In fact, I love them so much, I am going to make at least one more or maybe two more so that I have more options to be comfy all summer long.  I am thinking either an oatmeal or tan linen and a black linen. 

What do you think you’ll be wearing all summer long?

So much to tell!  I have a few pics still to show you and bits to share from PR Weekend.  My favorite part of this year’s weekend (I mean besides the shopping, but that’s a given) was the tour at the Simplicity offices.  It was so cool to hear about the “life” of a pattern, how it makes its way through the process from designer’s idea to pattern envelope.  SO COOL!!!  I really wanted to meet the Simplicity designer, but I don’t think she was there that day (or she was too intimidated by the crowd of stalking home sewists — if so, she is a wise woman).  Interestingly, New Look’s patterns are designed by a woman in England.  They said it gives New Look a different vibe from the Simplicity line.  Also, when the tour guide, Deborah, started with the company (at least 20 years ago or was it 30?) the time it took for that process was 18 months.  Now it’s about 5-6 months from idea to pattern envelope.  I found the whole thing fascinating. 

Saturday, Jack joined the PR gals for lunch.  He hated the pita bread though and just played with my phone for the majority of the lunch.  He and I are sitting on the left side of the picture.  You can see Deepika in the middle there.  Bonnie was wearing her awesome white Jalie jeans and Clio was wearing her floral pants.  Loved them.   I’m wearing my red Burda batwing top.  Jack keeps asking me why I only make batwing tops.    

On Sunday, after the official weekend ended, Robin, Jeanette and I headed out for brunch in Tribeca.  Then Jeanette and I headed back to the garment district to hit up Grayline Linen Fabrics, a store that specializes in linens.  I wanted to price out their metallic or glazed linens.  And boy did they have a good selection and at $13/yd, what a deal too!  I chose a neutral color, kind of like an oatmeal.  I want to make a layering shirt as an alternative to always wearing a cardigan.  Something with simple lines and almost no shaping.  I will probably use a Burda pattern for this.  They always seem to have good shirt patterns. 

Jeanette stayed with me for PR Weekend and we had a blast.  I met Jeanette at last year’s PR Weekend in Chicago and have been friends with her on FB the last year.  Also we play Words with Friends kind of obsessively every day.  Oh Jeanette, it’s your turn right now!  I saw her in LA last month on my Man Forgetting Tour (don’t forget to get your very own tour t-shirt!).  While she was here, we bonded over my new wi-fi router, homemade mushroom soup and sewing.  She brought a beautiful dress with her that was a combination of a vintage dress pattern and her skirt block in a great, drapey rayon fabric.  Jeanette was kind enough to help me fit my recent wadder.  I am determined to make this dress work for me because I have some border prints which are screaming to be made into wrap dresses.  She had great ideas on how I can make this pattern work for me.  I can’t wait to try them out.  I meant to have her help me fit my vintage dress with the french darts, but we were too busy resting our poor swollen feet on the couch.  Next visit, right Jeanette?  All in all, what a fun weekend!!!

Although the picture above is from PR weekend, it was taken at Mood Fabrics.  See my new maxi skirt on the right there? I bought the fabric in San Diego when I shopped with Susan???   I was at Mood Fabrics last night for a focus group.  They are going to revamp their on-line store and chose a variety of customers to find out what they like/didn’t like in on-line shopping experiences.  There were sewing bloggers, someone from Etsy, someone from Burdastyle, etc in attendance.  It was a fun group of people with varying sewing experience.  It was so interesting to hear others’ perspectives about how, when and why they buy fabric on-line.  With my proximity to the garment district in NYC, I actually don’t buy much fabric on-line too often.  I like to see and feel a fabric before buying. 

I promise to get a better picture up soon of my new maxi skirt.  Although I might change it a little and add a godet for walking ease.  Will have to think about how I’m going to do that.  My next project is making my wrap dress work a la Jeanette’s ideas.

Happy sewing everyone!

Oh dear.  Remember my bold plan?  Yeah, me too.  I remembered my plan while I was shopping, but unfortunately two things happened.

First, I was so overwhelmed by all the people at Mood, I couldn’t concentrate on my strategery.  I left without buying a thing.  Not one thing people?!?!?  That’s where I planned to buy linen knits and glazed or metallic linen.  And I couldn’t even think about it.  Maybe I’ll go back there today?

Second, at all the other stores once I got my bearings again, I couldn’t find what I was looking for.  At Paron’s, I did find a silk print.  I know, I know.  I wasn’t supposed to buy a print.  But this was one was chosen for me.  It was already sitting on the cutting table.  Someone had put it there for me to find it.  Obviously I couldn’t be rude and not buy it.  Sheesh.  How rude do you think I am?  Don’t answer that.  It’s a panel print.  I bought two panels so I could make a pleated skirt, but now that I have it home, it’s kind of saying sheath dress to me.  hmmm….

Then at Elliott Berman I saw this gorgeous fabric that seems a little linen-ish with a beautiful sheen to it and a Jacquard like floral woven into it.  Black on black.  I was looking for light linens.  Black is not light.  But again, I couldn’t refuse it once my eyes had seen it.  I just couldn’t.  That Chanel fabric just leapt into my arms practically.  I was helpless.

Shopping was fine once I got into the groove of things.  But now I have to go back to Mood.  I really need that linen knit.  NEED.

I’m not participating in the classroom activities today, but will go to the dinner tonight.  Should be fun!  The best part of a PR weekend is talking to all my sewing friends from around the states, Canada and even Australia.  Wow!  So cool.

P.S. Can you believe I only bought 2 fabrics????  I know.  I can’t believe it either.

• solid color knits — to coordinate with the print knits already in my stash, like black, white, cream, navy
• glazed linens — I saw some in LA, didn’t buy any, and now have major regret.  I hear Mood has some nice glazed linens.
• linen knits — I really like linen knit cardigans for the summer and haven’t been able to find any that are just right at the two stores that are close to my apt.  I want white, natural, and black for my stash.
• silk twill, prints or solids – I really love working with silk twill.  I always keep my eye out for it.  It’s not shifty like charmeuse.  It’s a dream to cut and sew. 

That’s it peeps.  That’s all I want.  I think just those three or four types of fabrics will round out my stash nicely.  And after this weekend, I am for sure going on a fabric diet.  FOR. SURE.

Oh and in the random dept, have you seen this????  Robin linked to it on Facebook.  LOVED. IT.   My favorite part is the cryhole.  I die. 

I wish I could say that I have been sewing, but after my wrap dress fail, the mojo flew the coop.  What can I say?  Mojo is a fickle thing and I have to admit that I still haven’t found my equilibrium again yet.  

Hope to see some of you there!  And I hope to see Clio’s purple hair (should I tell her about how I dyed my hair purple in my teens?).

I brought two white shirtings (one with woven stripes and one a swiss dot) and a plain white t-shirt for Jack to tie-dye as well as a selection of Procion dyes.  Sorry, I don’t have before pictures, but I think you can imagine the color white.  Claudine is an experienced dye-er.  She’s experimented with several different techniques and even taken a shibori dying class I believe. 

We took our projects to the great outdoors, her backyard.  I put on dye-worthy clothes and then we had at it.  I won’t go into the details of how to dye fabrics as there are plenty of tutorials out there that you can find.  My first dye job was using the cerulean blue on the white striped shirting.  It came out wonderfully.  It’s super saturated and very evenly dyed.  I must have squeezed the dye through the fabric like a champ! 

Claudine the Dye Master and me the acolyte

Squeezing the blue dye through the fabric

My next project was to dye the swiss dot cotton to, wait for it, my favorite color.  No, no, not purple.  The other favorite color, Kelly green.  Duh!  This time the color was pretty even, but I didn’t squeeze as long as I did with the blue and I can see that it could have benefitted from more squeezing.  It’s pretty hard to notice though to a casual observer.  I had to really look for it.  The green came out just as I wanted it to, a perfect Kelly Green.

Rinsing the dye out

Claudine rinses her tie-dye project

Claudine was experimenting with a swirly tie-dye effect and I tried that too on Jack’s t-shirt.  Jack decided he was too cool to do this project with me and elected to use squirt guns instead.  I used purple and the leftover Kelly green dye on his shirt.  I love how it came out.  I think there is a pretty good balance of negative space and swirl. 

Jack's tie-dye swirly t-shirt

cerulean blue dyed shirting

kelly green dyed swiss dot cotton

Bernie’s cornish hens were delicious and expertly deboned.  I told him we should have Mother’s Day every weekend.  Claudine agreed.

What a wonderful way to spend Mother’s Day!  I highly recommend it.  It couldn’t have been more perfect.  And now I have lovely dyed fabrics to remind me.

Thank you Claudine and Bernie!  What time should Jack and I be there this Sunday?    

Butterick 5454

My mojo has started to percolate and I actually sewed last night.  Unfortunately for me and my mojo, it was a major fail.  I had cut out B5454 way before I went out West and it was just sitting on my sewing table ever since.  Last night, I thought, was the night it would be sewn into an awesome dress.  I used a solid forest green knit that I had in my stash to muslin the pattern.  My suspicion is that a combination of bad fabric and wrong size cut coupled with some pretty hideous “what were they thinking” pleats were the nails on this coffin of this dress.  *sigh*

The knit was a little on the thin side and it was a solid color.  Need I say more?  A solid thin knit is the death knell for showing any minor AND major foible with your body.  If you see a thin knit for an awesome price at the fabric store, I strongly encourage you to walk away.  Everything I have ever made with a thin knit has been a disaster.  At least dress-wise.

I cut inbetween a size 14 and 16 since I didn’t want to have to fool with an FBA.  I thought increasing the width a little and the wrap of the wrap dress would deal adequately with the girls.  Well, it did work, but a little too much.  It was too big.  The side seams were about 2 inches forward on my body rather than at my sides.  Note to Self: Don’t try to cheat an FBA.  It will come back to haunt you.  Please learn this lesson next time Self.  You have had too many chances to learn.  Enough already.

I had been warned by several reviews on Pattern Review that this pattern has pleats on the back skirt panel which were very unattractive.  Did I listen?  No.  Did I blithely go ahead and make the blasted pleats and then saw for myself how ginormous my ass looked with pleats gaping right over each buttock like they were too fat to contain and wanted to escape?  Why, yes, yes I did. 

As I was constructing the dress, I noticed that I had forgotten to cut out the ties for the wrap.  Did I bother cutting them or sewing them on last night after seeing how awful this dress looked on me?  No.  Will I ever finish this dress?  NO.  Do I feel guilty about that?  NO. 

Since most of this dress disaster was user error (poor fabric choice, no FBA/too large of a size, and ignoring the pleats warning), I won’t blame the dress pattern.  Well, at least not to its face.  But I gotta tell you, those back pleats are hideous.  I think I had nightmares about them last night. 

Is there photographic evidence of this dress?  NO!!!  Do you think I’m nuts?  I don’t want photos of me in that dress on the interwebs.  I have my pride you know.  As a matter of fact, I took that dress off and put on my V8379 dress right away to reassure myself that I didn’t look as fat as the B5454 dress made me look and feel.  And boy was I relieved that I looked like my normal self.  Phew! 

So my lessons learned (hopefully) are:

• Fit is everything.  EVERYTHING.
• Don’t skimp on FBAs to avoid altering a pattern
• Don’t pick the wrong size
• Heed those who have gone before you
• And pick the right fabric dammit!

Once I get over this debacle, if I were to attempt this dress again, I would make the following changes:

• Get rid of those damn pleats and just gather the skirt into the bodice.
• Try the sz 12 with a proper FBA
• Make the skirt longer by about 1 inch.  It fell just where I liked it without hemming, at the knee.

What I did like about this pattern?  I loved:

• The pleats on the bodice that fell from the shoulder seam
• The extra wide left front and right front wrap, plenty of coverage there
• The straight skirt which is great for border prints which I just adore.

Even though this project was a fail in the end, it was still a learning opportunity.  But best of all, I was doing something I love to do.  Sew.  It felt so good to be creating again. 

Happy sewing everyone!  Whether you make a winner or not, you’re still creating and that’s a win in and of itself.

Image from www.thefranchisehound.com

Barbara from Sewing on the Edge just wrote a great post about styling today.  Sorry for not commenting (I am not able to comment on blogspot blogs right now)!   I thought it was a great post in general, but specifically, I thought it was about me.  Not in the narcissistic “everything is about me” way.  No, no, no.  I mean more in the “guilty as charged” way.  To quote Barbara:

“But mainly I think we all go wrong trying to chase our style by thinking it’s a noun and not a verb.

Style isn’t what you buy or make or copy or find by following a prescription.

Really stylish people, the ones you want to be, don’t have style.

They are styling.”

I feel like hitting my forehead and yelling a big DUH!  I accessorize very rarely or just wear the same jewelry every day.  I have one suit with which I wear the same necklace every time.  I don’t have a large accessory collection, jewelry or otherwise.  I hardly ever wear belts (they never seem right on me).  I wear one purse a season and don’t change it often (doing so guarantees I forget my wallet).  I don’t wear scarves or brooches.  My accessories really are just my clothes themselves.

I have always felt stymied when accessorizing or styling outfits.  I tend to wear suits or dresses the same way every time.  Part of the reason is that I don’t think I’m good at accessorizing and the other part is, to put it bluntly, I can’t be bothered to think about it every day.  I think the second reason is impacted by the first reason though because it would take me a long time to think outside of my particular box and I don’t want to spend that time.  Especially when you wake up late (again), and you have to get yourself and the little boy who lives with you ready every day. 

How do you teach a 43 yr old dog new tricks? 

Speaking of accessorizing and age, I have just started wearing flats every day.  I haven’t been able to find any good heels the last 2 years.  They are either too painful to wear or don’t fit right and fall off my feet.  Sometimes both.  I can’t figure out why either.  It’s the same with buying shoes on-line or in the store.  They feel fine in the store, but then I bring them home and they are other brand new torture devices or fly off my feet as I walk.  WHAT IS UP WITH THAT???  Why only now in my 42nd and 43rd years of living do I have this problem?  I don’t understand.  So, the last week or so, I have been wearing the same black flats every day.  And I have to say that even though I look as if I have “given up,” I am so comfortable.  I don’t have to calculate just how far I have to walk anywhere and thusly how bloody my feet will be or if I will lose a shoe on the way.  I just walk. 

But here’s the rub…  Have I just given up?  Do I look like a woman of a certain age that just doesn’t give a damn anymore?  I see my skirt-suited reflection in the glass walls around me and notice my flat-shoed self and think, “Man, that just does not look good, but boy, am I comfortable.” 

Is it just a case of not being used to this kind of look?  Is there a way to make flats with skirt suits look good? 

Or have I just really given up?

Do you style yourself?  And if so, do you do it every day?  Is it a reflex to you?  Or do you have to work at it?

And last question, I promise, are you a flats or a heels only kind of person?

And I wore my new top to the concert too.  This time around, I made a few changes to the pattern, Burda 6-2009-109.  Of course.  What seamstress doesn’t tweak a pattern each time she makes it?

The first thing I changed, or tried to, was the neckline shape.  I knew I was going to try to bind the neck with my binding attachment on the coverstitch machine and I also knew it would look better on a rounded neckline.  Unfortunately, I didn’t round it out enough.  I will do better next time.

Unintentional change to pattern: I completely forgot to reinforce the shoulder seams in my excitement to have a new top to wear to the concert.  Oops!  I hope it doesn’t have any long-term consequences (emphasis on the long).

I left off the sleeve cuffs and just fray-checked the seam ends.  I wanted to shorten the sleeves a little to make this a more summer-friendly top.  Originally I was going to coverstitch the hems, but when I was pinning I realized that the tapered shape of the sleeves would torque the hem.  Next time I will change the sleeve shape at the end so I can hem them.

I used my coverstitch machine to bind the neck edge.  I was really excited about this part.  I wanted to have a very professional neck binding.  On my first version of this top, I sewed on the binding with my sewing machine and while not noticeable to a non-sewer, I notice the many imperfections.  See for yourself.

See how uneven that is?  I love the coverstitch binding much better.  Oh and here is the coverstitch hem.

Some notes on using the coverstitch:

• I used Katie’s and Melissa’s tips for using the binding attachment on my coverstitch machine.  I practiced a few times before binding my actual top.  My binding attachment isn’t as fancy as Katie’s as it doesn’t have the “feeder” which keeps the bias strip evenly distributed into the binder.  So I draped my strip on the Featherweight next to my coverstitch machine.  I was a little intimidated to use it in the beginning, but it actually is pretty easy to use.  My best tip is to practice, practice, practice before you attempt it on your garment.
• I have already used my coverstitch for hems before with no problems.  This fabric though (a burnout knit from Mood Fabrics) was a little on the thin side and curled over itself if you so much as a glanced at it.  So there were spots where the coverstitch stitches didn’t catch the hem allowance.  I just hand tacked those areas rather then ripping out a a coverstitch hem and doing it over.  Some things are worth doing over and others are not.  This was one of those times it was not.  It’s a casual top, not a ball gown.

But enough wordy wordy stuff.  Here’s how it looked on in an infamous bathroom shot.

I knew when I bought this fabric that it was destined for a top like this.  I just love it.

Happy coverstitching everyone!

I will post the dets tomorrow.  Tonight?  I am going to my first live concert since before Jack was born.  Putting on my dancing shoes now.  :)

Happy coverstitching!