Ann sent me this link to Counterfeit Chic that announces a new “Fashion Law’ program at Fordham’s law school. Counterfeit Chic author Susan Scafidi has been working this for quite some time. From the perspective of Fordham this might be a good idea but to the mostly cynical side of me Continue reading A Solution Without A Problem
 Used with permission of Just Hungry Two blogs I read all the time are Just Bento (about that very subject) and her sister blog Just Hungry (about Japanese food and culture generally.) Both are written by Maki, Japanese woman with a finely tuned palate and a deep love of food and culture. If you really want the down low on what Japan is like from the inside follow her blogs. She was recently back home and did a blog tour of the country, and in Kyoto took us to many places off the beaten track such as tiny little stores that sell artisan sewing notions like these animal pins, which are the essence of kawaii (a Japanese love of cuteness that lasts long after childhood. ) The link to her blog post has many more wonderful photos as well as an examination of hand sewing needles that reads like treatise on samurai swords, and I say without a trace of irony. I want to go to Japan!
 Click! This is my ideal summer look – I love everything on this page! Well, not the ankle-tie espadrilles, but that’s an easy substitution. I think I’ll use this as the inspiration for my summer sewing.  Click!  Click! True confession: I never made a pair of fly front pants until now; not really sure why that is. So I rate myself intermediate for pants sewing. I’m also not exactly cutting edge with pattern choice here since there are many terrific examples of HP Marrakesh Pants out there; Gigi, Debbie, Sue, Michelle and Barbara have made up this pattern and each example looks fantastic. Given that my pants sewing skills are merely average, this first pair will be gardening pants . But these are not a wearable muslin because I still did two regular muslins to get the fit right; one straight out of the envelope and the second with a front thigh adjustment using Els’ method (which is definitive BTW.) Trudy’s crotch curve does everything people say it does. The front thigh adjustment was the only change I made to size 12. For the zipper Sandra Betzina’s method seems to be the easiest one out there, although I find it a little peculiar that she doesn’t include a fly shield, but that’s easy to incorporate, basically you just add it towards the end. When I do my next pair I’ll show some photos. There are a few detail changes:
 Goofy chcken button The fabric is Solarweave from Rockywoods; a SPF 50+ nylon supplex. The last time I used this fabric I made a shirt and that project had loops and no buttonholes. This fabric hates buttonholes. Even when it’s interfaced. I had to add a piece of machine embroidery stabilizer under the fabric. Solarweave is lightweight but the yarns are very hard and so make sure you use a fresh needle. It also frays and all seams need to be inside a lining or clean finished. This is a noisy fabric too, it makes a swishing sound and I’ll never where these anywhere except my own backyard or for a quick trip to Lowes. Next time I’ll make the waistband a little taller, maybe to 1 ½ inches tall. This is now my go-to casual pant and I’ll be making up several for summer. Gigi’s renovation posts have been fun to follow, and her recent one on the window treatment she’s planning for her master bath reminded of one we did. Our mid-century modern house was built in 1967. Window treatments are a challenge because every room around the perimeter has a slider and a floor to ceiling glass wall. My sewing room (a bedroom) and my daughter’s rooms have vertical blinds:
But for our bedroom we wanted something different and also a solution that we didn’t need to open and close every day. However by the time we finished the house the thought of spending another big wad of cash on window treatments wasn’t really in the cards. So I bought several yards of non-woven, non-fusible interfacing at Jo-Ann’s and taped it to the windows. A few pots lids and plates were templates for the decorative border. That was six years ago and its still there!
When I was writing my blog post about my madras shirt I mulled over whether or not to post it to Pattern Review. And for the first time since 2002 I decided “why bother?”, and in fact, my interest in PR has reached the point we part ways in terms of further contributions. This decision is somewhat motivated by the current rancid climate over there – that alone could be the subject of several blog posts. The powers that be at PR are certainly making plenty of people angry these days. My big issue is that every time I look at PR I see Web 2004. For some reason, PR is stuck in this web time warp that is pre-social networking, and pre-rich media. There are no videos. There is no robust search engine to locate site content. The interface design hasn’t been updated since a new logo was created years ago and the color palette has not changed since day one. The e-commerce function doesn’t utilize any of the current catalog technology that even the Big 4 have added to their websites. Burdastyle has it all over PR in terms of an attractive interface. And then there is the childish behavior on the message boards and a lack of transparency and less-than-professional behavior by the owners. I left middle school a long time ago and I don’t need to relive it on the Internet. Still, PR is the 800 lb gorilla in its category and the membership is pretty high. But you know what? It reminds me of another membership driven web powerhouse that made people angry , missed many opportunities to innovate and is now a shadow of its former self. It was called America OnLine.  Can you find my mistake? This Patti Page song was in my mind while I was making this shirt. Fabric invokes memory and as soon as I saw this patchwork on Gorgeous Fabrics I knew I had to have it; when I was kid in California I had a madras shirt that I loved so much I wore it until it fell apart and it was a hand-me-down to begin with. It was sooooo soft and light….and when this patchwork arrived from Gorgeous Fabrics I was instantly transported back to Oceanside CA. Madras is also a beloved summer fabric in New England going way back. I remember not so long ago summer clothes were regional; everything now seems so generically tropical. I like palm trees as much as the next person but I also love the New England summer fashions that were sold and made here by local stores before Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren co-opted the look and made it boringly mainstream. As much as I love it this fabric it posed some interesting challenges: Prewash – I threw a Color Catcher® into the pre-wash and sureee enough it came out really dark in both this colorway and the green one, so I recommend using one.  Click! Design and pattern changes - simple is better for any garment made with this fabric. Ann made an A-line skirt in the pink patchwork colorway, and if you want to make a shirt in one of these patchworks the design I used is about as complicated you can go in terms of the pattern. Initially I was going to use McCall’s 6035 View D as is, but this patchwork is busy and the intersecting thicknesses would be challenging with princess seams. Also details like the collar and stand don’t lend themselves to being made from patchwork due the seaming in the fabric, so I made a design change and used a nice white cotton shirting (also from Gorgeous Fabrics) from my stash. If you don’t like the idea of a contrast collar a collarless style such as Kwik Sew 3200 is an alternative. I thought the vertical seams from Butterick 4609 were a better idea, but I wanted the shirred sleeve from 6035. A problem emerged in that the armscye between 6035 and 4609 is quite different. 6035 has the high armhole that is fashionable right now and I wanted that; 4609 is an older pattern and has a lowered armhole. So I traced off both patterns, cut off the seam allowances and laid one over the other matching up at center front. Then I traced the vertical darts from Butterrick onto McCall’s, made flat pattern adjustments for my figure based on my measurements and whipped up a muslin. After a few more adjustments to the paper pattern I made the shirt. Layout – you will need to eyeball the grain because these patchworks have no grain, no selvage and you can’t tear a grain line either due to the patchwork seaming. Keep your style simple and use a single layer layout. Construction - There is a fusible interfacing under the placket and it works with this application because it’s just a narrow strip. Ann used silk organza and didn’t recommend a fusible for a skirt facing and I agree, with this fabric you can’t really used a fusible for anything other than a shirt placket.  Click! Buttons & Buttonholes – The creamy shell buttons are vintage and came from my stash. One thing I have learned from Pam is to never, ever rely on the pattern instructions for buttonhole placement! They always tell you to have them too far from the finished edge! Buttonhole placement is a sure clue to a garment being home sewn – honestly just go onto the sewing forums and take a look: 99% of sewers place them too far from the edge or they are horizontal when they should be vertical. I did double buttons to just tone down the madras a bit. The buttonholes are done with a Singer Buttonholer I have set up permanently. I’m not crazy about the ties made from the collar fabric, I’ll replace them with 3/8 twill tape because I want them drapier. I may add a center line of hand topstitching in blue floss (like this M&J Trim ribbon) to transition the sleeve detail to the fashion fabric. One last thing: the muslin had more ease than the finished shirt, and again I think this is because the patchwork seams and lack of a true grain affects the wearing ease. So for a shirt give yourself a tad more ease (1/4 to 3/8 inch) than you normally would to account for what is lost due to the nature of this patchwork fabric. This week we had a day with temps in the high 80’s; I wore this shirt to work and loved it! It was a great transition from air conditioning to the warm outdoors. Not sure what I’ll do with the green colorway; I’m thinking a casual hoodie jacket might be fun. Next up is a pair of Hot Patterns Marrakesh Pants in a white linen/cotton to wear with this shirt. Last weekend I was at a dance competition (the saga of Abby’s costume will be the subject of another blog post!) It was the first one of the season and not one of the major events so the quality of the dance and choreography was pretty uneven. I saw one piece that just floored me and I knew something was up when the dancers brought a tombstone out on stage. Three dancers were dressed in grey and one was in a dark red dress and carried a little bundle that was obviously meant to be a swaddled baby. Okay, I said to myself, this is going to be dreary; here we have a half-baked artistic concept, hokey props and symbolism that is about as subtle as the Pussy Cat Dolls. The music started and it was a song by some chick singer doing an overwrought country dirge typical for the Lyrical dance form, which is always the most cliched in competition. Last summer at Nationals during the Dancer of the Year finals we were subjected to 35 lyrical solos in a row. I’ve seen so many of them that I could choreograph a Lyrical piece. However back to my story…..the routine made no sense; the tombstone implied the baby died because at one point the dancer in red opened up the swaddle to show there was no baby anymore (how subtle). But the choreography was really muddled and I couldn’t figure out the emotional context of it. So out of utter confusion I listened to the lyrics of the song. And it was an anti-abortion ballad. Since when is it acceptable to bring hot-button political issues to a dance competition? To use children to promote your political agenda? My point here has nothing to do with my stance on abortion; if it had been a pro-choice routine I would have been just as offended. What’s next? A dance routine about lethal injection? Gun rights? The AIG bailout? We live in strange times. |
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