Floral Denim Jacket with Faux Piping

Whaaaaat?!?! Is Shams wearing a floral?!

A year ago I made a Sandra Betzina blouse as a jacket. I have worn that jacket a number of times and I wanted to revisit this pattern and make some changes: to lengthen the hem and the sleeves, add the button closure (which I'd left off of the previous version), and to use a stretch woven for increased wearing ease. When I saw this beautiful double-sided, stretch denim on Marcy Tilton's site, I snapped it up.

When I was sewing this up over the end-of-year break, I was having some trouble pinning the darts properly so I visited my friend, Ronda Chaney, head of the fashion department at Cañada College, and she pinned them for me. She also suggested that I add slits at the hem. Thanks so much, Ronda!

Here is the full list of modifications:

• A generous FBA using a side dart.
• Lengthened the hem by several inches.
• Added side hem slits.
• Faux piping along the front edges and the sleeve hems. This is done by "favoring" or exposing the facings just slightly. Topstitching in the ditch secures the mock piping in place. (Of course, you must also sew the facings on "backwards" to expose the other side, or use a contrasting fabric.)
Constructing the faux piping.
I love the fluted collar on this pattern.

• Omitted the sleeve pleats. Rather than lengthening and tapering the main sleeve piece, I decided to draft a lantern cuff for the rectangularly shaped sleeve.
Lantern cuff. You can also see the faux piping on the cuff and the hem slit.

• Added pockets! I spent some time thinking about how to do this. In the end, I used a pocket inside a pocket. The inside pocket used the solid blue side of the denim and is much shallower than the larger outer pocket. This is perfect for my cell phone and tissues. The pockets are cut cross grain to take advantage of the wonderful selvedge.
Inner and outer pockets, before attaching. The fabric selvedge is at the top of both pockets.
Completed pocket. The outer pocket is roughly 8" by 10".

• Replaced the functional buttons with decorative buttons and snaps. The buttons that I found at Stone Mountain & Daughter were 1.5" across. I didn't want 1.5" buttonholes, so I sewed them on decoratively and added snaps.
Decorative button.

This denim was a dream to sew and very comfy to wear because it's extremely soft and stretchy. I expect to get a lot of wear from this!

Thanks to mem for the pictures!
Vogue 1385

P.S. I just saw on Sandra Betzina's Facebook page that she had surgery recently to repair pain in her neck, arm, and shoulders. It's so good to hear that she'll be in top form again soon!

Happy New Year Around the World

Hola, Chicas! And Happy 2015 to you!

I believe that this has been the longest break I have ever taken from my blog.

I've even received a few emails from folks who were wondering what was up.

The short explanation is that I just haven't felt like blogging. Since starting my new job one year ago, I was really pushing myself to keep up the blog and it's been a bit of a challenge.

But, don't worry, you can't get rid of me that easily. I just needed to contract a bit, to breathe in.

The lovely Gayle Ortiz asked me to participate the Around the World Blog Hop last year. I agreed, and then I missed my posting deadline of Dec 22nd. I just didn't have it in me. I had spent three months (since mid October) preparing for the holidays and it was going into high gear about then.

So, let me do it now.

Gayle's Around the World Blog Hop post was stunning. Breathtaking. Mind boggling.

Such talent.

Mine will be different. I am using mine to inject a little introspection. I have been doing a lot of that, lately.

#1. What am I working on?

I have taken the last two weeks off work, combining some precious vacation days with paid holidays. At first I hoped to climb into my sewing hole and then pull the hole in behind me, churning out some significant work, but it didn't quite happen that way.

I found myself sewing slowly. Moving slowly. Deciding slowly. Finding other things to do. More of the burn out, I think, but I didn't want to regret having two weeks of potential sewing time "wasted", so I pushed through it, doing a little every day. (After Christmas, at least. No sewing occurred before the holiday.)

I currently have 4 projects in flow:

• A cape that I started well over a month ago, around the time I did a blog post about capes. It is almost finished and it's been ornamenting my dress form. All that remains are the closures, but I set it aside to work on the Miyake jacket last November. DD2 saw it on Christmas Eve and loved it. She was surprised I had made it and it made me wonder if she's paying any attention. ;) It looked great on her, so if I tire of it, I know who to give it to. I just need to finish it.
• A jacket using a pattern I've made before, but in a larger size, so I had to start over with a new pattern and all of the alterations. I was having a heck of a time getting the darts to look right, so I visited my good friend, Ronda Chaney, head of the fashion department at Cañada College, who helped me out. (Yes, I'm a lucky brat, to have friends like this.)
• A couple months ago, I was shopping with my friend, Renee, in a local boutique that I like. I tried on a jacket that a) was very expensive, b) didn't really fit my bust, and c) didn't have POCKETS. I've always liked pockets, but since taking my new job, I find that pockets are essential. So I decided to replicate the jacket - it's a great shape on me and I can see it in lots of fabrications. I found an OOP Vogue pattern that has the right bones, and I traced it off, graded it up, altered it for me, and changed the style lines. I whipped up a muslin and took it along when I met with Ronda. She made several edits so I altered the pattern and made up muslin #2. I took it along when I was going to see my pattern drafting friend and Sewing Diva, Georgene. Many more refinements ensued and my next step will be to make a trial version. (Like I said, I'm a lucky brat to have such friends.)
• Three years ago, I found some really cool notions at a local sewing store, but I had no idea how to use them. I brought some of them along to DOL in Taos hoping that inspiration would strike. It didn't. I get them out, every so often, and try to figure out what to do with them. I've made a few samples, but they continued to stump me. Then, last week, I had a flash of inspiration. I've ordered a bit of fabric that I hope will work, and I have more experimenting to do, but I'm excited about this idea. So we'll see.

I'm also doing some knitting. Yes, knitting. :)

#2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Well, I don't know of any other blogger in her mid 50s with überboobs, but with small hips and legs. I have a very particular shape that I sew for and a fairly specific style. I'm a niche blogger, and I'm ok with that.

#3. Why do I create what I do?

This is who I am. If you wonder who Shams is, this is it. This is when I feel most alive, most inspired, most authentic. Make of that what you will. :)

#4. How does my creating process work?

That is the million dollar question, isn't it? I think the truth is that my creative inner eye is pretty much always "on". Sitting on the subway, flipping through a magazine, walking along the street... I take note of things that appeal to me, surprise me, interest me. I love snoop shopping, it is pretty much one of my favorite activities to revive a flagging mojo, but my other favorite is the internet - Pinterest, googling, online sites. There is so much to inspire.

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So, thanks to Gayle, for asking me to participate! I confess that I am not a fan of these hops when they are called blog "awards", but rename it to a hop and I'm in. ;) I have asked a number of bloggers (who haven't yet participated) if they would like to continue the chain after me, but all either declined or didn't respond, so I will let this thread die with me.

What Else is Up?

Those of you who've read my blog for awhile know that I don't do an end-of-year roundup in January. I do mine on my blogiversary in August, when I also do a giveaway. I don't do resolutions, but I do make plans. Last year I started a new job just before the new year and, while it's been the best year of my professional career, other things have suffered. This year I plan to focus on health and to do as much traveling as possible, given my limited vacation time. To that end, I plan to attend Puyallup Sew Expo, and a meet up with some sewing friends in the spring. I also plan to attend a health retreat next summer.

Imagine that. Travel with no sewing focus.

Happy 2015! May there be a lot more peace everywhere!

With silhouettes of my daughters made when they were 7 and 9. The 9-year-old was already a student at San Francisco Ballet, hence the "bun head".

Knitwear for the Feisty (and Cute Earrings!)

I have a friend and colleague named Kathy, who is also responsible for convincing me to become a technical writer. I am responsible for her learning to knit. So, all in all, I owe her more than she owes me.

We have now worked together at three companies—I seem to follow her around. (We also worked with mem at the same three companies, so the three of us go back more than 25 years.)

mem, Kathy, me

Google donates to many charities and encourages its employees to donate both time and money all year, but there is a particular week in June called GoogleServe, which has many scheduled opportunities. (I found this about some of the work that was done for GoogleServe in 2011 and the program continues to grow.)

Kathy and I belong to a group of knitters at Google in Mountain View who enjoy knitting together at lunch, and this group collectively knit around 150 chemo hats this year for Knots of Love. (Knots of Love also collects small blankets, but we learned of this a bit late before mailing off our hats in June. I'm sure that next year we will also knit up some of those.)

A few of Kathy's hats. She gave them to me to weave in the ends. (Since I'm a sewer, ya know, and well suited for that kind of thing. :) )

Kathy knit something like 16 adult hats for the contribution. (I was a late starter and knitted three using the patterns that Knots of Love provides.) Kathy's hats contained a special, secret, coded message. In Morse code, her hats spell out F*CK CANCER. (She included a note with each hat so the potential wearer would know about the coded message, in case it mattered, one way or another.)

I've been pestering Kathy for months to turn her design into a pattern, so that others can knit this hat. She has finally released a pattern, and she went one step further—in her blog post, she included a Morse code chart in her pattern so you can include a different message in your hat. Maybe you want to give a loved one a hat with the secret message "I love you", "stay safe", "blessings", or "do your chores".

Check out Kathy's free Morse Code Message Cap on Ravelry. She also put it on her (new) blog, Kat Knits (and Purls). It's a fast knit!

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Cute Christmas gift: Earrings!

My kids do not read my blog, so I feel pretty safe in posting this before Christmas.

Recently there was a Holiday Bazaar at the San Francisco office where I work 2 days a week. There were a number of local crafts people vending their beautiful wares. Who doesn't love a good crafts fair? I bought some nice things for my kids for Christmas, and ONE thing for myself.

Just look at these cute stud earrings. This couple make incredibly cute sterling silver jewelry. These studs are tiny, but substantial, as they are cut out of thick sheets of sterling, but the buttons are a scant 1/4" in diameter.

These button earrings are for me
These are for DD1, who has 3 piercings in each ear and attends university in rainy Oregon

I just loved their jewelry, and they have a website. They also have jewelry that would appeal to guys. Maybe you know someone who would love Pac Man cufflinks, or pinwheel cufflinks that actually spin. Maybe you know someone who teaches chemistry and has multiple piercings.

Here are the links to the button earrings and the umbrella and rain earrings. (Disclaimer: I get nothing for sharing these links with you. I'm just a satisfied customer.)

I also bought earrings from another vendor. She uses pennies and dimes to make jewelry. I bought a pair for each daughter. The grumpy cats for DD1 and the owls for DD2. So cute!

I've turned one of the cat earrings over so you can see the penny.

Linda, the designer, was lovely and we had a nice chat as I was dithering over which earrings to choose. She also has an Etsy store, loaded with goodies. Here are her grumpy cats and here are her owls. Check her out! (Same disclaimer applies.)

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I don't expect to be sewing much between now and Christmas, so I have nothing to show. I am busy preparing for the holidays. DD1 arrived back in SF last night. She and I will be together for much of the weekend before she jets off for several days in NYC.

Have a great weekend!

Giveaway Winner and Eye Candy

The winner of the digital subscription to Selvedge Magazine is R. Trittel!

Please contact me, R, and congrats!

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If you didn't win the subscription to Selvedge, here is something to inspire you. Check out some amazing eye candy—wearable art by Kay Khan!

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We are experiencing some ark-building weather here in northern California—it's the "storm of a decade", which makes it a wonderful day to work from home. My cat, however, is fairly grumpy that there is no door into summer.

Greedy Gift Grab, How I Love Thee

Once again, this last weekend was the annual Greedy Gift Grab and sewing par-tay. This event is in the back of my mind all year long, and this year was no different. I usually make a gift, but this year I spied some lovely hand-turned seam rippers in Treadle Yard Goods in St Paul, Minnesota, and I had to BUY one for the gift grab!

If you want to order one, see my blog post for info. (I also gave one away for my blogiversary.)
At this point, I've bought four: two to keep (one resin, one wood) and two to give away (one resin, one wood). I love them that much and I've used both the wood and resin rippers more than I care to admit.
This wood is bamboo—Bill makes them in a wide variety of woods and I've encouraged him to set up an Etsy store so non-locals can view his pieces on the web before purchasing.

My biggest challenge when it comes to these annual gifts is the wrapping. I am not a Wrapping Queen. In fact, my poor children often had to make do with unwrapped gifts. Sometimes, I would just hold their gift behind my back saying, "pick a hand."

Sad, I know.

My friend Renee is a gift wrapper extraordinaire. She helps me sometimes, but most years I have to muddle through on my own. And you want your gift to look compelling so that it gets opened earlier, rather than later. I always hope that I have bought a gift that will appeal to several people—it's a lot of fun when your gift is "stolen" multiple times. For me, that is the most fun of the entire evening—watching people "steal" gifts back and forth. It's a hoot and these sorts of games work well when people share a passion (which these folks do), and also when they are good natured about it (which these folks are).

So this year I had an inspired idea for the wrapping. Why not use battery operated Christmas lights?!

I then hopped onto the internet and saw that my idea was hardly unique. Oh well.

I went to Home Depot (it's so nice that they are open at 7am on Sunday) and purchased a string of fancy pendant white Christmas lights for $15. They require 3 AA batteries. (These would look so nice all lit up in a bowl as a holiday decoration and I see they also have the same lights online in multicolor.)

It's safe to say that the lights were just as much a hit as the seam ripper!

I had an ornate inlaid pencil box I had bought years ago as a gift to one of my daughters, but hadn't used it. I placed the seam ripper in the pencil box, on a bed of tissue.

I placed the pencil box in a shoe box. I placed more tissue around the pencil box and laid the lights around the pencil box.

I switched on the lights and then wrapped the gift (sans lid) with two layers of lightweight paper: one layer of canary tracing paper that I use as my tracing paper for sewing and, over that, a layer of food-grade tissue paper—white with gold stars.

Voilá! Added bonus! I bought this ribbon before I was married. I used up the gold wrapping this gift, and I plan to use up the rest wrapping Christmas gifts!

My little trick worked, as my gift was the first to be opened! (I remember one year my gift was the last to be opened, meaning there is no chance to steal it—that was the year I put no special effort into the wrapping. Once the last gift is opened, the game is over.)

So what did I bring home after the game was over?

I was very fortunate to win some beautiful fabrics, all ikats, that had been purchased when my sewing friend, Sarah B, had traveled to Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. I had to steal these back numerous times, let me tell you! What a special gift! (And thanks to Sarah B for sharing her travel treasures!)

Antique Burmese silk
Burmese men's longyi
Thai silk

Giveaway Reminder

Just a reminder! If you haven't entered the giveaway for the free, one-year, digital subscription to Selvedge Magazine, go do it now! I will draw a name on Wednesday. If you haven't left your contact info, please check back. If we can't connect up within a few days, I'll draw another name.

What's up? Where's the Sewing?

It's true, this was a weekend of back-to-back holiday parties (I also attended a huge 40s-themed work party on the U.S.S. Hornet), so I got only a bit done. My friend, Renee, had loaned me a very interesting Cynthia Ashby skirt, and I finally got that traced off, which was a bit tricky, due to some funky curves, but not much else was completed, sewing wise.

But I've just made some holiday plans... Between vacation and paid time-off for the holidays, I will have TWO WEEKS off from work!!!! I am very excited and need to start thinking about what projects I want to work on during that wonderful block of time. Staycation, indeed! (Last year I had just started my new job and had zero vacation days. That's right, it's my one-year anniversary!)

Of course, I'll also hang with my kids, but I hope to finish a few things, or maybe work on something meaty.

Selvedge Magazine (AND GIVEAWAY!)

I routinely receive emails where I am asked to review products in exchange for free product. 99.9% of the time I ignore these emails, as the products are things like nail polish, sunglasses, cheap RTW... items that have no relevance to my blog.

Several weeks ago I was contacted by Selvedge Magazine, and this time I was glad to accept a free copy in exchange for a review.

Back when Borders was a brick-and-mortar store near my home in SF, I loved to visit and look at the rack of international craft and fashion magazines, typically when the little ones were with daddy, so I wouldn't be distracted. One of my favorite magazines to peruse was Selvedge, published in England.

They sent issue 61, the "North" (winter) issue. The full title of the magazine is: selvedge: THE FABRIC OF YOUR LIFE and the tagline on the cover is "Textiles in Fashion, Fine Art, Craft, Design, Interiors, Travel and Shopping." That pretty much sums up their offering: an interesting collection of global, historical, and contemporary information and inspiration in fashion, craft, and industry. They cover the gamut, but this is not a magazine of patterns—it's for textile-inclined artists and all lovers of textiles.

I've peppered this post with a sampling of photos from the issue so you can enjoy some of the eye candy.

I've just learned that Selvedge now offers digital subscriptions, which is a great money saving (and space saving) option! (You might also be interested in following their Facebook page.)

GIVEAWAY FOR FREE SUBSCRIPTION!

Selvedge Magazine has kindly offered to to give away a free digital subscription to one of my readers! If you would like to enter the drawing, please leave a comment on this post. I will draw a name next Wednesday. THANKS!

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What's Up?

Wow, it was nice to have 5 days off last week, with Thanksgiving break and a bit of vacation thrown in.

I did not sew one stitch.

Instead, I read, knitted (a disappointing hat), cleaned, decluttered (preparing for the holidays), spent a day hanging out—and making fudge—with one daughter, had mega phone conversations with the other, binge watched murder mysteries, caught up with Serial and my favorite "reality" TV show, Anna Wintour's Fashion Fund...and just generally enjoyed not sewing.

Since Thanksgiving, it's (finally) been raining. A lot.
mem and I were walking back from lunch and I spied someone snapping this cell photo, with us in the background. I asked him to send me a copy. (And later discovered that I was imposing myself on one of our VPs. :)
Over Thanksgiving, DD2 thoroughly enjoyed the 60°F San Francisco weather, where "the air doesn't hurt your face." When she returned to Minnesota, it was 0°F.

Double Sided Wool Jacket

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, to those of you who celebrate the U.S. holiday.

I am as happy as a pig in slop to be at the beginning of a 5-day vacation! Not to mention that DD2 returned last night from university in Minnesota. As soon as she got off the plane, she was waxing about the joys of feeling warm air all around your body. I don't think of San Francisco as being "warm" much of the time, but it just goes to show how it's all relative. Though I think you can see that she is not unhappy with her new Joan of Arctic boots from Sorel.

Back in Minnesota... (where it's been snowing already)

If you follow the Britex blog, you'll see that I've completed another project, my last one for 2014. This time, I started with a 100% wool from the Mid/Light Weight category:

Midweight Reversible Navy & Teal Wool

In the description, they call this a "midweight reversible wool", but I would characterize it as more lightweight. I love reversible fabrics, and I love navy and teal—I've been sewing more with these colors lately—so I jumped on this fabric almost immediately.

Some of my pics show the teal side as more of a blue teal, but it is more of a green teal, as shown in the photo on the Britex site.

This is one gorgeous fabric. I machine washed and dried a sample: It did not change character or hand. It might have shrunk a bit—I didn't think to check. The sample did fray beautifully, which surprised me, as the fabric was not particularly ravel-y to begin with. But I made sure that I serged the edges of the yardage before subjecting it to the washer and dryer, as I was not going for a frayed-edge look this time.

I found this fabric very easy to sew and wanted to make use of the fact that it was reversible. There is no pattern available for this jacket, as I used a pattern, borrowed from a friend, that was traced off of an actual Issey Miyake Plantation jacket from the early 1990s.

Single welt pockets. The sleeves fold back to reveal the teal.

I love Issey Miyake designs, but they don't always love me. The original jacket was rather boxy, long, with dropped sleeves, and no internal seaming, other than the shoulders. (In other words, the original jacket had the loose fit with dropped sleeves typical of that time.) It features a "fold back", soft lapel—finished with mitered edges—that is sewn into the shoulder seam. This fold-back lapel is my favorite feature of the design.

I made lots of changes to the original pattern. I added center back and side seams, and introduced some shaping in those seams. I reshaped the armscye and swapped in another sleeve that has a more traditional sleeve cap. This turned out to be tricky, as I muslined the sleeve at least 5 times and I think it could use more tinkering.

I reshaped the hem—it's shorter in back, but dips to the original length in front. I re-shaped the front lapel, narrowing it so that I could raise the armscye—I also changed the angle of the lapel so that it "broke" (turned back) in a more flattering (lower down) location, creating a more vertical line.

The side seams, CB seam, and sleeve seams are flat felled
Don't you just love flat felling the seam on a one-piece sleeve?
Yes, that was sarcasm. ;)

I swapped out the welt pockets for my own welt pocket, as I no longer had the room to accommodate the original vertical, two-lipped, welt pocket with a large, very Miyake, pocket bag.

So, yes, this one required a lot of changes!

Conclusion:

This was a fun (and challenging) exercise! I do think I will use this lapel again, but I might just transfer it onto another TnT (tried 'n true) pattern. And I highly recommend this beautiful fabric!

Thanks to Britex for providing the fabric and thread!

And thanks to mem for taking these pics!