I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

I always pass on good advice.  

It is the only thing to do with it.  

It is never of any use to oneself.

~ Oscar Wilde

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with Oscar Wilde on this one.  ;)

Last week I had two related posts where I asked for advice - one on hemming RTW pants and one on recommendations for good quality hand sewing needles.  

As usual, you guys came through with great advice - which I find to be of tremendous use for myself!  

And I'm going to pass it on too.  ;)

When it comes to hemming RTW pants, Sarah, Gwen, Debbie and Claire each chimed in with good thoughts and when you put their advice together you get a comprehensive plan of action:  

1. Wash them a couple of times to make sure that they shrink as much as they are going to shrink.  
2. Trim to 1.25 inches longer than desired length.  
3. Finish new raw edge.  
4. Fold up once and hem by hand.  

Gwen also had a brilliant suggestion - if your pants narrow towards the ankles and aren't quite wide enough when you fold them up, you can open up the side seams and the inseams a tiny bit, to get some extra width.  

Thanks!  Next time I will be prepared!  (And, sadly, with this body, there WILL be a next time...)  

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding hand sewing needles, Claire recommended two brands:

John James

...and...

Milward

Thanks, Claire - I will give both of these brands a try.  :)

(Some) Progress Towards a Reveal...

There are two ways to be happy: 

improve your reality, or lower your expectations.  

~ Jodi Picoult

Okay, this is way harder than I expected...  :(

I've been browsing wardrobe web sites like Polyvore and The Vivienne Files and seeing all these beautiful images where people mix and match garments to make outfits and I thought, "That's what I'll do with my new wardrobe - and I'll use it to help plan my sewing!"  

I found a site, Closet Couture, where I could upload my own pictures of my clothes and have the backgrounds made transparent.  They even provided photography advice - use a solid background that contrasts with your garment and nice even lighting.  

So, last weekend I dragged all my stuff out back - laid out a bed sheet - brought a high top chair that I could climb up on (to shoot down on my clothes) and got ready for a photo session.  

I laid out each garment on the sheet and then shot down on it.  

Then I uploaded all my pictures to my account and started trying to make those beautiful wardrobe composite images...  

Ugh...  :(

Time to either improve my reality or lower my expectations...  

I'm going to start by trying option A.  So, I guess this calls for a new photo shoot.  Here's what I'm going to change:

1. Hang my clothes, instead of laying them flat.
2. Iron them first!
3. Get my husband's help with the lighting (he's better at this than I am)

Oh, just ignore the sound of groaning from the other room!  ;)

Gratuitous Kitten Picture

It was truly an abomination of nature that one always found the most comfortable spot in the bed five minutes before one had to leave it.  

~ Mia Ryan

Said no cat ever...  

New Friends, A Chat, A Give-Away and A Sew-Along

Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends,

for it is one of God's best gifts.

~ Thomas Hughes

So this is kind of exciting - I'm going to be hosting a chat about The Original "How Much Fabric?" Reference Cards tonight on the website Sew Much Talent.  :)

Have you visited this site?  It's another great resource for people who sew and enjoy making new friends and learning new skills.  The founder, Alethia, has set it up to be easy to upload and view project photos and instructional videos, to join special interest groups, to ask questions on the forum and to chat with your online friends.  (It's free to join, of course.)  

Anyways, tonight I'll be showing some examples of how to use the cards and then Alethia and I are going to be hosting a give-away of one set of cards - winners choice - to one of the chat participants.  

Finally, Alethia will be announcing the first Sew Much Talent sew-along of 2013!  I've never participated in a sew-along before, but this one is "just what the doctor ordered" for me and so I'm excited about giving it a go.  :)

This will also be the first time I've ever hosted a chat, so, wish me luck and I'd love it if any of you want to join us!  :)

Letting go...

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

~ Havelock Ellis

Some of my students using the Rory Story Cubes.  :)

Teaching is like sewing, in that neither one is a single skill, but rather each is a complex interaction of many technical abilities and intuitive, creative impulses...  :)

One of my strengths in teaching (I think) has to do with seeing the underlying, inherent structure in any content that I understand.  It feels like complicated clouds of information just naturally fall into systematic, logical patterns in my mind.  Even as far back as high school I remember people telling me that I was good at explaining things in a way that was easy to understand...  

Although, to be fair, as far back as high school people were also bringing up the old saying, "I ask for the time and you tell me how a watch is made" about me!  ;)

On the other hand, one of my weaknesses (and, of this, I am sure!) is letting go - letting an aide lead an activity - letting my students "run wild" in an open-ended activity...  

I mean, what if they don't follow my carefully structured plan?  What if they wander off the path that I laid out for them?  Why, who knows what could happen?  The world might come to an end!  ;)

So, this is my third year teaching ESL, and I am happy to be able to report that I am actually getting a little better at this...  

Don't get me wrong - it's slow.  And sometimes a little painful.  But, bit by bit, I am doing a little more "letting go" in my classes and noticing that, not only has the world not ended, but sometimes good things actually happen!  


Hopefully, someday, I will achieve that "fine mingling of letting go and holding on" that H. Ellis described...  

How about you?  Have you achieved that "fine mingling" in your life?  Do you think this idea applies to sewing too?  

Tools of the Trade

One only needs two tools in life: WD-40 to make things go 

and duct tape to make them stop.

~ G. Weilacher

I always bought my hand sewing needles at Joann's and never thought twice about it.

Then, one time I ordered something from a small sewing-related business.  There was a mix up in the shipping and I initially got the wrong package (full of fishing lures, no less!) - as an apology, the third-party shipping person threw in a package of hand sewing needles.

She commented that these were the favorite of the owner of the sewing business and I remember thinking it was an odd comment - who cares about hand sewing needles?  How could one differ from another?

Man, was I in for a surprise!  The needles were awesome - they were sharp and strong, but had a bit of flexibility in them and it was a delight to sew with them!

Okay, maybe "delight" is stretching it...  ;)

But it was noticeably easier and more pleasant to hand sew with these needles than the needles I had been buying up until then!

Unfortunately, over time I ran through the small package of needles and was not able to remember what brand they were (or, truth be told, who had recommended them - yikes!)  :(

So, I've been on an internet-research-hunt to try to find a highly recommended hand sewing needle.  It's actually been a little bit more difficult than I had expected - lots of reviews for machine needles, but not much on hand sewing needles.  Eventually I ran across this site for Thimblelady and ordered a package of her needles.

Apparently the package took a detour on it's way from Australia to the States, but eventually it arrived and I tried the needles for the first time - to hem my new pants.  Good news!  I like them!

I don't think they have quite the flexibility of the other ones, but they were sharp and strong, and it was easy to sew with them.  :)

As a bonus, she also threw in these 2 "bobbins" of thread - without plastic sides:

The thread is tightly wound and seems to stay in the bobbin shape.  I used this thread to hem my pants and it held a tiny bit stiffer than normal thread, making it really easy to thread the needle!  (I'm wondering if the thread is treated somehow...?)  But during the sewing itself and afterwards, it seems pretty normal.  In other words, so far, so good!  

While I like these cute little "bobbins", on her website it appears as if you must order 144 of them at a time (for about $60) - I don't think I need or want THAT much!  ;)

How about you - do you have a favorite brand of hand sewing needles?

Hemming and Hawing... and Hemming.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.  

~ Jimmy Buffett

One chore that I had to finish before I could fully enjoy my new wardrobe was to hem the 2 pairs of pants that I had bought.  

Believe it or not, I've never hemmed a pair of RTW pants - I usually just roll them up and figure that's good enough.  ;)  (Any number of fashion icons are rolling over in their graves just now...)  

But I'm turning over a new wardrobe leaf, and I figured that that meant wearing pants that were actually the right length.  

Anyways, I worked on it last weekend and found myself stuck for quite a while, trying to figure out how best to do it.  It seemed to me that I had 3 choices:

1. Open the existing hem and pull the entire length of fabric up to form the new hem.
2. Open the existing hem and trim it - leaving a short bit left to fashion the new hem.  
3. Roll the current hem up (on the inside of the pant leg, of course) until it reached the level of the desired hem.  

Option #1 didn't work, because the pants legs tapered and so the further up I pulled them, the less well they fit - as you can see in the picture above.  

I didn't want to trim the excess fabric, because I was visiting my Grandmother and didn't have access to a machine to finish the resulting raw edge.  So much for option #2.  

In the end, I went with option #3 - I rolled the existing hems up - once on the black pants and twice on the grey pants.  I basted them in place (I didn't have any pins, because I was at my Grandmother's house - I was lucky I was able to sneak my hand needle through the airport security!) and got the opinions of my Grandmother and her niece (my second cousin?).  

Once I got the green light, I went ahead and hemmed them!  

I was worried about all that bulk along the bottom of my pants - we'll have to see how that works out.  

So, tell me, what should I have done?  ;)

Gratuitous Kitten Pictures

A year, ten years from now, I'll remember this; 

not why, only that we were here like this, together.  

~ Adrienne Rich

Recently the kitties have taken to sleeping at my feet while I work on my laptop...  

Oliver gets the "prime spot" under my tray table (& on top of the package of address labels!) and stays the longest...  

Popeye comes and goes - sometimes pouncing on Oliver

and sometimes curling up to sleep with him.  :)

Young again!

Grandma always made you feel she had been waiting to see just you all day 

and now the day was complete.  

 ~ Marcy DeMaree

It doesn't matter how old I am, my grandmother always makes me feel young again.  :)

I finished her new flannel shirt before my visit and it was a big hit - she loves it!  :)

The Reveal (sort of)

A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though [s]he knows that you are slightly cracked.  

~ Bernard Meltzer

I can’t vouch for all interventions, but thanks to my friend, my fashion intervention was a blast!  :)

W. and I spent about 3 hours in a local mall.  She was amazing!  She found that perfect balance between (a) pointing me in the direction of better choices and (b) listening to me and respecting my feelings. 

For example – I stood firm on the “no skinny jeans” position.  I don’t care how fashionable they are – they are not for me.  But, she got me out of the men’s jeans that I typically buy at Wal-Mart (I told you that I desperately needed help!) and into a pair of curvy women’s boot cut jeans from Old Navy that I absolutely love!  :)

So, a quick run-down of our day, with pictures when I was able to get them off the internet:

We started at NY&Co, where I picked up:

• 2 short-sleeved, neutral-colored, square-neck “t-shirts” (although the material is nicer than a standard t-shirt),
• 2 long-sleeved, button-up, princess-seamed shirts with ruched sleeves (bright blue & warm peach)
• 2 light-weight cardigans (grey & purple) on sale for $10 each! 

At Ann Taylor’s Loft I found:

• A fun, short, pleated black skirt
• A pair of nice black pants

I left Old Navy with:

• 2 pairs of “Flirt” style (boot cut) blue jeans
• 2 long-sleeved boat-neck “t-shirts” (solid pink & pink and orange stripes)
• A flowing green blouse

Macy’s produced:

• A pink pencil skirt
• A longer black skirt – knit fabric, fitted on waist and hips, opening below with godet-like flares

And at H&M we managed to hunt down:

• A pair of nice grey pants

Other stores, such as The Limited and The Gap, yielded nothing.  

The big missing pieces were a jacket and a dress.  I followed up with some online shopping and found this dress at ModCloth and this jacket at ASOS.  I also snagged a couple of leather belts (1 brown, 1 black) at Target. 

Later that afternoon I went through my pre-existing closet with a ruthless hand and culled out 4 large garbage bags full of clothes, which I promptly delivered to Goodwill.  A lot of that was stuff I have “outgrown” through weight gain…  :(

I’ve been doing a little internet research to see how I can create those cute wardrobe mix and match pictures like so many other sites post (the ones with white backgrounds and no people in the pictures) – and as soon as I get that worked out, I’ll show you exactly what I’ve got and how things combine.  ;)

An interesting side effect is that all this shopping has left me really motivated to do more clothes sewing for myself!  I’m now thinking about all those beautiful fabrics in my stash and visualizing how well tops and skirts made with them would mix and match within my new wardrobe!  I can’t wait to finish the flannel shirt for my Grandmother, so that I can get started on something for me!  I even have my first project picked out and ready to go…  :)

In summary, the day was a blast and I am really happy and excited about this new way of thinking about my wardrobe.  A huge thank you to my friend - a true friend! - for all her help and patience and guidance!  She rocks!  :)

Vintage? Really?!?

Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug.

~ John Lithgow

My sister got me an Etsy gift certificate for Christmas.  You know Etsy, right?  It's one of those places where the result of receiving a $30 gift card is a $90 bill...  ;)

Anyways, while browsing I came across a listing for vintage doll clothes patterns.  No specific dates were provided, but I know what I consider vintage and I find myself drawn to all things historical and sewing-related.  So, I purchased them.  And I paid for them.  And the seller put them in the mail.  And I received them.  And as I tenderly held these fragile connections to the women who sewed from past generations I discovered that, by and large the patterns were printed 5 years or so AFTER we were married!!!  

Vintage?  Really?!?   

SPLAT!!

Okay, I thought you might like to see what the best dressed dolls were wearing in the not-so-distant-to-me-but-apparently-long-enough-to-be-labeled-vintage past:  

Here's the "Modern New Born Romper Suit:"

Of course, if you have twins, you'll want to dress them in these matching brother & sister Modern New Born overalls instead:  

This next one is probably my favorite, because it is inspired by "Shirley" and if you  have to ask "Shirley who?" then you really are young!  

At least this design LOOKS like my idea of vintage:  

The next pattern boasts "French Hand Sewing by Machine" - that just sounds wrong to me...  

And this christening gown makes me doubt the veracity of the brand name "Easy Sew Designs"

Here's a dress for a toddler - it scores higher marks in adorableness than it does in practicality, I think:  

  

Last, but not least, the traditional baby jester outfit:  

If you'd like to see "inside" any of these patterns, just let me know and I'll post more details.  (You might as well pick your favorite, because I'm likely to do this anyways, just to generate a few more posts for my blog!)  

Which are You?

Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.

~ Marshall McLuhan

Liberty fabric bias tape - isn't it gorgeous?

Photo credit: Cabinet for the Curious

I bumped into one of my long-standing assumptions recently.  

The topic was bias tape.  

I'm not good at sewing bias tape.  You know that whole theory where one side is just the tiniest bit wider than the other side, so that when you fold it over the fabric and stitch in the ditch on the front side, your needle just perfectly catches the very edge of the bias tape on the back side?  

For me - eh, not so much...  

But my assumption was that everyone else has got the hang of this and can do it perfectly, and I'm the only person who still has trouble with it.  So it came as quite a surprise when 2 people commented on my post that they weren't keen on bias tape either!  

Now, you'd think I'd know better.  I am a research psychologist - the bell curve is my life.  In fact, I am routinely thwarted in my attempts to find groups who are at one extreme or the other of the curve (rather than near the middle)!  ;)

And yet, when it comes to my sewing, I just always assume that everyone else has moved past my struggles and I am alone at the lower end of the curve...  

I know some folks who suffer from the opposite affliction - it always used to amaze me when we took some guy rock climbing for the first time and he just took it for granted that if I (a middle aged woman) could climb something, then of course he could climb it too.  The thought that I had been climbing for years and he had never done it before apparently didn't factor into his reasoning.  

Until he tried to follow me up the wall, of course...  ;)

In fact, we're all wrong - I am not actually alone at the bottom of the curve in my sewing weaknesses and those guys weren't actually alone at the top of the curve in their awesome athletic prowess.  

Ideally, I'd like to have an accurate estimation of my sewing skills - neither too low, nor too high.  So, how about you?  Do you think you have an accurate estimation of your skills?  Or do you tend to underestimate or overestimate your place on the curve?  

Gratuitous Kitten Picture

Who among us hasn't envied a cat's ability to ignore the cares of daily life and to relax completely?

~ Karen Brademeyer

Personally, I have an alternative hypothesis: Maybe cats can relax completely because they DON'T HAVE any cares in their daily lives!  

Exhibit A:  

Let's be honest - that cat wouldn't recognize a daily-life-care if it plopped down beside him...  

Grandmommy's "Flannel" Shirt

Life is too short to sew with cheap fabric.

~ The Voice of Experience  (Sigh...  )

I'm hoping to get to see my Grandmother soon and so I decided to finish a flannel shirt that I started for her a long time ago.  

I've made many flannel shirts for her with this pattern:

I have made all the adjustments to this pattern that she needs - she wears a small in the shoulders and a medium from the bust down.  And the sleeves are pretty significantly shortened.  

She loves flannel shirts - that is all she ever wears - and, for all that she says that she'll love anything I make for her, she is actually very particular about the colors.  The number one requirement is red.  The number two requirement is blue.  

I've long since used all the red and blue flannel that I can find in local stores and resorted to buying some online.  It is red and blue.  Whether or not it actually qualifies for the label "flannel" however, is questionable.  

This turned out to be really cheap fabric.  I am not enjoying working with it and I hate giving her anything made out of this fabric.  :(

Anyways, it's what I've got on hand and so I am going to finish it.  In addition to the cheap feel of the fabric, it doesn't hold its shape, and so getting the plaids to line up is, at best, a pain in the neck - and often impossible...  :(

The issues really started with the pockets - with flannel shirts I always try to line up the pockets - first I look where the pattern piece falls relative to the horizontal and vertical lines on the shirt front...  

...and then I place it in the same place on the scrap of fabric before cutting it out.

Anyways, I got the front and back (including pockets and yoke) assembled - you can see how the plaids kind of line up - but not really...  

Ditto on the side seams:  

To be fair, you can't really get the plaids to line up perfectly along the yoke, because the pattern calls for 2 small pleats on each side of the main back piece.  At least I got them kind of lined up (vertically) in the middle of the back.  

As for the horizontal - let's not get into that...  :(

Oliver commiserated with me the whole time I was working on it this weekend.

I think that's a look of commiseration on his face, isn't it?  ;)

Anyways, I hope you had a wonderful sewing weekend!  (with good quality fabric!)  

Year Interrupted

It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.

~ Publilius Syrus

I carefully plan out my entire year of ESL lessons - vocabulary, grammar lessons, quiz questions, activities - everything builds on what has gone before.  Once I introduce something, I try to keep re-using it, weaving it into each new topic and new activity.  

Of course, this works best if students start with me in September and stay with me through the whole year...  ;)

Well, we had our first class of the new semester earlier this week.  Six of my regulars from last semester were there...  as were EIGHT new students!  

I usually get 2 or 3 new students in January, but we're talking about more than half of my class being new!  Yikes!  

I think this is going to be quite a learning experience - for me.  Learning how to relax my tight grip on my plans and just go with the jet streams of the universe...  ;)

Wish me luck!   :)

Re-Learning How to Dress

In general, if you wear three pieces, you'll look more polished.  

~ Dawn Miller

People look so much more put together in the fall than in the summer, don't they?  It's because they are wearing three pieces: a shirt and pants with a jacket or cardigan or scarf to complete the outfit.  Even in the summer you can put on a lightweight scarf for more polish.  

~ The Three Piece Rule as explained by Rachel Meeks

So, step one, of course, is filling my wardrobe with the right pieces.  But step two is learning how to wear them.  

Awww.... Darn it.  Looks like it's time for more internet research!  ;)

Not surprisingly, I tend to think of my wardrobe as having "outfits" - this top goes with this skirt and that top goes with that pair of pants.  Apparently this is a very limiting way to think and I need to switch my mindset to "mix and match."  

There are tons of examples out there, but this one was particularly powerful - 12 pieces become a month's worth of different outfits!  

Okay, I'll admit that not every outfit is dramatically different from every other one, but it's still a vivid illustration for me of how I want to think about my wardrobe.  

Along these same lines, I found Audrey's blog, Putting Me Together, and she has tons of pictures and advice.  (I am valiantly able to overlook the fact that she is half my age, half my weight and adorably cute...)  

When I look at the list of wardrobe basics that I compiled and images like these, what I come away with is the idea that I want to have a full range of pieces in neutral colors and then a handful of bright, colorful, "pop" pieces, such that each pop piece can be paired with most (if not all) of the neutral pieces.  

A colorful top that can go over any number of neutral pants (jeans, khakis, dress slacks) or neutral skirts.  A colorful skirt that can go under any number of neutral tops.  A colorful cardigan that can go over any combination of neutral tops and neutral bottoms, etc...  

And, while I hadn't gotten quite as far as scarves, I was beginning to sense the vague figure of the 3 piece rule emerging from the mist.  Top and skirt?  Throw on a cardigan and it's somehow more "put together."  

So, I feel like I've got a start on knowing WHAT should be in my wardrobe and HOW I should be putting the pieces together...  

Where does SEWING come into all this?  Well, I think my best plan is to focus on sewing the "pop" pieces for tops and skirts - that's the stuff that I love to sew anyways - now I have a vision as to how my handmade pieces can fit into my wardrobe.  :)