a lovely suiting fabric with gray and red pinstripes.

Finally, on the right, two pairs to wear with heels, black and winter white.  As I said, I am set. 

 The skirt population took a bigger hit.  But even here I have enough choices to get me through the season.  

White with red and black appliques.

Two pencil skirts in black, one with little pleats at the knee.

My favorite turquoise plaid Pendelton skirt, which has been taken up twice and will not be taken up again.

There are several other skirts, all skirts I made in 2005 or 2006 that have been put aside as they can be easily altered and worn and still look good.  We will see if I get to them.

Otherwise everything else has gone.

Two things I have learned so far:

1.  I do indeed have a few TNT patterns, or will after a few very minor alterations.  They are all patterns for things I made in 2004 or 2005.

2.  Good fabric truly is worth the investment.  The things I own that are made of really good fabric have held up beautifully and fresh and new.  The styles may not be perfectly current, but they are classic enough and the fabric good enough that they are fine.  Things I made out of less than stellar fabric often look tired and worn-out, even if they haven't been worn that much.  They weren't worth the effort that went into them, unless I was sewing them as a quick thrill to wear and toss.

Quick thrills aren't usually my style.

Through the closet door and into dreams: Ralph Rucci Fall 2010

 I've been cleaning out my closet.  This time I am being really brutal.  I must love it.  I must love it on.  No settling.

I am finding that I had forgotten how nice I feel in nice clothes, that I like tailoring, that I love a beautiful dress and heels, nice ladylike flats too, but especially heels.  I like dressing up.  Where have I been?  How could I forget?

Oh yes, I remember now.  Caregiver.  What a terrible word.  What a terrible style.

 I want to repudiate caregiver style.  Oh wearing jeans has been good for me.  I have learned to be casual; this took a long time, and there are days this is all I want.  But more often I want to be in a suit or dress and heels even though this is not the wardrobe expected in my life.  

One must gauge the climate.  One must also gauge the temperature of the woman, and find a meeting point where both coexist in comfort.  I am working on this; slowly yet, but working nonetheless.

I want to wear what I want simply because I want to wear it.

 I'm not far enough along in the closet restructuring to report anything, but I have been inspired to look at the fall collections.  Of course I started at the top, with my favorite, Chado by Ralph Rucci.  You must go look at the collection.  It is amazing.  Almost every piece is gorgeous.  The man is a genious.  Obviously I am stark-raving-mad for this collection.  I like it so much I have looked at it over and over.  I like it so much I haven't looked at anything else.

 I am so inspired I'm loopy.

 There are so many things here that speak to me.  Some are ideas for things to make.  I'm not really planning direct knock-offs.  I stopped that years ago, I'm more interested in stealing inspiration, and Ralph Rucci's work is all inspiration.  Besides, my skills aren't up to creating some of these things, not yet, perhaps not ever.  

But my love of this collection goes beyond just wanting the clothes, and yes I do want them.  It goes beyond just dreaming of making the clothes, or using them for inspiration.  This collection reminds me of something fundamental and basic that is in my style, something with which I had floundered for a while. 

If style is also a reflection of who you are, of the place you want to mark in the world, when the world throws you for a loop it is conceivable that even style can get lost.    But to deny one's style is to deny a fundamental piece of oneself, whether that style be "high" or "low", combat boots or Christian Louboutin.

I love these garments in and of themselves.  They are perfection.  They remind me of what I like, they remind me not to go down frivolous paths following whims.  

Sometimes I just look at something and say that is how I wish clothing could be, how I wish life could be, the life for those clothing.  

Aspirational.  

 Inspirational.

Clothing that makes me wax philosophic. Not a good sign.  Did I not tell you I was loopy? We all know I am not good at philosophy, and I am worse at writing about it.  

Did you know that in college I was told that I "write badly very well", and that I should write the blurbs that you find on the back of novels, enticing the reader to open the pages?  

It is true.  But it is not correct.  I let my mind wander far too freely to write blurbs.

Even in the context of these fabulous clothes my mind wanders beyond "where could I wear this" and "how could I reproduce that" and thinks of blurbs.

These are dream clothes.  They are not clothes for driving the garbage cans up the hill, or doing all those other practical things.  I don't think dreams need to be practical.

Where have I been?

Nowhere.  Here.

What have I been doing?

Everything.  Nothing.

Or at least that is how it seems to me.  I've been busy doing many things that all seem to be the perfect things to be doing at the time I am doing them, and yet I have nothing in particular to show for these things.  Not that having something to show is necessarily what life is about.  But still there are blogs, mine to write, others to read:  so much to say and see and do, and still life sits there either being lived or waiting to be lived.  I'm all for the living.

And so I am living it.  And for me that means I am doing a lot of things.  Planning various things that need done, I like schedules and charts and research.  I like lists.  I've been reading and knitting and cooking.  I've been cooking up a storm, making stock and cheese and just cooking the three meals a day that we seem to need to have on the table.  I suppose we always eat, and I always manage to get meals on the table but sometimes I cook more, experiment more, sometimes I just get meals on the table.  I have fun with this.  I can't imagine not doing it, just as I can't imagine not sewing.

Sewing.  That is what this blog is supposed to be about isn't it? Well yes.  And the distractions from sewing, the things sewing distracts me from.  

I've been working with my muslins, working on them a little here and there.  Don't think I have tons of muslins lined up and garments will just roll out, they will, but I'm not there quite yet.  I've been working a little bit but mostly I've just ben absorbing the process, working on things and wrapping my head around what they really mean.  And I have not been subjecting you to the small variations and details that I play with, but the results will eventually be apparent, or at least I hope they will.  They are already starting to show up in my knitting. 

I seem to have needed

 a long time to just flounder about, wondering what I wanted, wondering which shelf or box I had placed put my true "self" in when I got busy taking care of other things that were more important.  When those other things settled themselves down again, I found that I wasn't quite ready to put myself back together, or I was but I didn't remember how to do it.  And somehow I opened the right box and there I was.

Hello self.

I'm comfortable in my skin again.  It is not weight, although I am losing weight and am back at a weight where I feel more  comfortable with myself.  I'm growing my hair out again. I am exercising every day and that takes a big chunk of time. Somehow, amidst all this, I've rediscovered my old sense of style, rediscovered that I do have a sense of style, discovered that I don't have to look for it, struggle over it, fret and ponder.  It is just there.  Where did I lose that knowlede?  

I'm glad to have it back.  It is very calming. 

What I want now is a plan.  

I remember now:  I do love clothes.  But I want the clothes I want to wear.  And I want to sew the things I want to wear, not sew something just to sew something.  Some of the things I want to wear and sew are simple, some are not.  Some of the things I want to wear I will not sew.  That is OK too.  

And the days are just all too short.

Alexander McQueen

I was very sad yesterday to hear of the passing of Alexander McQueen.  Here is a link to an article in today's Wall Street Journal.  Wendy Brandes has links to more news coverage on her blog. 

Of course I didn't know the man, but I admired his creativity and talent.  His runway shows were inspiring, and his tailoring was beautiful.  I never bought a suit by McQueen because by the time he was making a name for himself I no longer needed suits, but I had thought that once I get my own personal reconfiguring settled, I could treat myself to one of his tailored pieces. 

 Alas, it shall not be.

I will however, wear one of my favorite sweaters, a little red McQueen number my sweetie gave me a couple of years ago to dinner tomorrow night.

New Vogues Have Arrived

I ordered the new Vogue patterns after the last sale and have been haunting the mailbox.  Is it just me or did they seem to be taking much longer than usual to ship them out?   I don't know, but fretting about it certainly kept me somewhat dithery.

 

As for my January goals, I actually did pretty well with those.  The goal was to get back into a routine and also to carve out some time that was my time alone to devote to solitary pursuits.  I am not exactly putting in an hour each day on everything but we have a system and a routine, and most importantly I am getting to the things I want to do.  I have not been in the sewing room every day, but I have put in about 6 hours a week the last two weeks and there will be things to show eventually.  I am mostly working on muslins now, and it gets a bit repetitious.  Besides I had abandoned several projects in varying stage of muslin-fitting and it has taken some time to recreate each process and figure out what I was doing before, and if it is worth continuing the project.  And frankly, I am perfectly happy with my progress even if that means that at this point I am more devoted to my gym time than my sewing time.  This too shall pass.

Unfortunately, this week has been absolutely devoid of sewing time.  Granted it is only Wednesday, so I do have time to make that up; and I did spend some time catching up with blogs and internet sites from which I had been absent.  I'm not trying to pull the plug on my internet activities, but I am trying to find some kind of balance between living my life in my life and following  all of your activities online.  Balance is difficult for me in a way.  I tend to bury myself in whatever I am doing and let all the rest slide, but I am trying to be more balanced and I think it is paying off.

Simple stitching

I promised I would do some sewing for the local historical society.  They have many knitted and crocheted blocks that were donated at an annual "knit-in" which need to be assembled into blankets.  Apparently gathering squares is easier than finding willing seamstresses.  

I do actually find the work rather calming  now that I have finally figured out what I was doing.  I didn't like the look of the blanket when I crocheted it together, or when I used a mattress-stitch like seam, too many colors and weights and different patterns were used.  

In the end I am happiest using a simple blanket stitch, which also helps me adjust the tension and gives me a little wiggle room, matching up blocks that very slightly in gauge and size.  I also like the even more minimal stitches seen on the reverse (right in the photo here.

 

I am hoping to put some regular time in this now and finish it up over the weekend.

Back in the sewing room

I was having a lot of trouble getting myself motivated to get back in the sewing room actually making something.  Then, over the weekend I got a comment on my knitting blog asking me if I preferred knitting or sewing.  My initial reaction was "sewing" but of course there are times when I prefer knitting.  

But the question made me think.  If my answer was sewing, why wasn't I sewing something?  And it struck me that there are a lot of reasons, but that if I really wanted to be sewing I should just start.

And so I did.

I knew that I had much unfinished business in the sewing room and I was in the middle of a muslin but I really just wanted something new, something I could wear right now, and I thought I would just whip up a simple knit dress.  I prepped the fabric over the weekend and pulled out the pattern and thought I would get right to work.  But then I realized that yes, I could just do an FBA and lengthen the pattern, and add a little at the hips too, but that what I really wanted to do was make it fit me well, and my idea of fitting well has changed since I took that sit and sew class with Susan Khalje and Kenneth King.

I am no longer happy with things that "were good enough" a few short months ago because now I have seen how they can be better.  I don't quite fully have my had wrapped around the "how" part of making them better, but I now know I can do it.  I don't mind messing up.  I don't mind making a "wadder" but apparently I do mind just whipping up something that is "good enough" when I know I can do better.

But I don't really know how to do better because I am still working through the alterations on my princess seamed blouse.  I intended to use the blouse, once it was fitted, to be the base from which I could work altering other patterns.  But I haven't finished the blouse and as a result I don't really understand how the things I have done completely relate to the whole.  I don't have a base yet.  I realized I needed to go back to my muslin, and that once I have done the necessary work to get the fit right, and translated that to other patterns, then I can whip up a quick little dress when the mood strikes, a quick little dress that actually fits,

 So I finished the shirt muslin I was working on before Christmas.  I was not as far along as I had thought.  I had cut out a new front and sewn it up, but although I had made a new pattern for the back, I hadn't cut it out of fabric yet.  Today I cut the back and sewed up the third muslin and tried it on.  It is pretty good, but still not perfect.  I need a little more room at the bust, I need to shift a couple of seams to get them to line up in a balanced and attractive way.  I think there are some changes to be made to the back as well.  G tells me there are wrinkles.  After I fix the front I shall move on to the back, and then to the sleeves, which will hopefully not throw everything else completely out of whack.

And you know something?  Just cutting out the muslin and sewing it up was gratifying and fun, as much fun as making a new dress.  And I am thrilled that even though I haven't done much sewing yet, it is coming back to me, stitching and marking and cutting and even sewing neatly are becoming simple and natural again, which is major, because when I started up again in November I thought that I was pathetically bad, as bad as when I was just starting.  I embarrassed myself.  I am glad to have gotten past that.

Next up shirt muslin #4.

Vogue: New Website, New Patterns

Vogue finally put up the new patterns, which is good because I had been eagerly awaiting them since the Vogue patterns magazine arrived over Christmas.  With the new patterns came the debut of the new website, which perhaps accounted for the delay.

I like the look of the new site and am not having much trouble with it.  I find it easier to search on this site and I like that there are direct links between Vogue, McCalls and Butterick.  I'm not having any problems with my use of the site, but I dont' demand much of it either.  I do like that they have links to related designer websites.

But on to the patterns.  These are the ones that are currently sitting in my cart although they may or may not still be there by the next club BMV sales rolls around -- I am trying to really think about patterns before I purchase.

I loved this Guy Laroche dress(1155) when I first saw it in the magazine and it is one of the pattern that has had me haunting the site for three weeks.  I still love it.  I think it would be fun to sew and wear.  I would make it longer, and I have a few issues with the front closure, but I think I can work those out.

 This Donna Karan dress (1159) really intrigues me also.  Truthfully I kind of had a bit of a love/hate attitude in the magazine and I am not a fan of this print in this dress, although the line drawings have made me reconsider the possibilities.  I distinctly don't like the way the diagonal lines on this particular print look with the diagonal seams in the back of the dress, over the bottom.  But that could just be a sign of impending fuddy-duddy status, and I certainly believe it could be better managed in a different fabric.

 While I am talking about Donna Karan, I am also seriously considering 1168, the blouse and pants.  The fact that G also loves this look and raves about it every time he sees me looking helps.  I think this has a fabulous insouciance that could really add a spark to dressing for casual summer events.

 There are several pretty, girly summer dresses and for the most part they just aren't me.  I keep coming back to this one by Tracy Reese though (1158).   I am not convinced I am going to keep it in my cart.  It is a little low cut in the back, and although I could adapt the design to something I liked even better, I am increasingly thinking this is something that I can best use as inspiration for creating something from one of my existing patterns.

 Last on my list is this Very Easy Vogue pattern.  I have skirts like this one, it is pretty basic. but I love the look of the short jacket over the high waisted skirt, and I have learned that these little cropped boxy jackets can be quite flattering on me.  

 

How a search for Indian Groceries yielded a pattern and what I learned

One day, when I still was under the influence of my cold, G and I took a trip down Route 9 to the lower part of our county.  We wanted to go check out a couple of Indian Groceries and see what they had in terms of fresh produce, as well as procure a few things that might become pantry staples.  Although I found a small selection of fresh vegetables, including a few things that I can't otherwise find at my regular markets, I did not find what I was looking for, namely fresh fenugreek greens.

After we left the last Indian Grocery, to which we will return, we realized we were only half a mile or so from the Middle Eastern market I used to frequent and so we thought we would stop in and see what was in stock.  Unfortunately the market was gone and a dentist's office now stood in their stead.   As we stood out front, remarking on the dearth of good ethnic markets in the area ever since the Thai grocery closed I realized that we were right next door to JoAnn Fabrics.

Now I don't usually shop at JoAnn.  I stopped shopping there after patterns were available on the web because this particular store never put the new patterns out on the sales floor until 4 or 5 weeks after they were released (although they were very prompt at pulling discontinued patterns), and the new patterns were never available during the sales.  But I was there.  I knew they had a sale on McCall's Patterns.  I knew there was a pattern I was interested in.  So we went in to look, and I bought a pattern.

 Now I really like the pattern, just as I really like the Michael Kors dress which obviously inspired it.

But I am having a few doubts.  My recent experience organizing the fabric stash has made me think about my tendency to buy things on a whim without really thinking about how much I actually have or what I actually need.

And I am having a few second thoughts.

McCalls is not my favorite pattern company from a fit standpoint.  They cut large.  The patterns are too broad through the back for me and usually the bust point is too wide as well, wider than either Vogue or Simplicity.  When I look at this pattern, according to the illustration the princess seams run outside the bust point.  This may be attractive on a slender young woman who is not particularly well endowed but it is a look that I personally find aging.  Given that this pattern line is usually to wide through the bust, and that the style is cut even wider, this pattern would need a fair amount of alteration to work for me and yield an attractive dress.  I am wondering if using this pattern would actually be more work than just altering one of the many princess seamed sheath dress patterns I already own.  

I am realizing that I need to stop acquiring the newest latest thing just because it is the newest latest thing, and think about what I have and what actually works for me.  I don't actually regret the purchase.  Even if all I get out of it is the realization that I need to think more about what works, it was a reasonable investment in education.  For about the price of trip to Starbucks I have turned a corner in my thinking about patterns.  I will probably compare this pattern to a sloper that fits, or another pattern and work from there.  I may or may not use it.  But I will make this dress, or a reasonable facsimile.

It seems to be about time that I actually start thinking, rather than just reacting.

Adieu Sweet Tori.

 Tori passed away yesterday afternoon.  She was indeed in heart failure and continued to decline despite all efforts.  She was young, almost 8 years old.   

She is missed.