Day 'O Fun - Yeah, it's Sewing Related :)

Today is a good friend's birthday (Happy Birthday, Renee!!!) so I took a few hours off work so the two of us could attend the San Francisco Bead and Design Show near the city's shopping district. Besides beads and jewelry (and the occasional button or purse handle...) there are a few designers at this show. One who produces nuno felted pieces, another who produces beautiful handwoven pieces, another who produces garments from a variety of fabrications, and the like. There is a designer we like and she has a booth at this show.

I was wearing my top with Marcy Tilton neckline and my Au Bonheurs pants and I wasn't in her booth for 15 seconds before the designer complimented the pants and asked, "Whose pants are those?" I resisted the immature response, "Mine", and told her about Au Bonheurs patterns and she asked me to write the name down. I think I've made another fan of those patterns. :)

I was very restrained and bought only a necklace at the show, but my friend found several beautiful pieces and, she deserved them. :) The show runs through Sunday so, if you are in the Bay Area, it costs only $10 for the 3-day run.

Shams says check it out. :)

Report - Center for Pattern Design Workshop

Yesterday, I took an all-day class, offered through the Santa Rosa branch of the American Sewing Guild. (I'm not a member, but I'm thinking maybe I should join. :) )

This class, taught by Sandra Ericson, of the Center for Pattern Design, was called Your Proportion, and examined clothing from the perspective of a body's proportions.

We started with a slide show/lecture explaining the importance of proportion, the Golden Mean, and the ideally proportioned body. She gave us instructions on how to capture your own silhouette, then we broke into teams and taped huge pieces of paper to walls, windows, doorways, and proceeded to gather the necessary points to create a personal croquis. After connecting the points with straight lines, we drew an "ideal proportion" grid over the life size silhouette and transferred it to a graph on an 8x11 piece of paper. On the small croquis, it was now possible to see where our bodies differed from the "ideally" proportioned body.

What a fascinating exercise, and one I'd wanted to do for a long time.

Especially recently, I have been trying to figure out what sorts of clothing most suits me. When I first returned to sewing, I was focusing on tops and skirts. I tend to like longer skirts, but I also like longer tops and, of course, these don't generally work together. So I'd made a few shorter, more close-fitting, tops that I could wear with skirts or fuller pants. Because I have thin legs and hips, I also tended to wear pants that skimmed my legs, but one or two friends had mentioned that I needed pants with more fabric at the hem to create a more balanced look. From the photos taken for this blog, I could see that this is true – in narrow pants I had the silhouette of an ice cream cone in danger of toppling over. I have been thinking a lot about this lately, trying to figure out which path I should follow with my wardrobe.

So, what did I learn from creating a personal croquis? I learned that my shoulders, which I always thought so narrow, are actually fairly ideal, for my height. (Note, they are narrower than my bust, but for my height, they are only a shade narrow.) My hips are also a shade narrow for my height, but only a tiny amount. So, basically, my shoulders and hips are fairly "ideal", in terms of proportions. Not surprisingly, my waist is much larger than the "ideal" and is the same width as my shoulders and hips. (The ideal waist is half the width of the shoulders. HA! Not one of the 30 women there had the "ideal" waist.) That describes my proportions, horizontally.

Vertically, my bustline is far lower than the ideal. Even with my really good, really expensive, really supportive bra. My waist is also lower than the ideal – I am quite short-waisted. (No surprise there.) My hips are just a tad lower than the ideal, and my knees are higher than the ideal, so I guess I have short thighs and long calves. I knew my legs were short, but I didn't realize the shortness was in my thighs, but my calves are actually quite long. :)

At lunchtime, Sandra offered some personal suggestions for my body. She suggested that I get a shorter haircut, with more height to it, to help balance my body. She also said she couldn't overstress how important it was for me to focus on my shoulder line. That I should bring my shoulder line "up and out" and use it as a focal point. She said it would greatly help to balance my bust. She also said the hips would be a good focal point for me, and that an asymmetrical line is very good for me – especially tops/jackets that button off center. It's handy that I love asymmetric looks. :)

In the afternoon, we came back together for a lecture on the aspects of proportion. We started by looking at the ideal silhouette for our personal proportions, but then we talked about the impact of interior design lines, and creating a focal point. We learned about the proportion of texture, color, rhythm. It was a semester's course shortened to a few hours, so my head was spinning afterward. She talked about necklines, fabric choice, shoes, hairstyle. Thank goodness I took notes to go back over and study. :)

We had been asked to bring 8 or 10 pages torn from a magazine, to show looks we though would be good for us. Unfortunately, we ran out of time before we could really do much with them, but I guess that is left as homework. :)

All in all, a great workshop, giving me much to chew on. I know of sewists who travel far and wide to take of Sandra's workshops – for example, her Vionnet classes. I just might have to keep closer tabs as her Center for Pattern Design is located in St. Helena, which is only an hour or so away from me. :)

Vogue 8397 - Marcy Tilton Pants

This Marcy Tilton pant pattern has been fairly popular on Pattern Review, especially View C. View C is a pant with no side seam. I have been wanting to make it but my first rendition doesn't use the pattern as designed. Instead, I decided to try out a version Marcy has shown on her website. Here are her two versions (click the pictures to take you to her pages):

As you can see, Marcy has changed the pant detail at the hem. According to her page, she has created three 1/2" darts at the hem, tapering to nothing. From looking at the picture, I assume she has also put 3 corresponding darts at the back. When I made my pants this way, tapering them to nothing inside of the horizontal pleat, and tried them on, they looked unbalanced on my body, so I ripped the darts out and replaced them with 1/4" darts, tapering them to nothing about 1/2" away from the pleat. I also put a dart where the side seam would be and on the inside seam, so there were 8 in all, rather than six. I liked this look better.

The fabric selvedge serves as the hem of the pant.

The other detail Marcy has changed is the addition of the funky patch pocket. She gives a tutorial for creating this pocket. I created a template using her measurements and made the same pocket. That is the fabric selvedge at the top of the pocket.

My fabric is a navy linen/poly blend from Fabrix. I have enough to make another pair of summer pants and I'm thinking another pair of Marcy's panel pants with the horizontal pocket. :)

DVD series - The House of Eliott

I am sitting here, in a noisy Starbucks, while my van is nearby being serviced for a recall which is required before I can renew my vehicle registration for this year. I am trying to work, which isn't easy in this highly distracting environment, so I thought I would post a quick entry on my most recent obsession.

I love BBC programs and have watched them for years. But, somehow, I completely missed this one. The copyright date is 1991, and I had my first child in 1992, so I guess when it arrived in the U.S., I was preoccupied with nesting and/or breastfeeding. Luckily, a friend mentioned it at our recent sewing retreat. Still, I didn't act on it immediately. When I eventually looked it up on Amazon, I discovered the series is pretty expensive, so I joined Netflix just to see it.

The House of Eliott.

swoon

I have now watched the first 9 episodes and it is fabulous. How does this relate to sewing? Well, it begins in London in 1920, where you meet two sisters who were raised by a deceitful, tyrannical, despot of a father, who is also a successful doctor. You never see him, but he is very Scrooge-like, and does his best to ruin the happiness and prospects of his daughters. He dies, leaving them virtually penniless, with a male cousin in charge of their finances and as guardian for the youngest, who is 19. The eldest is quite a bit older and could have been the guardian/executor, but the doctor clearly thinks little of females. This cousin, a solicitor, is one of those arrogant, self righteous sorts who thinks he knows best, so he hides facts, and money, from the two sisters.

The only real skill these girls have (because their father would not give them a proper education) is sewing. The youngest, in particular, has a gift of design. Eventually, these two open a fashion house and there are many scenes which revolve around the world of society and the garments they create.

I am only 9 episodes into the first season, but I am loving it. Each time I pop the DVD into the mail, I wait with bated breath for the next one. Luckily, because Netflix is *so* fast with the shipping, I usually get it in a couple of days.

I highly recommend it.

OK, now back to work. :)

Sewing Workshop - Teagarden T and Trio pants

To those of you who celebrate Mother's Day, I hope you had a good one!

Eldest Daughter is off in Washington for a week and a half for a ballet "thing", so the burden of celebrating fell onto Youngest Daughter. She did herself credit, though, by taking me for my first pedicure in 10 years. Yup, I remember the last time was on a cruise to Alaska. I pity the poor technician that had to deal with my extremely unkempt feet and I told daughter to make sure to give her a good tip. :)

Afterward, DD2 and I had a great lunch, and even ended up at my favorite fabric store. Some of our other plans got a bit derailed when DD2 was invited to a last minute birthday party for a friend visiting from Holland, but I enjoyed a long nap. What's not to love?

I have a new outfit made from TNT (Tried 'N True) patterns. The top is a Teagarden T, one of my favorite Sewing Workshop patterns. I declared that I would probably make 20 of these, and this is number three (not counting the muslin). It is made from a cotton interlock from Britex. I have #4 cut out as well.

I have been wanting to make some cream linen pants, but I was very nervous about it. It's been years since I've had any white or cream pants – they seem so impractical! But I found this gorgeous Dana Buchman fabric from Fabric Mart in cream; it's 65% rayon, 30% linen, and 5% silk. I threw it into the washer and dryer a couple times and it came out beautifully, but the second time I added a light blue linen and it came out of the dryer with lavender spots sprinkled all over it. I washed it a third time, with bleach, but it didn't seem to help the spots.

I decided to use another new favorite pattern, the Trio pants (I think this is number three from this pattern as well). I cut around the worst of the spots, but there are very light spots that I hope are mostly invisible. If, later, the pants develop further stains, I may dye them a darker color. But for now, I love these pants! I was planning to buy more of the fabric, it was on the website for a long time, but, of course, it's sold out now, except in peach.

Youngest daughter took these photos of me today. In the second one, she asked me to do a Kung Fu pose. I did my best. ;)

Vogue 8637 - Marcy Tilton Pants

This is Marcy Tilton's latest pant and skirt pattern. I originally planned to make the skirt first, after a fellow sewing group friend made it and I tried it on and loved it (it looked amazing on her!), but I have been on a pant kick recently, so I decided to start with the pants.

The design of these pants is interesting, which you can see if you look at the line drawing. There are three pattern pieces — the front, the back, and the godet. It doesn't have a side seam, per se, but the front and back join for several inches at the hip, and the godet is inserted from the point where they intersect. It's very easy to construct, because you first attach the godet to the front, and then you attach that piece to the back, so there are no awkward corners to deal with. The godet is cut to be wide at the hem, but there are three darts to contain much of the fullness.

The finished hip of the size 8, the smallest size this pattern comes in, is 44". I decided that was perfect for my 40" hips. The waist of the size 8 is 33". This is a problem for me, since my waist is also 40". I couldn't do my usual trick of just drawing a line straight up from the hip without compromising the design of these pants. Widening the little seam at the hip would affect how the godet fits into the piece and I didn't want to increase the size of the godet. Instead, I slashed and spread the little extension that juts out at the side front, which you can see in the photo.

I also used the crotch curve from the Sewing Workshop Trio pants, since I like how those fit. I made the pants out of a very black ponte – the same fabric I have been using to test all of my pants. I bought 11 yards of it for $2.39 a yard, so I have been getting a lot of use out of it. :) I was pretty happy with the fit. The only alteration I made once the pants were made was to shorten them about 1.5", which is pretty typical for me.

I like these pants very much, though I wish they had a pocket. To add a pocket would compromise the interesting design, so I will have to think about this some more.

I lightened the pants in this photo so you could see them better. (Have I mentioned recently how much I love Photoshop Elements? I bought it for $30 on sale and it has been such a useful tool for editing photos!) I am wearing it with my Bells top that I reviewed last fall.

Here you can see the darts at the hem.

Do you think I need a new Welcome mat? :)

Sewing Workshop - Trio Pant

I finally made the Sewing Workshop Trio pants and I love them!

Janis, on Stitcher's Guild, has sewn some beautiful pants from this pattern, so I was eager to try them. I traced off a size small, though, according to the Sewing Workshop measurement chart, my hips are between a medium and a large, and my waist is off the chart (larger than a XXL). I can often get away with a smaller pant size since my hips are small and I increase the waist, as necessary. I didn't have to fiddle with these pants.

My first pair, using a black ponte knit, fit well, but were a bit short. I am 5'5" and almost always have to shorten things, so these must run short. I left the pocket off this first pair.

My second pair are from a brown stretch woven. This time, I included the pocket. I finished the pocket with buttons from my grandmother's button basket.

I had to lighten this photo a bit to show the pants better. I am wearing these with my new t-shirt with the Marcy Tilton neckline.

Worn with my Sewing Workshop Now shirt.

Pocket detail.