Playing Catch-up and a Cote D’Azur Dress

This was a dress that started its life as part of my Mise En Place project over the fall.

Recently Amy of Sew Well asked me if I was back to working on one project at a time, or working on multiple garments at once. Coincidentally, I had just pulled out the remaining garments I cut for that project. My serger went on the fritz toward the end of a silk jersey dress, and I never got around to finishing the rest of the them so they’ve all been on my to-do list this spring!

One of the motivations behind the Mise En Place was to find an organizational system for myself. It seemed like every time I got down to actually sewing something I’d be missing something important–thread or notions, or forgetting to fuse part of the fabric and then having to salvage wadded up fusing. And it would just take so long to finish. I just wanted to sit down at the machine and sew when it was time to sew! This time I had a real pleasure out of having eight different projects all prepared to go, cut out, bundled up with their requisite notions, fused, etc. No more running out for something at the last minute. I liked pretending I was a small factory sewer for a moment.

I also really like working on the same type of project for extended periods of time. So all said and done it was a good experiment, allowing me to give all that attention to individual stages of the process. (And I got much faster at tracing patterns and refining seam allowances as a result.) Thinking eight projects ahead was fun, but I don’t know if I could do that all the time–no room for whimsy or the latest pattern a blogger made and I just have to have!

Speaking of which, I’ve been having a hard time coming up with a summer wardrobe sewing plan. There are just so many good ideas swirling around my head and my original list was about 10 or so garments. I’d love to join one of the palette challenges and I’m wondering if three is a better number. Leaving room for whimsy. I love the Me Made concept, too–but I think my personal challenges in the months ahead relate to fitting more than wardrobing. (I’m dreaming of a custom dress form. Just dreaming, at the moment.)

Anyways, that was a long answer to Amy’s question but I’m trying hard to put periods on some of my ellipses!

Now that you’ve made it this far: the dress!

Pattern: HP Cote D’azur Dress. Last summer I really wanted to try a Hotpatterns pattern. (And that sounds funny funny.) I have a few that I bought in some mad fabric.com discount. I figured a knit dress was a good way to start.

Fabric: This is a somewhat weightier rayon jersey (I think 14 oz?) and it was purchased for a draping project for a friend, as a birthing dress. I will have to share that story some day but it remains my second ever draping attempt and it was a blast. Anyway, I’d ordered far more than her dress needed just in case.

Details: This is basically a t-shirt dress with seams down the center back and front. Super simple, the whole thing is serged. The special part about it is the bias shaping down the center front seam that forces it to drape as it does. (Sort of like a cut-on godet?) It also has hem facings, which I like, because it allows a for the nice, curvy hem shaping.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about a design with a gathered seam going down the bust, but I decided to give it a shot and just use up my fabric. It’s pretty cute, I think. I like the fact that it’s a maxi (or midi?) and that it’s purple. I’m not very good at binding knits yet, and I had to rip out this binding THREE times to get that V right, but I’ll get there.

One word about fit: I didn’t measure or alter this pattern before cutting (a risk, I know). And there were no reviews of it on PR at the time–but I learned afterward how much bustage is in this pattern. If I did this again I’d take out some little darts in along the neckline and gathers. (This review is helpful in explaining that.) Guaranteed, if you are a B or below, you will have to do some bust adjustment for this pattern. It’s not an ideal fit for me, as you can see:

It doesn’t bother me too much because the overall dress is nice, and looks even better when I don’t have a belt on–it weighs downward. There is a t-shirt version of this, which I doubt I’ll make but if I did there’s no way I could get away without taking it in in this area. Yes, this is going to be the summer I learn about small bust adjustments. No more balloons of fabric!

Summer + maxi(midi) dresses + my iris garden = happiness. (Sadly the irises have all bloomed and left by now!)

Sweet Shorts, Sour Shorts, Spicy Shorts

Well, hello hello, and happy belated Easter! We do celebrate and this year’s holiday was pretty laid back, just spending the day talking with friends under a big oak tree and a little stroll through my garden to pick flowers. I got me an Easter bonnet, too! A fine big-brimmed straw hat that I wish I would’ve had when modeling my Lonsdale last summer. It will work its way into one of my future blog shoots, I’m sure.

This week I’m dreaming of shorts. And tank tops. Alas, it’s that time again.

{credit: google images}

I haven’t really worn sleeves in two weeks. This is why I never made a proper spring wardrobe plan, because heck, spring just flits in and out of Texas like a hummingbird. Now you see it, not you don’t.

My shorts fixation of the moment is being taunted by all the images of scalloped hems and lace shorts on Pinterest. (See my board.)

And serendipitously, today Colette released a cute little sailor short pattern in their new spring collection. You bet I’ll be trying these!

Last summer I wrote a bit about the way my style has changed living in Texas. I was never much of a skin-barer and I never had a need to be. I never really wore sandals, even in midwestern summers, and now they’re at least half of my shoe wardrobe. So slowly, over time, my tastes and my eye has adjusted to a breezier, skin-showing style.

I’ve liked the way summer clothes have taught me to celebrate my figure and make peace with those parts of the body I used to try and hide. I mean, I guess in a roundabout way I could blame Texas for actually giving me the courage to wear skinny jeans. (This year I even treated myself to SKINNY LEATHER pants. For reals.)

It took me awhile to be okay with shorts, for example, but now I can’t imagine living outside of them. A couple years ago, I timidly bought a pair of pretty little Ikat shorts on clearance at Anthropologie. And they became my uniform. I barely took them off for a couple summers straight. I need me lots more shorts.

In August, I sewed my first pair, pretty purple silk shorts, from a Burda pattern. They were so beautiful. I was so proud of the fly I drafted for them and how it all came out. And then I committed the ultimate sewing mishap–I’d completely sewn the wrong size (down). It could’ve been a costly mistake but thankfully the silk was left over from another project so I chalked it up to a fancy muslin. I’m determined to get them right this summer, and even ordered more of the same charmeuse.

The first pair on my agenda, however, are Pattern Runway’s Sweet Short.

After Oona first alerted me to this new line last summer, I promptly ran over to Etsy and ordered a few of their patterns. And now I really need them.

Thankfully, before I went a-cutting I found Liz’s pretty, gauzy take on these and her original assessment of the fit, or I would’ve banged them out without measuring or even making a muslin. (Do I learn?) According to my measurements I’d fit exactly halfway between their X-Small and a Small. The thing is, there are rather big distances between the sizes, unlike many of my shorts or trouser patterns (like Burda). Rather than cutting out some willy-nilly in-between size, I decided to do some measuring first and drew in the seam lines along the X-Small to get an idea of the ease. The finished measurements of waist and the hip have 4.5″ (11.4cm) of wearing ease! Just FYI. That’s quite a bit for fitted shorts, or at least a fitted waistband. Hopefully, the half size down will be good enough but I’m definitely making a muslin dammit. Tonight.

So stay tuned for further shorts developments. And a full-on summer wardrobe plan. I’ve got some drafting ideas up my sleeves!

I Need a Brain File Cabinet

I so so want of these to put all my little treasures. Lost keys, weird European change (oh, I saved all the pre-Euro coins!), sewing supplies.*

Lately, my brain has felt like it’s on inspiration speed. So many ideas coming at me, all at once. When I was younger, I’d just ride the wave, worried that the muse wouldn’t strike twice. But since then, the tsumanis can be as much of a burden as the droughts. Every single idea being “a rare opportunity, the one that never knocks!” And I keep hearing that song in my head.

I’ve taken personality tests in the past just to get a grip on what tends to motivate me and how I organize (or don’t). On the popular MyersBriggs, I’m usually an INFP which explains my passion for ideals, intensity of feeling, love of learning new things, and a lot of my past jobs and education (and my not infrequent changing of jobs and education). It also, unfortunately, tells me I have trouble organizing, setting goals and sticking to them. I do like finishing things, the sense of satisfaction that comes with it, but if something very interesting and important and new comes up, it’s hard to concentrate.

The one thing I’m always wishing for more of is organization. I’m just not the personality type who comes up with brilliant organizational strategies although I love to death the kind who do. (Y’all are a gift, and you know who you are!) At this point in my life I’ve made peace with my creative impulsiveness, but I’m always searching for a better way to sort through all the ideas that come at me. For awhile I was trying to keep a visual logbook, sort of like this one.

I also get real pleasure out of following my mental rabbit trails until a few of them connect in some meaningful way. Lately I’ve taken to mind-mapping software.

I have two highly organized business-owner friends who’ve suggested I try it out. I downloaded MindNode because it has a Mac-friendly interface. (There are free ones, but they run on Java which I don’t like.) For example, I used it recently for a blog post idea. As I started writing, the post started turning into a tome (a frequent problem) and I needed to map out all the rabbit trails I was going on. Visually, my mind works more in circles than branches, but it’s been really helpful to use this so that I can 1. find the theme that ties all my ideas together, 2. happily follow the ideas to their extremes, 3. decide which branch is important–at this moment.

So for example, remember in my last post I was talking about re-doing my website? I had a theme all redesigned and almost ready to go and then some other ideas popped in my head. I tried them out and kept fiddling and fiddling. At no point during all this did I take notes on what I had done or why. Did I want a typographic-y theme that felt like an old book? and how old? Did I want a very clean look, kind of modernist and straightforward? I have a soft spot for designs with little clutter, with simple visual cues. Or did I want some feminine-y sort of retro vibe? I should’ve had my mind-mapping software when I started!

And as a sort of creative exercise this week, I did some serious spring cleaning of all my sewing stuff and my books and files in my home office. This was really good. I spent hours and hours going through papers and tossing. I fasted a bit from Pinterest and other distracting muses.

And I weeded, a lot. Weeding is good for the brain, too.

(See, Oona, I got dirty hands!)

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your ideas and how do you organize them, just the ideas?

*As a kid, I loved flipping through these for hours and was endlessly fascinated with the Dewey decimal system and book titles. I remember sitting in a farm country library circa 1998, researching for my grad degree. I was the only one in there with a laptop; it was just at the the beginning of the dot-com boom. There were two lone card catalogs left and I felt a little pang of sadness; I knew the weight of that type of organization, the beauty of its craftsmanship, would be gone in a matter of days, months. (I remember thinking, time to get one now on ebay before they are like $1000. Um, too late.) These things are a beast though, the smallest weighing at least 150 pounds.

A Little Blush for Evening

In between travels and springing and birthdays and gardening, I was able to squeeze in a new lounge set.

Doesn’t that sound better than pjs? And that’s exactly what I do in them–I lounge a lot more than I care to admit. (How about right now?) Adding more of these to my drawers is making me plain happy. Feeling comfy and pretty and having some variety in my schlepsleepwear = bonus.

{And apologies for the grainy photos but this is what happens when one shoots in shade at an extreme ISO and then tries to expose afterward in software. Even though I could spend hours playing with all the filters and plugins for Aperture. So much cool stuff out there.}

Pattern: The set is from Burda November 2009, #129 and #132.

Details: I made the pajama trousers for my last set and they’re super easy, a simple drawstring pant which I’ve now adjusted for a better fit. It’s embarrassing how easy these are. Seriously, like less than two hours to cut and sew at my snail pace.

At first I thought I’d make another version of my kimono-sleeved pajama top but this fabric doesn’t quite have the stretch for a hip band. So instead I went for the wrap Burda top from the same issue. It’s a pretty simple wrap top with a shawl collar, and piping is sandwiched in between the collar and facing. I almost left out the piping but in digging around my ribbon box I found enough of this coral charmeuse bias tape that I’d made for something else. You can see the facing doesn’t quite want to fold in neatly but these are pjs and this fabric is too slithery to want to stay anywhere in place.

Fabric: Now I’m going to share a secret: polyester! This is a satin-type polyester knit from Gorgeous Fabrics, described as “70 denier microfiber jersey”. It looks like silk jersey, and feels a lot like it, but was much, much less expensive. And easy to wash and dry without wearing it down. (In my experience, washing silk jersey aggressively really messes with it.) The noticeable difference between silk and polyester is the static cling, which is the last thing that holds me back from drapey polyesters–and this fabric wants to cling. I’ve been trying to educate myself on types of fabrics for lingerie. Other than silk, obviously, there’s a lot of nylon and polyester, especially for bras, with terms like tricot, denier, microfiber coming up a lot. (You’d also see these in activewear.) With some of these fabrics, you have to let go of old stereotypes. There are polyesters that breathe and microfibers that feel very fine and soft to touch. And these will make some fine summer pjs–very, very cool on the skin.

It was nice to have an easy-peasy sort of “in between” project after all the work on my fur coat. We all need those palette cleansers now and then, right? Now it feels like a matter of weeks before the Texas summer dawns on me, so I’m strategizing, strategizing, strategizing. The onslaught of spring has sent me into deep spring cleaning and organizing mode on every front. Throwing out, compiling yard sale items. It’s even trickled down to computer folder organization (what a mess…). And I decided it was time to refresh my blog with a different design. More palette cleansing! I’ve been working on it offline quite a bit and it feels much more like me, much more like how I want to be blogging into the next year. It’s not up yet, but sooon.

it’s not easy being green

Do you ever feel like spring is just a bunch of exclamation marks?!

!!!!!!!!

Growing, growing, green. That unstoppable energy of spring is hard to keep up with. And March in particular is often the only “spring” we get in Austin–from here on out it rapidly turns to summer. So we get extra exclamation marks for that. I’m an avid gardener and it’s hard not to want to be outside digging in the dirt every chance I get. Here’s a bit of home for the “expat” Texans out there:

I have declared this the Year of the Bluebonnet. There are some years that they are smaller in crop than the others but between some perfectly timed rains in the fall and spring they are INSANE this year and I’m sure the Texas-dwellers out there have noticed the highways brimming with them. I dreamed for years of having a wildflower patch, something that simulated a meadow in a city garden kind of way. We have a pretty large yard for a city and even for central Austin–but it was entirely covered in shade and invasive plant-weeds. It took one fall of serious weeding, hacking down a few junk trees and bushes, and throwing out a few packets of seeds. Now my little patch of sunlight has taken on a life of its own. Some years the poppies show off, others the larkspur. Last year I had one lowly bluebonnet and all of this somehow came from THAT. (I never tire of the wonder that one plant can generate about 1000 more in just one season of seed-bearing.)

March is also a thick time because it’s also my man’s birthday month. Friends, birthdays are a really big, big deal around here. Sometimes wearily so. We usually take the day off (okay, sometimes more than one) and basically fill it with everything we love. It just so happens that Derek’s birthday is also St. Patrick’s Day. Yeah, he is part Irish and all heart so his bday always has this double-the-party energy. Add to all this SXSW, which seriously takes over Austin for about a week straight–the buzz, the traffic, the 10s of thousands of people crowding every square inch of this little town, the feeling that you are always missing some kind of huge convergent opportunity.

So we had a l’il party last night and now that things are calming down, from my quiet little porch in the universe, I can think about how much I adore this man and hope he had the bestest birthday:

{In this one, he’s wearing a vest I made him a couple of years ago from a vintage 1940s pattern. I’m going to do another one soon.}

Derek wears green velvet pants to breakfast and top hats to conferences. He collects circus paraphernalia and weeps in front of a Marc Chagall. He has the biggest heart and zest for life of anyone I know–and often loves people so much it hurts him. Darn Irish. I know it’s not easy being green.