montjoye

Right. I've added ties from the side seam to the side of the front panel. Hair up, long beads, slightly darker stockings, heeled shoes*, lipstick.

It's still not the most wonderfully flattering frock ever and I'm not sure yet if I'll wear it to the folk's shindig, but I'd be perfectly happy to be seen in it.





( more.... )

This was an opshop find that I pounced on to replace my old favourite gardening jumper*. Same colour, a little larger, far fewer moth holes, but with a stiff scratchy zip. I cut the zip out, stitched up the resulting two layer edge and put two buttons with loops as the new closure. I'm so pleased with the transformation. From a harsh, cold, modern look to a soft, warm, old fashioned one. Much more appealing to me anyway.

The end result:


reconstructed "before shot with the zip just placed in position.


*a lovely soft Burberry one found in a charity shop in Edinburgh, dahlink.

This jacket has been a lot of fun to make, but also inspired rather a lot of cursing. I wanted a comfy but fun jacket for slopping about in. My first thought for fabric was some sort of mad cotton paisley jaquard, but I didn't have any. I thought I didn't have anything appropriate in stash until I fell over the 1m of navy velveteen I bought from R&N last festival. Not enough by itself but the right sort of thing and with some other bits and pieces I had lying about.....




( lots more pics )

Finito. A done thing.

I'm really pleased with it in general. Of course there are things I would do differently now, there almost always are.

The main fabric is that strong linen I've been going on about. It really is different from the linen i am used to. I got it at the Fabric Store, and they even still had some last time I was there. I probably paid about $20/m (including 30% off, those sales are when I mostly shop there!)for 2m of 150cm wide. The lining is more regular linen, bought cheaply from Eliza's. The buttons are vintage shell, all different but the same size.

The pattern is my own invention. 14 years ago I took toile fabric and made a pattern for my old Durer coat. Earlier this winter I used that as the starting shape for the salmon duffle coat. Then I further converted that pattern into the one I used for the grey and gold overcoat. Now I've slimmed that down to produce the pattern for this. So from flat fabric, via 3 intermediate garments, I have made a "proper" jacket pattern. Two part curved sleeves and all.

Structure:
pretty much bag lined, which seems fine for the body. The sleeves are where I'm not happy. I stuffed up when cutting and failed to add on hem allowance. Actually I stuffed up when finalising the grey jacket pattern by not putting said hem allowance on the pattern, now done. So I bag lined the sleeve so I could use a tiny 5mm seam at the cuff. Not ideal as the lining is already dropping a bit despite the ditch stitching I've put on the vertical sleeve seams. I should have added a proper hem from the main fabric. Probably should have lined it in slithery stuff too. Ah well. There is light weight iron on interfacing in the upper collar, front edge of the body lining and hem. I taped the roll line (woot, tailoring talk) to combat the bias drape on the main fabric. The collar and shoulder seams are ditch stitched by hand. The pockets are fully lined patch pockets sewn on by hand prick stitching, top seam is taped.








Yes the sleeve cap has a few wrinkles when my arms are down. This is because they are patterned to sit properly at more like hands on hip position, which is really done to give me a full range of arm movement. I'd rather have a few wrinkles when standing straight so that I can drive, type, do whatever comfortably.

It has been pointed out to me that I haven't shared pictures of the finished flower blanket. Well I did, but only in this carefully laid out form on the spinners and knitters list. So here it is. It is working for me really well. It's very warm and snuggly.




( couple more pics )

This coral wool coating is so soft, and such a pretty colour. At the Job Warehouse sale it was one of the bolts carried out of the shop to make room for people to enter (yes really). I nabbed it fast as wool in pretty colours isn't easy to find and this is a favourite. As a part bolt it cost me all of $2. There was only 2 metres of it so I think I've done well to cut a knee length hooded coat from it. The sleeves are pieced and the back is reverse nap, but I managed to keep the fronts, hood and upper sleeves the right way up. The creamy grey/pink wool is cabbage from the Netherlandish overdress I made last year. I had taken it to the stash busting market but it didn't sell. Somehow in the process of putting it away, it ended up next to the coral wool and they suddenly announced what they wanted to be.

I've run a wide spaced prick stitch on the edges where the cream and coral meet. I'm pleased with this, it gives a nice gentle control without the hard tortured compression line that machine top stitching would make. I'm not completely pleased with the pockets. They are set a bit low and perhaps I should have sewn them on buy hand. They would also sit better if I hadn't had to piece them but piecing was the option available and I wasn't in the mood for welt pockets.

Maiden voyage tomorrow methinks.





( more pics + costs )

Although I now have time to work on the brown jacket of my desire, I have concluded that I need to push on with the blue garments while that is where my head is at. I'll get these to handwork only stage before I move on. Today I cut the blue hood and did the machine assembly. I'll do some of the handsewing tonight, then hopefully get the buttonholes done tomorrow. I've ammended the pattern a bit from the red one, narrowed the gores and shortened the hem at the shoulder. It ends up less frilly and with a rounder hem. Nice.

Last night I realised that my list notebook page had a grid pattern. This inspired me to get into the design for the new tablet woven belt. I did some card count calculations and charted out what I had been thinking. Then I popped into excel to play with versions. As you can see, I liked the bottom one and have copied that out to get a better idea of the finished weave. It will be less blocky in reality due to chosing the direction of threading appropriately. I'll wait until the buckle is here before I start, though if I felt wild and crazy, I could thread up the loom. Hmm, I do need to find where I have hidden the good shuttle and starting clip. Where o where?

Now to go get dinner started before the light goes completely and my lark/budgie brain just wants to curl up on the couch.
( design pics )

In retrospect it seems appropriate that my last sewing projects for 2013 were wrap skirts.

I have a classic block print, half circle, folky skirt. I enjoy the feel of wearing it but I find the colours depressing and the general style impression a bit too feral:




So I made an indigo linen* version that has much more elegant overtones. It also took only a few hours to make. Lovely to wear and I'm happy to be seen in it:



I like the circular design on the original but wanted a more cheerful version. I found good fabric for it in stash**. I meant to paint this, but then mrsbrown  suggested the fabric pens one can get nowadays. So... in much less time than the painting would have taken, especially given that most of my fabric paints are old and dry :





And of course they had to have labels:




I still have a residual desire to do some painting. I think I'd better buy some new paints first.


* stash, from Darn Cheap about a year ago
** which was a nice surprise 'cause I didn't think I had anything appropriate. This length had had erased itself from my memory. I can't even remember where it came from.

So I have sensitive skin, but that is not really the point of this post. Years ago, a doctor recommended I use a very gentle, soap free cleanser, which comes in big ugly bottles with (to me) clinical overtones. So I did.  It's a perfectly pleasant product to use and works for my purposes but the packaging is ugly.

Somewhat later, a dermatologist with a makeup fixation talked me into buying that smaller bottle of slightly fancier and 8 times more expensive, very neutral cleanser. I was dubious because it's main claim to efficacy was the inclusion of "French spring water". Ha. It turned out to be barely distinguishable from the product in the ugly bottle. Maybe it has a slightly finer texture, maybe.

Later still, I had used all the new product, but I liked the bottle, so I refilled it from the ugly bottle.

Even later I caught myself thinking "this french stuff really is nicer". Oh really self? really? don't you remember you refilled this pleasant little bottle from the big ugly one? Ha, crazy lady.

So the lesson is something like: package your product well and (at least some dumb) people will think better of it.





The inverse is true too. Take decent preferred product in ugly bottles:




Repackage them into more attractive receptacles and feel happier when you use them. Works for me :-)

The labels, they arrived! at the 11th hour (on my last day at work before this holiday). I had actually chosen a different style, as you may remember, but I did have several windows open that night, comparing different ones. So it's possible the mistake was mine? Anyway, at least the colours are right. I can work with this.




I'm rather glad now that I hadn't got around to wearing this new shirt. Now it can be taken out into the world labelled! Quite possibly tomorrow.