Tales from the Sewing Studio

Giant Cowl Dress

That's "Giant Cowl Dress with an 'L'"--not to be confused with

 Giant COW Dress.  (I hope.)

May I present to the jury the following evidence and testimony:

McCall's 6069

Requests the use of "moderate stretch knits such as jersey."  

I complied.

 

I bought some t-shirt weight jersey in dark-grey thinking that this would be the perfect kind of dress to wear to fancy outings with trendy people, you know, because that's how I roll.  And I mean, if you're wearing a dress all night, why not make it out of a fabric that feels like a t-shirt?  And in a color that's so cool, it's even too cool to be black.  So there.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now, I submit exhibit B:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

True, it still needs to be hemmed (but I have been too lazy to switch my serger over to cover stitch yet), and true, it needs some kind of belting accessory...

but well...

Somehow... I just imagined this dress being so much more awesome!  And so much less... fluffy.  Isn't it just a little sad?  Especially compared to the slender, svelte, and uber-stylish ladies so casually sauntering around on the pattern envelope.  That should be ME!  Sauntering around... at all my parties and stuff and other places I go, like the grocery store...

Anyway,  I can't quite put my finger on it, but I it may just be that this pattern really requires a somewhat heavier but very slinky knit.  I attempted to give it that extra weight by pinning drapery weights into the cowl facing, but I am still not entirely sure that I won't look like a holstein when I wear this dress.

 

 

 

I'm not giving up on it yet though.

I am going to hem it.  Maybe good hemming will solve some of the droopy-Eeyore-iness.  And I think a good hot wash with fabric softener...

and finally, my magical last resort:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because who cares what your dress looks like when you're wearing this belt???

A Dress for All Seasons

For starters, this dress was not originally intended to be a dress.  

What I started with was a trip to G Street Fabrics (the one at Seven Corners) where I actually did not really need anything, but walked away with a BONANZA of $2.97-table bargains.  Among these treasures, a lovely lovely absolutely wonderful 2-yard length of indigo denim chambray.  Very lightweight, smooth and supple too.  

And that made me think of this pattern that I had at home:

    ...which led me to the immediate conclusion "Wouldn't this just make the most perfect little jumpsuit!"  

    And then, much aghast, I had to repeat to myself "JUMPSUIT????"   Okay.  I guess I just never thought I would

A: find any kind of "jumpsuit" even relatively wearable, let alone fashionable,

B: want to wear a "jumpsuit", or believe that I might look anything other than ridiculous (or 6-years-old) in a jumpsuit, or

C: want to wear a jumpsuit enough that I would actually take the time to make one.   

 

And by the time I reasoned my way through this fashion conundrum and came to terms with my sudden desire to wear a jumpsuit, I realized that I did not have enough fabric to make said jumpsuit anyway.  

And that's why I made the dress!

I think the pattern still called for more than the 2 yards of fabric that I had, but I have found that you almost never need as much fabric as is suggested on the back of a pattern envelope.  Instead of folding your fabric in half and cutting everything in twos, you can cut each individual piece singly (making sure to flip your pattern piece!) and nest them much more closely that way.  But you should also be willing to spend the little bit of extra time, and since I was watching Northanger Abbey twice in a row that morning, I was perfectly happy to spend the extra time.  

I am so happy with the results of this dress, I would recommend this pattern to anyone looking for a simple sewing project and/or an all-purpose, versatile, and flattering basic.  And so comfy too!  Comfy dresses always get a big gold star from me.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In fact, I am so happy with the results of this dress, that I think I WILL make that jumpsuit.  If I could find a good mid-weight olive-drab poplin...  What say ye?  Yea or Nay to JUMPSUITS???

New Dresses!

I still have four fully-cut projects in little stacks in my sewing room just waiting for some attention...  this is the effect of returning to my full-time job...

But here is an update of one of those three dresses that I DID manage to finish!

 

Vogue 1236--DKNY dress

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   This is a nice, simple pattern, and a quick sew.  The cutting was the tricky part, due partially to the fabric I chose--a printed cotton I got at Hancock Fabrics. I bent the rules with this dress a little-- since the stripes on the fabric were printed from selvage to selvage, I decided to lay this out on the cross-grain.  And of course the stripes were printed off-register, but I figure that just enhances the quirky, slightly off-kilter charm.  Otherwise, I didn't do too much to combat this besides taking a little extra time to block the fabric with some serious steaming action.  Careless?  well, perhaps.  

    It also took some playing around to figure out the best way to lay out the stripes.  It worked out that I could center the front piece on any color stripe, and that color stripe would end up at the side seams as well.  This didn't quite work out for the back piece though, and I wanted to avoid breaking up the stripes too much at the side seams.  I also hoped to match the stripes at the side seams, if possible, so I eventually figured out that putting a seam at center back would allow me to make the pattern symmetrical and match the stripes on the sides.  Obsessive?  Okay, maybe slightly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   The facings are a quilting cotton I had in my stash that just happened to match quite well, and I also used it to back a piece of navy blue grosgrain for the tie belt.  I had plenty of the stripe that I could have used for facings, but decided that I could not live with a dress where the stripes on the facings did not match up with the stripes on the outside.  I also decided that I was just too darn lazy (and too interested in Brideshead Revisited) to pay attention to cutting out any more matching stripes.  Cheating?  Okay, okay, just a bit.  

Oh, and it has pockets!  I love this dress, and encourage all my sewing friends to make one for yourself!  

And I believe that with this post I have also managed to demonstrate that, YES, a person can be--at one and the same time--both LAZY AND CARELESS while also being EXTREMELY ANAL-RETENTIVE.   I'll just tell myself that it makes me special, right?

Making the most of a two-week furlough:

I just returned to work after spending the last two weeks on furlough.  And as tough as it can be to swing two weeks without a paycheck, at least I had that much time to devote to... whatever I want!

This is pretty much what our living room looked like all week:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For two days, I sat on the floor with my brand-new cardboard cutting mat and cut out SEVEN projects!  I actually look forward to cutting out patterns at home.  I typically save simpler patterns in easy-to-cut fabrics for the living room floor, and then I just crank out a whole stash of things to sew.  And simultaneously watch movie after movie after movie.   It's kind of cathartic to end up with little stacks of fabric and tissue, while also taking in all the movies I rarely have time to watch during my real, normal life.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've already finished four of the seven!  Because after I cleared out all the cutting implements, our living room morphed into the sewing room... (so that the movies could continue...)  I have three new dresses, and a skirt...

And I WILL POST ABOUT THOSE SOON!

 

ASHEVILLE!

So for a somewhat belated update, Ed and I spent our last weekend of June in Asheville, NC for a few days preceding the wedding of our friends.  And we loved it!  

Of course, we went to see The Biltmore.  We are also now wondering if Ed shouldn't just quit his job downtown and take up a new career mowing lawns at the estate so we can go live there.  See???:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Asheville itself was really exciting too!  We happened to be there during a big craft fair that took place downtown.  We met a lot of artists whose work we were quite interested in:  

Alicia Chatham--beautiful oil paintings

Edge Gallery & Design Studio--handmade furnishings from salvaged wood and metal

Circles & Squares Clothing--witty and whimsical graphic-print tees and serigraph prints

The Blue Kraken--jewelry and accessories made from bits of circuit board  (Ed could not resist getting a tie clip!)

 

And of course, I had to visit the local fabric store Waechter's Fine Fabrics.  I was not at all prepared for this little gem of a store!  For one thing, they had a wonderful range of fabrics for fashion sewing, patterns from independent companies, even some hard-to-find tools and notions.  Browsing their site, you will get an idea of what kind of mouth-watering materials I had my hands all over.  And I have to commend the staff--they were so friendly that they even managed to keep my husband chatting and happy while I drooled over liberty cotton prints, silk crepes, eyelet laces... etc.  Sadly, I was too overwhelmed to actually buy any fabric, but I walked away with a few yards of ribbons and some new tools which I am most excited about!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No first-hand is complete without a REAL tracing-wheel  (... I got promoted to first hand, by the way... no clue what this means?... in a nutshell, I get to cut fabric now--instead of just sewing it.)  And get this--SILICONE THIMBLES!  I am a big believer in thimbles, and I'm picky about them too.  I haven't tried them out yet, but will soon.  Maybe these will even counteract my unsightly thimble callus?  For this and many other reasons, I will carry a soft spot always for Asheville.  

 

(Please ignore the green and brown splotches on my fingernails... I was painting mom and dad's kitchen the day before!)

 

The Princess in the Kitchen Drain

I followed up my free-lance project "Dancing Waters" with... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You guessed it!  The Princess in the Kitchen Drain!  Yet another free-lance project I worked on with Kendra for Constellation Theatre's new production of The Green Bird.  I was finally able to see it on Friday night (where I took these unauthorized photographs!  Sorry!  [Sort of!]) and it was a spectacle!  The Washington Post gave it a wonderful review, praising the costumes in particular.  *See it before it closes on June 4th!*

Here is the rendering I worked from, illustrated by Kendra Rai:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This project was actually much simpler than it may appear.  There's a lot of stuff going on with this dress, but the story behind this character is that she has been sitting in a kitchen drain for 18 years and is therefore in tatters.  So, how easy (and fun!) is it to just slap a tattered dress together?  Very!  Kendra provided me with the basic dress:

An inexpensive version of Hermione Granger's Yule Ball gown from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.   Now that we're through with it, you would never be able to tell.  Could you?

 

Kendra handed this off to me with some strategically placed slashing through the skirt and torso, and with one sleeve replaced by an old leather belt.  She also gave me an assortment of fabrics to incorporate.  The rest is up to me!

 

I ended up making a simple pair of sleeves with elastic casings, and joined them to the bodice at the underarms.  I added braided strips of fabric and ruffles to the neckline, an abundance of randomly draped ruffles and galloonery onto the skirt, and decided to adorn it further with some appliqued lace and bits of embroidery from my stash.  (She IS a princess, afterall.)  Most of this was done by hand (while watching Law & Order).

 

When I was done with it, Kendra tagged in again with some paints and dyes to distress it and make it look dirty and ragged.  In combination with the stage lighting, it looks pretty dirty and ragged to me. My 5-year-old self would be very disappointed in this turn of events, but I suppose that means job well done!

 

 

 

On Applying Hyperbolic Crochet Methods...

So, you like the crochet coral reef stuff, eh?  But not sure how to incorporate this into your own life?  Well, I have just the thing!

Why not make a BELLY DANCER HAT!?!?

"There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance..."  

 

Oh, man...  I crack myself up sometimes!

Seriously now, I really did not make this for myself.  This is a free-lance project that I took on for a close friend who is an up-and-coming star in the world of regional theatre, costume designer Kendra Rai.  (Hi Kendra!)

For this whimsical, fairy-tale production of Carlo Gozzi's THE GREEN BIRD, Kendra needed to create a character called "Dancing Water" and conceptualized her as a belly dancer!  Obviously belly dancers need lots of jingly things and dangly things, but this character also needed something to tie in the element of being "of the water."  Here is Kendra's original rendering that I worked from:

She provided me with the beaded mesh cap, fabrics, sparkly pipe-cleaners, glitter glue, and sea-shell beads.  I provided the yarn and the hyperbolic crochet know-how!  Here is a better look at the result:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I crocheted the flowers/corals/earmuffs according to the principles of hyperbolic crochet, and dyed them to be that vibrant blue.  I also crochet the "seaweed leaves," working around a piece of heavy-gauge wire as I went so they could be molded into wavy shapes.  I strung beads and sea shells onto the yarn and crocheted chains which I attached to the bottom edges of the cap.  I also colored and glittered feathers and plastic floral leaves for more texture and color.  All these things I stitched onto a little base made of buckram, and that unit was then stitched directly onto the cap.  The veil is a completely separate piece, but simply attaches to the cap with little hooks. 

 

Oh yes!  And sparkly PIPE-CLEANERS!  

I LOVE CRAFTS!

 

 

My Day at the Coral Reef

 

 

Not a REAL coral reef, silly!  

Since one of her friends is a docent, my boss set up a guided tour for our studio to see this wonderful exhibit at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum--a HYBERBOLIC CROCHETED CORAL REEF!  Unfortunately, this display has since been dismantled, but with this post, I hope to preserve at least an impression of this unique collision of home-made handi-craft, math, science, and environmental awareness.  (I just LOVE it when disciplines intersect!)  So be warned, this will be photo-laden:

Isn't this a wonderful and wacky conglomeration of colors, shapes, tangled-up yarns and imaginations, and who knows? maybe a FRAGGLE will pop out at any moment!  And here's the educational portion in all this:  the bright colors are to exemplify a healthy coral reef, teeming with life.  The white reef, however, represents a dying and/or dead reef.  (You can read all about these fragile ecosystems and what you can do to help preserve them here!)  And some of the exhibit's contributors (there were over 800!) used non-traditional materials, such as pull-tabs from soda cans, zip ties, cassette-tape ribbon, wire, etc. to make a statement about the pervasiveness of trash and other refuse found in nature.  

Here are some more detailed photos of individual works:

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1997, Dr. Diana Taimina of Cornell University realized that the medium of crochet could serve as the only known way to represent hyperbolic space--a form commonly present in nature but unable to be recreated by scientists.  (Apparently, this was a big deal in the world of math and science.)  Sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim of the Institute for Figuring latched onto this idea, and in order to raise awareness about the condition of coral reefs around the world, began crocheting mathematically accurate likenesses of corals and founded this project.  And if you are interested in crocheting your own corals (which, to my surprise, has come in quite handy), please read on! 

 

 

If you find that all this math and crochet mash-up has really got you tickled, please check out Margaret Wertheim's book A Field Guide to Hyperbolic Space: An Exploration of the Intersection of Higher Geometry and Feminine Handicraft available at the Institute for Figuring Website.

April News Round-Up

Last month was the proverbial FEAST of projects-- in studio, free-lance, and personal.  I apologize for my virtual absence, but I now have an entire buffet of rather random projects to catch you up on.  So here is a taste of what is to come: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camp Shirt with Crochet

What do you get when you add...

  +    +    ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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For my mom's birthday this year, I decided that I wanted to make her something.  Something special.  Something she might wear in real life.    I pulled this paisley-printed calico cotton, and Simplicity pattern 5491 from my stash.  I also used DMC's pearl cotton yarn (also from my stash) to crochet this adorable yoke according to a pattern I found in Leisure Arts Romantic Crochet Booklet.  (Another Green Valley Book Fair find!)   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adding the yoke means that this blouse cannot have two separate front pieces, and since it is roomy enough to pull on without a closure, I cut the front as one piece.  I also decided to add two slim darts to shape the back a little, and inserted ties into the darts.  Not only is this is a simple way to create shape in an otherwise boxy style, but it's also just a plain cute detail.  

The construction of this blouse was fairly simple.  I serged all pieces individually, assembled according to the pattern directions, and essentially appliqued the yoke directly onto the front after it was all finished.  My favorite construction detail is the bias binding used to finish the neckline.  I don't know why, but there is just something very satisfying about applying a bias binding and trimming away all those layers of seam-allowance.  Maybe it's because we are so rarely afforded the luxury of trimming a seam-allowance down to 1/8" when putting together a theatre costume.  

 

 

The good news is, IT FITS!  And she loves it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!