Gently Used Books

I made my way to the Friends of Montgomery County Library Used Book Store, my source for vintage sewing books that make my life.  Let me introduce Creative Design for the (screaming seventies) home seamstress.  Things I learned: warm colors make you look larger, cool colors “recede.”  And, they add knitting patterns in at the end of the book.

 

 

 

I’m Not Obsessed

Lest you all thing I’m obsessed with boobs (ok, I am a little obsessed), I have also made some other things as of late.  For example, this coat.  The cheap wool coat I’d gotten at Old Navy several years ago had gone south.  The cuffs were frayed and worn, you know how that goes, so I’d put it in the Goodwill box.  I decided that I’d try and make myself something truly warm for braving those late night walks with the dog.  I wanted a pattern with loads of room in it so that I could double up on the layers.  The Simplicity pattern (link above) seemed to have all the requirements – a stand up collar (I loathe lapels), wide sleeves, and room to do my own thing.  I had some tweedy wool left over from an earlier project and a fabric binge at www.fashionfabricsclub.com.  I cut one layer of wool, one layer of cotton batting left over from a quilt, and silk for the lining.  I figured that three layers of natural fibers would do well for keeping me warm.

Then I went on the quest for a zipper.  I’d really wanted a shorter one, but neither Jo-Anne’s or G Street carried metal separating zippers in any lengths shorter than 20 inches.  I was annoyed, but I went with the 20-inch zipper.  After all, it’s been effing frigid here and I needed the damn coat.  I also decided against putting pockets in it, mostly out of laziness.

So, it is what it is.  The silk lining and the cotton batting keep the itchiness from seeping through to the skin.  It is a little snug – the batting ate into the ease – but other than that, it keeps my neck warm and I can’t complain.  See?  I make more than just stuff to address the perpetual issues associated with the girls.

Boobs are Hard

What’s a girl to do?  I wanted to experiment with a halter top, so I took an old swimsuit pattern and attempted to adapt it by widening the cup.  I was going to attach the halter to a band around the rib cage, make it so that the band hooked in the front, and put a little hip-length baby-doll skirt on the thing.

I got as far as attaching the halter bit to the band.  Then I tried it on.  Not big enough to go around the girls.   I mean, it halfway contained them, but it was awkward and gaped at the sides.  I don’t even know where to begin to “fix” it.  What shape is required to go around the girls?  I don’t want a three-piece cup like you’d find on a proper bra – all we’re looking for here is something that is big enough to go under the girls so there isn’t skin-on-skin chafing, provides a little tiny bit of containment, but also shows the girls to their best advantage.  This, unfortunately, isn’t it.  Not even close.  And I don’t know where to start.  The patterns for the A-D crowd don’t work.

Remember the little whiny Asian boy from Project Runway?  The one with the fuzzy accent?  He failed miserably every time he came anywhere near a curve and his horror at boobs was palpable.  Well, there’s a reason.  Designing clothes for a plank is easy.  Accommodating and flattering a three-dimensional figure is hard.  No wonder so many designers don’t bother with it.  I’ve got no technical training and nothing but 20 (gasp) years of puttering with fabric to help me and so far, I’ve got one success (the Smokin’ Pin Stripes) and a couple wretched failures.  The halter top falls in the later category.

The Pants Problem

Meh.

This is one of the hazards of not re-measuring yourself.   I’m smaller than I was when I made this pattern the last time (yay) but I’ve got a paperbag waist thing going that isn’t so fantastic.  I’m wearing them today.  Comfortable, the right length, good practice on putting a trouser zipper in, but happy with them?  Not so much.

Today’s lesson: measure every time and make no assumptions.

Weekend Pants

Once upon a time, I made these pants:

I consequently put them into the pile for goodwill, not being particularly happy with the skinny-ish leg.  There are some days in some clothes where you just feel all wrong and you never get back to seeing yourself as cute in the item again.  These pants fell victim to that phenomenon.  But I made a note on the back “good seat – make with wider leg.”

So I decided to use up one of my shorter lengths of fabric.  A dark grey cotton with a thick thread.  There wasn’t enough for niceties like pockets and a same-fabric inner waistband, but you make do, right?  How you work through those limitations are the decisions that make it yours as opposed to something that you might have bought off the shelf.  I used a stripped cotton in blue and gray for the pockets and waistband.

I took the lazy way out and used the hem stitch on the sewing machine to sew up the hem on the legs, and I’m going to have to hand sew/finish the waistband.  at least if I want it to lay right.  There were other mistakes along the way that require special handling – I put the right side waistband on to the left side, for example, and rather than ripping out and redoing it, I just went with it and improvised.

So my afternoon will be sitting here with Harry Potter – not like I haven’t seen that before – and hand-stitching the waistband in.  What else would I do with my Sunday?

Except, perhaps, make a warmer coat now that December’s here.

Ok, next weekend then.

 

Book Review: the BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook

The book starts with a basic overview of sewing – ostensibly, if you’d never sewn anything in your life, you could start here.  I like the inclusion of photographs of sewing spaces created by average people who love to sew – of course, the photographs show much more orderly sewing rooms than I’ve got.  I’d love to create something a little more aesthetically appealing for myself.  Or something a little more functional – much like Aunt Norma’s space…  But I digress.  Photographs of normal people’s sewing spaces.  A comprehensive list of things that you might need, a diagram of a basic Singer sewing machine.

I don’t know why every one of these books spends so much real estate on things like threading a sewing machine.  I suppose if any one of them happens to be your first sewing book ever, this would be useful.  But for those of us with sagging bookshelves, couldn’t they get into what makes them different from every other sewing book out there instead of what makes them the same?

Still, for the basics, this book does ok.  Very comprehensive, including a translator from US sizes to “Burda” or European sizes.

My favorite part of this book, however, is the degree to which they encourage looking at patterns as a starting point, as opposed to an end.  The pattern companies have encouraged this in a limited way – the Project Runway collection, for example, with different jacket fronts and the encouragement to choose different, but pre-selected, elements to make something your own.  So we have five patterns that come with the Burda book and variations on each of them, with what I’m guessing is a real contributor to the BurdaStyle community and their variations on the theme.

This also gives plenty of opportunities to see what the made-up patterns look like on people, which is always a useful thing when assessing whether or not the pattern is likely to work for you…  (Pattern selection rule #1: if it doesn’t look good on the models it probably won’t look good on you without some major renovations.)

The patterns and their variations carry a distinct hipster vibe, but the nice thing about sewing is that you the choice of details makes a great deal of difference to the end style…  it can be whatever you want it to be.

All that being said…  what a weird combination of really basic instructions in the front and really complicated variation instructions in the front.  I think I would have preferred the book let the basics go to other offerings and focused instead on what was done to create the variations.  They only do three variations for each pattern, but they have pictures with a lot more options at the end of every chapter…  Many books do the basics, not so many spend time on how to take a pattern and make it your own.

I say it was worth adding to my collection.  Not a perfect book, but it encourages coloring outside of the lines and I approve of that.  There’s no point in going to the trouble of sewing if you’re going to do it to match up the pictures.

The Pattern Problem

Why aren’t there any good patterns for making lingerie?  I know kwik sew has the most extensive offerings with regards to one’s underthings, but my heart is unmoved.  All patterns these days seem more like starting points rather than ends in and of themselves.  There’s this one element that I think works and the rest of it not so much, so I buy the pattern (on sale) and take that one element and attach it to something else entirely.  (See previous post.)

I’d like to buy patterns from a company that has reliable basics that they make year after year.  Not too many, printed on paper that lasts, with trend updates for the patterns that build on the tried-and-true foundation of the original pattern.

Pants, for example.  A flattering rise in the seat of the pants isn’t going to change from trend to trend.  The width of the leg, the length of the inseam, all of these things are subject to change, but some aspects are not dependent on trend.  A good rise is a good rise.  So I want a pattern for a pair of pants that has a good rise in the seat, makes my ass look phenomenal, and will stand up to me making it repeatedly.  I want instructions on how to cut it into a stovepipe leg, a wide leg, and a skinny leg.

I want a sturdy pattern for a pull-over shirt that I adjust to my measurements once, and then I can use to make into a dolmen sleeve with a cowl neckline or a v-neck tank top.

And I want the basic building blocks for lingere with instructions for how to make it work for someone who isn’t sized to buy seduction at the mall.

Is that too much to ask?

Smokin’ Pin Stripe

Ok, so I’ve got an obsession with the twins.  Not because I’m pervy but because I’ve got them and they are hard to manage.  Victoria doesn’t make secrets big enough, keeping them locked down is an expensive proposition, and they just look massive when clad in the typical lingerie offerings.  Frankly, I want to be a hot mama like all the girls with perky girls that don’t take any more than a ribbon and some wishful thinking to keep them upright.

So, in the spirit of Norma, who taught me to wing it if no one makes it, I’ve been winging it.  I started with the Vogue pattern on the left.  8360 if I squint my eyes.  It’s out of print – I looked for it online on Saturday.   If you look real close, you can see my rationale.  It’s got an under-bust piece that kind of frames the girls.  That’s it.  That’s the pattern piece that I wanted it for.

To the right is the pattern piece that made the gathered insert.  You can see that I split it in two and added about 5 inches of width so there would be enough fabric to go around the girls.  The inches to add was captured by holding a measuring tape up to the girls and figuring out the difference between the size of the pattern piece and how much fabric was required to do the job right.  Turns out about 5 inches for my particular set of assets.

So with the right sized pattern piece for the U-shaped under-bust element, I measured from my armpit to my waist and then extended the line of the pattern to my waist and flared over my hips.

I knew I wanted some support out of this nonsense, so I planned for a series of elastic strips to go down the back…  Although it just occurred to me that it would have been way cuter to get round elastic bands and cross them in a mock lacing pattern.  Oh well, I’ll do that for the next round.    For now, this is the back of the top.

Wonder of all wonders, it fits.  And it looks good.  Seductive.  But what to put under it?  So I went digging through my patterns and came across Kwik Sew pattern 3167.  I raised the waist for a slightly more retro look, measured from center front to center back to make the pattern larger (it was designed for 50% knits and I was using a tightly woven polyester) and put in a zipper.  Welcome to pinstriped gangster wannabe hot pants.

The top is a lot of work to get into and out of.  The bottoms are easy on, easy off.  Which is, after all, the point of making your own lingerie.

I don’t know.  Maybe it doesn’t look like much.  I mean, I know it’s asset-friendly on, but maybe there is too much coverage for lingerie.  But I’m not a supermodel and you’d need about $10m worth of diamonds to make a bra like this for me.   And I’d still be worried about my Venus belly if I were wearing it.   So clearly Vickie’s isn’t working on my behalf.

Enough with the self-doubt.  I wanted to make something that was not for public consumption that holds up the girls tolerably well and doesn’t look like it’s held up by rebar.  Not bad and frankly, I think it’s more flattering on me than some of the stuff I’ve bought.

So there.

O.M.G.

I made this dress as a teenager out of a brown and red plaid cotton.  Norma taught me to match plaids on this dress.

V is for Scarlett

I finally have an opportunity to gift a friend with one of my non-squared silk quilts, this one in red and gold.  I finished the top last night and (gasp) put the silk in the wash.  I like the silk better washed – it takes on a different texture, slightly less smooth, measurably less shiny.  I hung it up to dry last night as well and it’s ready to contemplate laying out and tying off.  I just don’t have the patience for machine stitching.  The only remaining question is whether I want to stuff it with wool for the batting.

I’ve gone down this rabbit hole before, and ended up being annoyed that I couldn’t get it through Amazon because frankly, I’d like to be able to order everything through Amazon with Prime and shipping.  But there is wool batting available and I’ll have to get some.  Warmth being a primary requirement.

In the process of sorting through the bits and pieces left over from the red top, it occurred to me that I had a single square left over from the purple top that I did a year + ago.   So I sewed the scraps into a square the same size as the one that I had left over from the purple adventure and that will eventually turn into the silk quilt that I make for myself.  Eventually.  I could get excited about this part, as I’m making these things and giving them away and it might be nice to have a corner of each of them for myself.  Of course, the end result will be a full on crazy quilt, but who’s judging?

Anyway now that the top is done and while I contemplate how to finish the edges of this quilt, I think I’ll make use of a leggings pattern to correct the epic fail from a few weeks ago.