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FUZZY GALORE |
You know, there are several reasons why I kind of hate making curtains. A major one is that it's not as simple a project as it looks. Curtains are expensive by definition, and their deceptive simplicity leads amateur seamstresses to think they can at least do that for themselves. But I'll never forget Vicki's wailing about her spanking-new kitchen curtains, and how pathetically corkscrewed they looked indeed. That was when I came to a formal analysis of the problem. A big cause of trouble is that even homemade curtains always take what seems like miles of fabric, so one is naturally tempted to buy on the cheap side. And a common reason fabric is discounted, especially curtain fabric, especially synthetic fabric, is that it was hopelessly distorted in the manufacturing process and cannot even be cut straight. Curtains may usually be a plainly rectangular object, but they must hang perfectly on grain or they look utterly deformed. So there you are - the poor are condemned to window-sartorial offenses, usually assorted with follow-up sewing self-flagellation.
My personal main problem comes from the fact that curtains aren't just a sewing project, they're a construction project as well. I usually grind to a halt at the part where you're supposed to drill into the walls, I don't think I've ever managed to hit one of those elusive studs straight on. So I thought I was home free here; this otherwise architecturally- impaired apartment came with already-installed rods on every window, big ones. Ugly ones too, but hey, they'd be really expensive to buy, and there are worse esthetic faults (dig the bedroom's teddy wallpaper below...). This combined with 1) the extremely nosy old lady in the front and 2) the neighbors' plunging view in the back, straight into the underwear drawers, led me to believe that I could tackle such a project.
Well... The state of the plumbing (hot water only at the flow
suitable to rinse a single radish) and the electricity (tin-foil
holders of lightbulbs of a standard already outmoded in the 60s)
should have been a hint of what was in store behind all that
opulent display of rod-ness (rod-dom? my English is going to hell).
Screws directly into the plaster.
Even I know better! When decked out with my lovely feather-weight
creations, the bedroom one collapsed outright. Fortunately, no
injuries, this was like having a major earthquake while you're
at work in the Japanese-standards skyscraper, while the bookcase
collapses on your bed, we were lucky. Then we noticed the living-room one
creaking ominously and detaching slowly from the top. Sigh. At least
that wasn't the side that prevents that specific old lady from watching us
sprawled on the couch, sampling every bit of modern French chocolate,
watching the L-Word in marathon form...
I think if I climb on something very tall
and shove some plastic thingies in there I may be able to recover. Sigh.
But let's try to get a firm grip back onto the properly fiber topic.
Another reason I don't like curtains much is that they involve
miles of sewing.
Straight, flat sewing, in a word: boooring.
At least they have gathering tape now, so the tedious centering
and measuring of pleats is over
(it's only fun the first time, which leaves 9 in this case).
But curtain fabric is usually squirelly,
and getting it onto the tape evenly isn't especially easy.
And you do have to manage to sew them on so the outside is out, so to speak.
One place I went really wrong here was the atavistic response of needing
rolled hems. It's one of those bad indigestion effects of early
couture training, I'm sure if I looked in the local Wal-mart equivalent
I'd be hard-pressed to find a rolled hem on anything, much less polyester kitchen
curtains. But, however, I marched on gamely and rolled yards and yards.
And got a big pain in the thumb tendons.
If you think about it, rolled hems were invented for stuff
like yummy silk chiffon. When you're trying to roll polyester, it fights back,
and the process becomes more like rolling it into submission.
You feel like you should be wearing a
Mexican wrestling mask.
Do a mere 6 or 8 yards of that in one stretch, and you're crippled.
Back to the drawing board.
Way back when David Page Coffin's excellent book on making shirts
came out, I had a brief period of enthusiasm. Why I couldn't tell you,
since I'm a rather rumpled old hippie and not at all a tailored sort of
person, but he wrote so well about that crisp world.
So I had acquired a machine foot to
facilitate fell seams.
Which turns out to be compatible with my new machine, mercifully.
So off I went, trying to subdue the crinkly polyester's ripped edges
around the felling thingie's tongue.
And lo and behold, it worked. Kind of worked, not super-regular results
or anything, that might necessitate a perfectly crisp cotton.
I had to stop every 4" to rearrange myself, but it was
still a whole lot faster than rolling all 15 yards or so by hand, and not at all crippling.
You have to admit it doesn't look much worse than the hand-rolled beauty above, eh?
And if anyone is crawling on my floor peering at my curtain hems, I'll just have to
assume they're good enough friends to keep their mouth shut.
Now I'm thinking I should find a real rolling foot, except that I'm not likely
to be making frilly silk chiffon dresses, and with any luck at all it'll be years,
no decades, before I need that many curtains again...
The last time it snowed, I pulled out the 10-year-old Miyake coat
and did some repair work. Not one, not two, but three separate neighbors
made fun of me for being so "well-equipped" (OK, one is Canadian,
she doesn't count), but I went to market in utter comfort,
psychological as well as physical.
I was amazed to notice recently that this pattern is still in print, it was one of
the first Miyake patterns that Vogue published (1476), and is apparently one of
the longest-running they've ever had.
I made this one while enduring unpleasant East Coast winters. It took 5 yards of wool/mohair blend, all 5 yards (the slight leftovers become pockets), and is made of very few very large pieces. I was skeptical at first, because of the lack of closing. But the wooly fabric grabs onto itself just fine, and there's no problem keeping it closed even in windy conditions. Moreover, the collar is large enough that in a pinch it makes almost a hood. It's like wearing a blankie, I've been in impressive blizzards in this and felt just fine.
The front looks good, and the back does too, in my biased opinion
(please excuse the smudged pictures, it's not the coat's fault).
I had an interesting
sewing get-together weekend soon after finishing it, where we amused
ourselves by making everyone in reach try it on. This is a size 14,
the largest made at the time. I was that size at the time,
and I looked fine, but so did everyone else - from very tiny to imposing,
including the odd tall husband who perhaps looked even more dashing
than the rest of us. This without any sort of adjustment whatsoever needed,
although of course we all immediately developed preferences in
variations of overlap and how much lapel to leave hanging, enough
to look quite individual.
Seriously, after 20 years it's still a great design. I've seen it made in light tweed for Berkeley weather, it was perfect. The only thing I'd avoid would be slippery fabrics, because you couldn't keep it closed then. I had done an Ultrasuede binding for mine, painfully learning to miter without stitching, but managing because all the edges are straight, and all the corners are square. It still looks fine, if you ignore some nits, like the spot where a heater melted some of it, like the fact that I used 3 different kinds and tney each have their own dye lot, getting further away with time, that the trial cuffs in a thinner variations wobble horribly. Eh. I guess if I got into redoing it, I'd probably use real leather this time.
The only problem is that with those 5 yards of fabric it's quite a handful, or more exactly an armful. I've concluded that it's an effective passive-agressive act to just hand it to someone to hang without instructions :-). Basically, if you hold firmly in one hand the middle of the yoke/collar, you can then drape it over a hanger or hook without too much of a struggle. But if you let go of that anchor, you could end up buried in it before you find your way out...
And while I'm still happy with this oh-so-NY black, it looks most excellent in stripes and directional fabrics (plaids, tweed) - the meeting of the different grains at the upper back is a work of art, which gains with emphasis. And the shirt that goes with it is divine too. Lovely swing back, that falls really nicely if you ignore the Vogue instructions and cut it with the grain hanging down the middle of each piece instead. I seem to find myself without a copy of that for the moment, I think the Japanese kimono crepe is calling my name...
Had fun whipping out a small project. I bought a bit of muslin knits
at this January's sale at Toto, the cheap local fabric store.
They also had this great piece of Mexican kitsch for $1/yd. If you don't like
it, imagine what the other colorways were like... at least this one
could be considered Frida Azul! We're in a very mexican mood anyway,
must be the continuing winter weather that's making us California-nostalgic.
We've been reduced to testing out Old El Paso enchilada kits,
and reduced further to even enjoying them, so this is totally harmless
in comparison.
In case you can't tell right off, it's a haircut cape. While I was at it, I posted the pattern for you. I had originally envisionned gold lame, but it was much more expensive ($5/yd) and this is more my speed anyway, I rarely feel that glamorous :-). This may contribute to glamour indirectly instead by making it easier to cut hair, leaving us less shaggy because it's less of a mess to take care of it.
I also brought the serger back down from the attic where it had been languishing. I think I finally found a transformer equal to the power requirements. Keep your fingers crossed as I test it out, hopefully I'll now get to projects I've been pushing off for lack of easy finishing.
It was snowing AGAIN, so we had an indoors kind of weekend... First we went to a show. I'll give you a link, but don't get your hopes up because they have nothing remotely relevant on :-). This is a snooty modern art kind of place, which somehow condescended to having a textile show. Reminescent of all the places who have removed 'Craft' from their name in the last couple years, California College of Arts and C... etc. As if C.. was a dirty word. Now these people's definition of textiles is a bit odd, since that includes drawings of people wearing clothes (how moderne! what will they think of next!), and paintings on glass. But there were a couple of fascinating people all the same. The catalog entirely consists of a lot of po-mo blather, you don't get to know who did what, so I can't figure out who did the lifesize figures of fake museum guards, but I appreciated them a lot.
And Joseph Lestrade is for sure the name of the guy who did some really cool clothes. Usually he does Chinese shaped coats, many of them with at least one side entirely woven of ribbons, most of them monochromatic, some with dozens of buttons along the entire opening, some with dozens of ribbon ties instead. The one we really loved was on the wall, acid green wooly lined with salmon silky, and really nice applique/embellishments including sashiko and more traditional embroidery. We also really enjoyed his looks-like-clothes-thrown-down things, that look like you could wear them if they were shaped that way :-). We should definitely go to the official live fashion show of his stuff.
The most interesting to me in all that was the promise of an 'atelier de customisation', which reminded me of the great time I had with the Oakland/SF exchange of garment remake. This one should be even better because everyone gets together in one spot and works on their projects all at once, so hopefully we'll meet some local sewing people. I'm saving my scraps! And maybe we'll even figure out where they buy clear elastic :-).
Finished another criss-cross shirt. This time, I used the sleeve from Burda 8778.
I had this good piece of fabric aging away because, let's face it, I was afraid of it.
It's thin to the point of sheerness, it's stretchy, it has lots of boucle texture...
I couldn't see how I could control it.
And yes, in retrospect it'd probably have been better
to serge it. But actually the new machine managed it just fine,
so I'm kind of glad that I didn't, that's definitely a test of the limits.
The hems, even though zig-zagged, wobbled quite at bit at first. But a good spritz of
steam fixed that. Morality: if you're going to mess up, always mess up in
wool, you can always press things into shape :-).
I like this top, I really do. The sleeves aren't very practical but they look good, the general fit is fine, I think it looks interesting without being too much. But I think if you look carefully even you can see the dressform's leopard spots through it in the picture. Imagine a bra - you get a good detailed view at 50 paces. Even on a galloping horse, if that's the standard, in fact on a galloping horse they may not have time to notice anything else! So I'm wearing it today over a t-shirt, which is good enough especially as it matches the pants and I'm not getting that cut off at the waist line. I'll have to make it a beige silk camisole before it goes out on its own... I do have a piece of swimsuit lining fabric that'd work, but I think it's a bit heavy, and I feel kind of possessive about it, who knows where I'd find more and I'm in dire need of a new swimsuit.
I also had a very nice surprise when rooting around in the back of a sewing drawer - I found 2 more packages of precious clear polyurethane elastic. Whew! I've been to every single store in Toulouse, every fabric store, every mercerie (notions), every sewing machine store, everything that seemed remotely suitable. I've even taken to carrying a sample in my bag so I can show it right off, and not stray into the clear elastic thread that everyone immediately tries to shove at me. Or at least avoid the French "it doesn't exist" routine, which they go into whenever they don't have what you want. But clearly nobody's seen it before. One or two people have seemed interested and asked what I use it for, the rest have just sneered. I've done my google best and not come up with any online European sources either, although perhaps to be fair the German translations I came up with has no basis in reality.
This issue has been frustrating the hell out of me, as I'm really on a roll of coming up with good knit patterns, and it's hard enough to do a good job of a neckline without trying to do without my usual crutch. And I have small shoulders, so I need that stuff to stabilise them, or I look like I'm sliding right back into the 80s. You can also tell I'm sure that if I felt like I had had enough, and had used it in the crossing seam that's so obvious, it'd probably have been more stable and pleasing. I've been using clear elastic to sew knits for a good 10-15 years, having been converted to its use by the great Tilton/Betzina team of the original Sewing Workshop. Why haven't they noticed over here??
So I think I have the answer... and it's related to why you can't buy a sewing machine that sews fast: they haven't noticed their customer base has changed, and worse they despise them. It's true that there is a really big gap in France, where the middle-aged would rather have their fingernails pulled out than have to sew a hem. The bulk of sewers is now over 60, if not over 70. And I know from experience that the old ladies didn't learn to sew knits at first, that most of them have machines that can't handle them gracefully, and worse that they haven't had opportunity to learn how. There are almost no workshops for sewing beyond beginner level, and the few written materials are almost entirely patterns, not technique. Their main source of info here would be the web, in English, so everyone assumes the sewers are too stupid on both count. Sheesh!
First of all, everyone old isn't out of it - my older cousins are fanatical geeks, even if they have to root around the web to fill in the missing vocabulary, and I don't think they're that unusual. Or let me more precisely say that there isn't anyone over 60 in my family that isn't at least functioning on the net, with their own computer, broadband and all. I may not approve of every detail of what goes on on those computers :-), but they're here and they're here to stay. That's one in the eye for dismissing the general adaptive capabilities of old ladies, who in my opinion would also wholesale upgrade their sewing machines if they were given a clear reason to.
Furthermore, all these sewing supply people wring their hands and moan about how business is bad because young people don't sew. Well of course they don't! Where are the poor things supposed to learn? Grandma of course, but not everyone has a grandma around, not all of them are willing, and more importantly many of the current crop of grandmas don't know how. I'm not sure they're still getting the same classes that I got in school, with mandatory baby clothes, and endless variations on couture handmade buttonholes. More likely, they sign up for a beginner workshop and try to muddle on. But then they're on their own. The lack of that intermediate level for direction is why it's taken me so long to make any progress with patternmaking, which is why I can see it so clearly. If they look to the web, they'll find tools and notions that they have absolutely no access to (the French stores stonewall, the US ones don't ship internationally). One would get discouraged over less, and I think the poor things should get credit for even thinking of it at all. Sheesh again!
Last time we went to the
Toulouse
Tricot-Thé (knit and tea for the
English-speakers), Chantal had made a very cute very tiny shrug. I hadn't
considered them before, being the kind of person who doesn't like vests
because my arms get cold :-). But hers was so cute, and
it seemed so easy... I just had to baaa along.
So I tossed yarns around, and emerged with only a single possibility: this wide wool ribbon tape (knitted itself in the round), in just La Couleur Du Jour. A Tahki, long out of print so don't torture yourself, which I got on sale from Priscilla's sister's shop at least 3 years ago. This incidentally is a stark reminder of why one shouldn't have a huge stash. Most of mine consists of one-scarf quantities of yarn, perfect for California, and a few sweaters' worth, in case I feel very inspired. So what do I do when I want a shawl, or a hat to match my scarf because my climate has dropped to the Arctic, or when I simply want to do something I didn't use to do a few years back? I have to buy yarn of course. And before you think to yourself how good this is, remind yourself that I just shlepped something like 6 boxes of yarn across the Atlantic, at extortionist prices, and wonder how you would like to spend even more money on more yarn when the weight of guilt is hovering over your head already... And wonder further how you'd like to resist the temptation of a whole new continent's worth of yarns till you have that stash under better control. Nice to contemplate, eh?
Anyway, I miraculously had 4 balls of this particular stuff, although the balls are very short, something like 80 yards. Last months I played with it a bit, wanting a shawl or big scarf. I tested out some reversible cables, only mine didn't turn out nicely reversible at all, and I couldn't get the big sculptured effect I was after, I got a big messy lump. There seems to be a feeling out there that a shrugette like I had in mind should take a skein, but that didn't seem so far from 4 short balls to me, especially since I'm not a twig. I looked at some pictures, and decided it couldn't be so complicated. Which is usually the start of a horror movie of a project, isn't it?
But this time things didn't go that way at all. I pulled out
my trusty old copy of Barbara Walker's "Knitting from the top"
and looked up raglan sweaters. I cast on invisibly for the neck, picked out
a double-increase (#4, the one that has stitches "flowing out smoothly"),
and took off, leaving out the front entirely.
When I thought it was long enough to reach my armpits,
a bit over 20cm (8") along the raglan seam,
I separated out sleeves, adding about 2" (5cm) of cast-on to each underarm.
Then I made a 5cm (2") of 2x2 ribbing for each sleeve, and another picking up all
around the neck, front raglan seams, and lower back together. A piece of cake.
I didn't even run out of yarn, and I have some left but not enough to cry over.
The astounding thing is that I can't even look back and remember a project where I didn't even rip a single row. Rose commented 'you usually rip at least 5 times, even for a simple scarf'. It was even fast, just a couple evenings of catching up with last year's "Desperate Housewives", figuring out why my sister is so crazy about it. I'm still dizzy from the rush of success. So yes, this isn't what I'd usually wear, and it did look odd to me when I first tried it on. And you really need to work those shoulders to even put it on, adjusting the middle back like some demented kitty scratching their back. But I was so pleased with the process that I had to wear it immediately, and meanwhile I've discovered that I really like that extra bit of warmth across the shoulders. It's perfect for spring at least. Aaaah.
Finally untangled the horrible mess we got into on the loom. Untangled
going forward, and untangled again wrapping it up better on the back beam,
while adding something like a hundred extra ends at the same time.
We paused, exhausted. We had to re-thread what was already done,
because we broke so many ends in the untangling process.
Then we had a nice surprise: the newfangled
creeping
reed hook we got from AVL is a definite improvement.
Even with the extra time to get used to the thing, it made sleying much
faster. It's not so much that it's entirely automatic, it's that it transfers
the process from entirely visual to about half the feel of it, which is
more reliable and doesn't require you gaping over the reed so much.
We highly recommend this, especially since we paid something like $15 for it,
it's a tool that's well worth it in terms of better ergonomics.
So anyway, we're off! We whipped out 6" (15cm) in a flash, and then slacked off as Rose decided to unweave a bunch because we had a big ugly mistake, so we're about back to where we got. It looks lovely, doesn't it :-)? The best part I think is that we can feel it enough to realize that it's very good we had all this horror about tightening the sett from 20 to 29 epi, unwindings and untanglings galore. The first sett would have been practically cheesecloth. Sigh. Better to recover earlier than later, eh? So do look up your setts in Peggy Osterkamp's very complete table in her first book, and ignore what you get from the concise version in Interweave's 'Weaving companion'...
This is even relatively easy to weave. We had a moment of doubt when we realized that the treadles that we thought could be attached to more than one harness can only go to one of them, reducing their usefulness so much that we haven't even connected any yet. But the twill is regular enough that with very little practice you can just flip a couple handles and it's not a horror to keep track of the pattern. We also really like Sharon Alderman's good instructions, which advised us to weave an initial inch with sewing thread to make a less bulky hem. You don't need to get this one off the loom to tell that was really good advice, since our other towels have big misshapen hems, kind of embarrassing for a seamstress. And we even managed to do the hemstitching on the loom this time, confirming the fact that it's infinitely easier than trying to catch the squirelly threads once you cut them off and realize you should have done the locking stitch before...
So OK, we still have something like 5 yards and 4+ towels to go. Things can still go horribly wrong. But for now we're very happy - the border looks very good, and the middle body twill looks very good too, the fabric feels good and up to the task, you can't do any better than that (for beginners). What a thrill to have real fabric take shape. Eee!
Oy veh. Here is a fiber book I do NOT recommend: Le tissage dans l'Atlas Marocain by Yvonne Samama, pub Ibis for UNESCO, 2000. This does have some nice points, which is why I grabbed it at the library. Good pictures, some decent drawings of tools, although hardly finished projects. But on balance, I'm feeling steam coming out of my ears after finishing it.
There is in fact some technical info, a bit less inane than the usual from this kind of coffee-table book, but only enough to leave you hanging. For instance, the plant that's used as soap for both wool and hair is named, in the local dialect, with no latin or any sort of attempt at international nomenclature, and no picture. There is a vague indication of handling "the 2 kinds of wool on a sheep" separately, which sort of indicates a double-coated sheep, but the sheep is merely mentioned as being shorn, no other indication at all. Moroccan sheep, what more do you want? I'd be interested in whether the churro came to Spain from North Africa, whether this is a different breed entirely. The different wools are mentioned as the long one being combed for warp, and the curly short one being carded for weft, which makes sense, one would also have liked to know whether the warp was spun worsted and the weft woolen, but being less visible to the naked eye that's not mentioned. There is a picture of a knot, and it's mentioned that the knot lengths are pre-cut, although not to what length, and whether the whole thing is shorn afterwards isn't mentioned either.
What really galls me about this book though is the condescending attitude toward the weavers. The technical info is sketchy, but we hear all about what ignorant, superstitious people the Moroccan women are. Every bit of 'evil eye' lore and irrational obligation is mentioned in detail. Frankly, some of the stuff about how boys are threatened with impotence if they walk through the warp, or how chicken who do so are immediately killed and eaten, strike me as very creative ways to keep the damned kids out of your work :-). There is more admiration of the slight bit of finishing work done by men on some clothes than of the whole weaving process by women. There is also a whole chapter on the symbolism of motifs, and how their use is mandatory by group/family, which reeks of the most heinous of neo-anthropological drivel we've had to wade through about the Navajo and their rugs. That stuff sounds like a bored person with imagination made fun of the anthropologist... The fact that someone, like the rest of us, might well make up her own motifs from the world around her, use traditional ones in memory of the women who taught her, or simply have a strong personal sense of esthetics, is either completely ignored or vigorously denied. This is supposed to be a book about a pre-industrial art form, but the artists get treated as if they were under-developed factory workers, beasts of burden who miraculously come up with something worth looking at only by obeying tradition dumbly.
And the real kicker is the several-times repeated assertion that local rugs only developed beauty when the French (politely called 'Occidentals' here) taught those ignorant women geometry! Jesus. Who does this person think taught the French geometry (all of math, actually) to begin with? Doesn't she know there were even more beautiful rugs (geometric, symmetrical ones too) way before the invasion of the French? In fact since centuries before, when the French were just a rag-tag, unwashed bunch of barbarians, the few educated ones coming out of Arabic schools? I don't know about this woman. From her name, she could be Moroccan, she could be French, it seems to me she could likely be one of the city wives of local boys that she openly pities in her book as so misunderstood and unappreciated. Sees stuff, and doesn't perceive anything from the height of her superiority. Pobrecita.
Made Rose pants for Valentine's. Eeck. First, let me bitch a small bit about how difficult it is to come up with real handmade surprises for people you live with... The buses were on strike again and she came back early from her missed French class and busted me red-handed. Aside from that, I used a Burda pattern I used for her last year, and which had fit perfectly. I had first made these pants in a light Japanese seersucker, she loves them but they're getting a bit worn. This time I had some grey bark cloth, which is a lot heavier and seemed perfect for winter. Well. I made a size smaller, since she's lost a lot of weight since last summer. I don't think that's really the problem. But even though I had already folded out a considerable amount from the leg length (she's 10cm/4" shorter than the Burda standard 1m68/5'7") they were still enormously too long. She doesn't like the way the front goes, thinks the rise is too long and that it bunches. I think that might be fixable by a good washing. But more disturbing is that the back is really low - so low that one wonders whether she's going to get plumber's butt by standing alone, and that sitting seems out of the question. This may be due to the fact that this fabric is so much stiffer. I can see no way around it. Sigh. Into the bathtub with it.
One of my problems this winter has been that it's been really unusually cold (so much for the fabled South of France...). In fact, it's been at least 50% hat weather. The problem is that San Francisco rarely has hat weather at all, hats are more something you wear skiing. As a consequence, I have a really nice scarf collection, but very few hats. And these hats tend to be something I have fun making, like the Peruvian one, not something I'm seriously trying to work into the rest of the wardrobe. So I basically don't have any scarf that goes with any of the few hats I do have. You might deduct that, intimidated by all this surrounding French-ness, I'm agonizing over the choice between warm ears or a warm neck. Ha! Instead I commit recurrent Fashion Crimes. Sigh. Only my wonderful neighborhood butcher enjoys the show openly, the rest of the people we run into just avoid looking me in the eye and do not bring up the topic of wool at all, a resounding silence.
So I thought I'd better do something about that, before the daffodils break out. Global warming is here to stay, and unfortunately I'm sure I'll be able to use more hats before it's all over. First I looked for leftover yarn from scarves past, to see if I could quickly remedy the situation. I did have some nice Canadian boucle left, and whipped out a quick beret. Alas, while the yarn is Canadian, it's also very light, not really adequate for the howling vent d'autan, and the resulting set isn't much better than a single scarf. But I've been getting yarns in scarf quantities, not hat-set ones, and I can't get Crystal Palace yarn so easily any more. And one hates to take 3-4 balls out of a set of yarn intended for a sweater, because you know it's rare to have too much yarn for that. So I dug through the entire stash, hoping that I'd have wanted to make a vest of something. And hurray, I found one! I had 4 balls of 7279 honey-rose Musique, a color I adore. So I set to work.
I had recently been paging through Elizabeth Zimmermann, and remembered
I'd wanted to try her snail hat ("knitting without tears"),
which I love the looks of so much and have never managed to get to.
It went together very quickly, the gauge being miraculously just the
one for Musique. A minute of silence here for the rarity of
those moments :-). Anyway, you can't tell much that there's
a snail there, it's awfully subtle, but the general effect is fine
and I'll be doing it again soon in a more defined yarn.
Sorry about the picture, the no-neck effect is kind of disturbing,
let's try it again alone.
Then I ran into trouble with the scarf, of all things. I didn't think I had enough
for my usual Moebius. I wanted it reversible, and wanted it fairly
short for wearing tucked under a coat (if it's hat weather..). It didn't
seem like it should be a big deal. I took it along to the
Toulouse
Tricot-The (lots of new members! good for the net..)
meeting on Saturday. I thought I'd go for a checkerboard, which had a better
chance of being visible in all this color-printing and thick-and-thinness,
roughly as visible as a snail in fact. I kept being too big, too small,
too.. something. I ripped 4 times. Finally, as I was looking through
Louise's (whose name isn't Louise) book "tendance tricot" (aka Joelle
Hoverson's "Last-minute knitted gifts"), I saw her little triangle scarf.
Ha ha! Actually, while I don't like the look of triangle scarves alone,
they're really very functional under a jacket, cover the cold spot
on the back of the neck, don't have too much bunchy stuff in front etc.
So I started again, and finished it quickly.
Now it's sunny. I should have done this much sooner :-)..
Finally finished something which had been hanging for a long time.
On our last trip to California, I saw live the
Nubbles-Iceland shawl at Crystal Palace.
Adored the texture, and grabbed a kit.
But I'm not that fond of triangle shawls - reminds me of the granny-square one
I made when I was 16, only now I really could be a great-grandma..
So I thought I'd make it instead as a rectangle, which
worked quite well. I knitted it length-wise, against my usual
practice, because I thought the stripes would look better that way.
Cast on 135 stitches, and knitted till I just about ran out of yarn.
This is longer than recommended, but I'm a big girl and big around too.
It was quick, it was easy, it was lovely when done.
Then I hit a snag. I don't like fringe in general, not being much of a dancing person and fringe being mostly good for dancing imho. I particularly didn't like this fringe much, thinking that it'd quickly look messy. So I thought I'd do a corkscrew fringe, which I found in Nicky Epstein's excellent 'Knitting on the edge' book. Only I couldn't quite face the making of it. A couple attempts seemed to repel incorporating the Nubbles without making a big mess. And so much dinky back and forth, after all these majestic large-scale rows. Then I thought I'd try it in crochet instead. I forced myself to do two of them and petered out. I really wanted to wear this but it had a dirty mess of ends hanging down, and a definitely not-neat edge from so much switching yarns, it needed some finishing. So finally I did a single-crochet, with both colors of Iceland to match. Whew. Only 2 months later :-).
Just a bit of shawl-wearing advice: put the first end about waist high, then toss the rest over the shoulder. If you allow yourself to be deluded into starting with it around the knees, ie hanging about evenly, you won't have enough to make a proper back part, heavy-enough, the whole thing will be unbalanced and undo itself in the most distracting way. This is very cozy and warm, in California I could definitely wear it instead of a coat.
OK, now that I have a reasonably good plain t-shirt pattern,
I thought I should get back to my original aim:
the criss-cross t-shirt from Loes Hense. I still
thought that'd look good on me in general, while providing some interest
for otherwise plain plain tops.
In case I can't always come up with strange cheap fabrics from the sales bin..
So I took out this nice yellow wool jersey, which had been languishing
for so long that I have absolutely no idea where it came from. One of
those unfortunate things: I love the color so much, it'd have been a
shame to ruin it. Sigh. Good thing I still love the color, eh?
So anyway, I started from the previous pattern, of course, and there really wasn't much to do to it. I made the front single layer and cut across, there. Let me sound more scientific - I again took 1cm (1/2") from the top center front, and I aimed the big cut from the side of the neck to the bottom of the dart area on the side seam. I left the dart-gathered-in on the plain side. And on the cut side, I incorporated the dart into the seam. That is I curved the top seam up for the depth of the dart, leaving the bottom one straight. And I also think taking off 1/4" from the bottom of the side seams after the last try worked, there's much less boing in this one, practically none at all. The only thing I might tweak further would be to make the v-neck a bit lower, but this one is just fine for an obvious winter shirt.
Can you tell that the top front and corresponding sleeve are cut so the stockinette side faces out? No, I didn't think so. I can't really tell either, and I did it myself. Ah well.. Next time I should also overdye those pieces, if I want a bit more bang. I was proud of the idea of including the sleeve - I was seized with the desire to flip the upper front, but then I thought it'd look too much like it was a mistake if I left it all alone. Guilt, no doubt, from knowing I'm all too capable of that. So I added the sleeve, which would have been such a nice touch, had it worked...
Ha ha! Finally got much closer with a t-shirt from the sloper!
For this one, I allowed for the full dart height but didn't stitch it,
just eased it in. Much better, no boings, no ankward lines,
and the gathering is almost invisible, hidden high under the arm.
I also, much more importantly, took off 1/2" (1cm) from the side seams.
That's much closer to regular t-shirt ease. I must remember that I gave
myself plenty of ease in putting this sloper together, so I need
not to go overboard in adding it.
I also did a very slight shoulder adjustment - I took 1/4" off the back armpit height. My shoulders have evolved a lot in the past year or so (the sloper is from 2001), they've straightened, and I think the front and back are much less uneven. I was getting some folds back there, and this t-shirt came out much better. The only thing that I think still needs tweaking is the boing at the bottom of the side seams. Don't seem to be able to get rid of that. I think it's because the sloper goes on to encompass the entire butt, and takes off for that from the waist. But in fact since I'm trying to make a good high-hip pattern, I don't need to allow quite so much, especially since my fullest-hip is actually at the top of the thigh, way down below. I took another 1/4" from the pattern at the bottom hip, and we'll see how that does on the next rev. In any case, the waist shaping is just fine, as I tried to show in the picture.
I'm very pleased with the fabric too. Kind of an Indian print, but also very 60s, this is nicely weird. A winning complementary color scheme, which will work with a lot of my other stuff. Thin and cotton, maybe 25% stretch crosswise and none lenghwise but this still worked out. Behaved very nicely with a small zigzag seam, and didn't even give me any trouble around the neck. I paid.. $1.50 for it total!! I think I've found the equivalent of Discount Fabrics, which is making me very happy, and they have a 50% off sale till the end of February, even happier. I've also found the Britex equivalent, and their sale hardly would make a dent in the total, but it's nice to know there's someplace I could rush to (10mn on foot from home, strolling) and get any amount of Italian cashmere blends, in an emergency. You never know. Not to mention they have dozens of colors of real Bemberg rayon, a nice thing to contemplate when you have Big Jacket Plans. Ah well, good fabric stores definitely make one feel more at home :-).
All this sewing is very well and good, but a bit of knitting is more relaxing :-).
Especially idiot knitting, which we all need to while away those cold
evenings with half an eye on a movie. I managed to get together in
the same place at the same time the 2 balls of Poof in that lovely turquoise
which reminds me of the first dress I made (1964).
I made a short, wide scarf intended mostly to keep the
neck warm under a coat. Started over because it was really too wide,
and decided to taper the ends to make it easier to knot. Knitted in
garter stitch because you can't really see anything else in this yarn.
And poof! (pun intended, get over it) here is a lovely, warm,
incredibly soft thing. Yumm :-).
An agreable change from the weaving mess we've gotten ourselves into.
I hope some day to be able to announce a weaving project that went
exactly as planned. But it may yet be a couple decades, and I suspect
that we'll just have gotten the recovery under better control.
It all started because our previous loom, the lovely Brunhilde, had a sectional warp beam. This led of course to us learning the advantages of sectional warping, which are many. But now that we're left with the Ashford table loom, we thought we'd still try it. We've managed to put together and figure out the AVL warping wheel, a wondrous contraption which saves one from shoulder arthritis from winding kilometers of warp, so we just had to use it. Our real goal is another blanket - we have lots of tweedy yarn from a Jacob fleece that Rose spun last year. We have a small flock of sheep in the attic, and some good Lincoln which would probably make a fine smooth warp, or some Dorset which is perfect for blankets. But it seemed daunting to me to have a first project of that size on the baby loom. So I talked Rose down to a few dishtowels - we love handwoven dishtowels, they make good presents in a pinch, and what could be more straightforward?
So we took out some natural colors for the warp, and some bright yellow for the weft, and one of Sharon Alderman's great Handwoven articles on making a set of different towels from one warp. All 8/2 cotton so we wouldn't go blind. Good thing, because the first thing we did was wind the warp on, a section at a time, backwards. Eh yes, backward, you know, so the whole thing would come right off, sliding neatly against the other-direction brake if you so much as looked at it. We do have some velcro electro-bracing things which might work at keeping it in place, under probably inadequate tension, but advancing would be rather a pain, and you know you have to advance a lot if you're using a table loom. The silver lining is that we also grossly mis-judged the sett, so we now also have to add about 150 ends. We first went by the very sketchy estimate in 'the weaving companion', before we found again the much more accurate ones in Peggy Osterkamp's first book. I have experienced what a better fabric (and faster weaving) you get from her 'production weaving' sett, and I think it's worth rearranging for that.
We had the bright idea of unwinding the whole warp to the front beam, combing it out as we went through the heddles, and re-winding correctly onto the back beam while adding the extra warp from the winding wheel. Mercerized cotton, it'd be two pieces of cake with one stone, don't you think? Well, it would have been, if it wasn't for the fact that there is a reason why sectional beams have those funny sticking-out pieces - they keep the sections from overlapping and getting into a furious tangle, preventing you from unwinding at all after a few turns. So there we are, several teeth-grinding hours later, having only lost about a yard of warp to the struggle, and about dozen snapped off ends. Good thing we had extra length in case we did so well we wanted to give some towels away. Needless to say we had to abandon any idea of the front beam, so we're resting before we attempt to wind back on from this forlorn stick...
Next, we try to figure out if there's a way to dowel out the Ashford beam into some semblance of sectionality. Stay tuned :-).
It couldn't last... I had been doing so well sewing that of course I got
overconfident. I liked the look of a Jalie pattern, but read about how
it was skin-tight, and I thought "how hard could it be?". So I took out
the sloper again and tried to make the pattern from scratch, with a bit of ease.
I actually told Rose about how making muslins for
knits was difficult if the degree of stretch wasn't the same, all the
while cutting this out in the only knit piece I was willing to sacrifice,
which was a rather limp, thick cotton knit with no lycra at all. Sigh.
So I got to this point, which I guess doesn't look so entirely bad at first glance.
But look at it from this angle, you can see the results of hubris better.
I took in the side seams a bit to try
and make it more close-fitting. And I pulled in the neck binding
a bit too, to keep it from gaping. You can say this was a success, as
the neck binding is looking good (except in the back, where I aligned
the seam with the fabric fold rather than the middle back..).
But then the waist is pulling in
madly where the binding attaches, and the side seams swing way
forward. Not to mention the overpiece in front is now draping
like on some crazed 19th-century rendition of Agriculture Feeding The People.
I guess some day I'll learn to do patterns. I had found good inspiration in Rene Bergh's "Make your own pattern", my favorite pattern book, which is usually very straigthforward (but doesn't really address knits). I was very proud of how I put half the bust dart under the arm, to be eased in (best done in lycra..), and the other half at the waist across to the other side. It should have worked. Maybe I just need to make a plain skin-tight model first. Or maybe I just need to buy the Jalie pattern and hope for the best... In fact, that's a good idea, maybe that's how I can finally learn patternmaking: draft a pattern from the picture, make it, make it again using the real pattern, and compare. Mmm...
Still sewing, and trapped in the house by an unexpected snowfall, I made
these very beige pants. Beige in spirit too, as you can see there's
absolutely nothing distinctive about them. Perfect for getting dressed
in the dark on the way to work :-).
The only thing is that I cut them out in June, thinking that since I'd have "nothing to do" for a while during the move, I could work on them then. Ha! Today's date should be a hint. This is a new (to me) pattern, an update on the old standby I've used for too many years before. I figured, that one needs an update once in a while even for the boring, and set a no-more-than-5-years limit. (Are you impressed?)
Only I hadn't quite noticed that Burda sizing has changed, and that the same measurements now correspond to one size smaller. I'm a bit unclear on the exact timing, but I suspect it corresponded with the appearance of seam allowances, which I'd been trying to ignore anyway. This is not nice of them, as I think they also inaugurated the sizing chart printed on the disposable parts of the pattern at the same time, so I'm kind of scratching my head at the sizing of some patterns. I guess if you don't have a chart but you have seam allowances, you should assume a size smaller than what you'd been used to? Eeck. To add to the mess, we've been liberated from the car, so we've both lost a good amount of weight, even with all the duck fat we've been ingesting, and even past the holidays orgies. So I inadvertently made zoot suit pants here, at least 2 sizes too big. And I'm way too lazy to rip out the pockets and take them in. Sigh. Better than the opposite I suppose.. For the tech details, see the usual patternreview.
On a sewing roll, I made a couple of t-shirts, from thin Polarfleece 100 which I'd been meaning to get to for years. This Siberian weather definitely seemed to call for using it :-). More to the point, I've been thinking of Marcy Tilton's wonderful t-shirts, I have her Threads book about tops, and I do very much want perfect t-shirts. I thought I'd be clever and get different patterns that'd not just fit but suit Rose and my very different shapes, so we could have t-shirts that not only don't.. ride up in front or various heinous things that ready-made do, but that make the most of what we are.
For Rose, I made the Santa Monica Tee from Textile Studios.
She has lots of ex-swimmer shoulders, and just the right amount of
breast. She has a few raglan sleeve things which suit her very well.
Even more to the point, that's the body type of Priscilla, who
looks smashing in raglan sleeves indeed. So I thought this
would be a good place to start. And it was! Good fit right out
of the envelope, the shoulders and neck look perfect, there's even
a totally illusory waist. I'd like to make it a bit longer,
because she likes to wear her pants a bit low, but I'll have to
wait till it smells a lot worse or something :-), I can't seem to
find it unattended. See the more technical details at the
usual patternreview.
Encouraged, I brought out the criss-cross top from Loes Hinse that I thought would be good to suit me. It's not that I have huge breasts, but I do have small shoulders in comparison, and I think that's what makes me look so dorky in raglan sleeves. Set-in shoulders are definitely the way to go for me, or even dropped shoulders if the 80s really come back :-). Alas, I started comparing the pattern to my sloper, and freaked out. First of all, it doesn't have any of the nice waist shaping of the Santa Monica Tee, and I sure don't see why I couldn't have that too, it's not like I have much of a real waist myself any more. Then the shoulders were huge, and the proportions just didn't look like they'd work at all. I then brought out Burda 8367, basically similar, and frowned some more. Am I hallucinating, or did things change a lot in Burda's large sizes lately? I know I'm now according to pattern measurements supposed to make a single size 50, while I used to make a 50/52 till a couple years ago. But for instance I used to only have to take the shoulder in 1cm (1/2"), and now it looks like I'd need to take them in 5cm (2")!! Now that isn't the same thing at all, and it's not a quick just-cut-it-off change any more. The bust used to be perfect, and now it seems I'd have to bring it up an inch, which is a first. I wasn't getting any more waist shaping than I would have with Loes. This wasn't looking like a promising project.
So in desperation I brought out the sloper and decided to make a t-shirt
from that again. I'd made a blue one more than a year ago that came out
a bit weird. Very large, too short, sleeves so small that the bra was
showing.. Mmm. I like the color a lot :-). Which is the only reason it didn't
go straight to Goodwill, and does occasional duty as a yoga rag when the
laundry is pressing. So this time I didn't add any extra ease to the sloper, just
cut it out as is. And duh! The sloper was made to fit closely, but
not in a skin-tight way. The resulting t-shirt has enough ease to work
comfortably over my thickest baggy corduroy pants. Which is perfect for
fleece. I kept the armhole darts, and didn't do anything with the
waist ones, fine for a t-shirt. I should probably try a version without
a formal dart, I still feel funny about darts in knits although I don't
know whether enough gathers to go over my bust won't look at least
as misplaced. I never got a sleeve for this sloper, but the Burda sleeve
actually worked very well for it, no reason not to use that. I traced from
a couple of other patterns, and I now have 4 different levels of sleeve
ready to go with that one pattern. I'm not sure that all this wouldn't work
perfectly well for a woven shirt as well. Who knew?
Next up: Trying to reproduce the design of the criss-cross shirt from the sloper. Shouldn't be too hard :-), but I have to swing the bust dart to the horizontal, something I'm not entirely confident about yet, and cut across to that level. We'll see, as soon as I find the #$#$ pattern paper roll. Meanwhile, I just made another of the same sloper t-shirts, in a nice bright yellow. Very warm and fuzzy :-).
So the subtext of this recent jacket was the new sewing machine... Having suffered a move that involved a current switch, I decided that I'd take advantage of it to upgrade the sewing machine. The main excuse being that a transformer is likely to fry the motor eventually. Mine was an old Bernette, from about 88, actually made by Janome. I was still quite happy with it. It did all the common stitches, had a fine 4-step buttonhole, which I really don't mind (I'd rather trade more control for one-step convenience, since I'm quite given to odd shapes in buttons). My only complaint was that I couldn't adjust the presser foot pressure, something useful for very thick or thin fabric, and that the stretch stitches didn't stretch enough. But I also really appreciated that it was a mechanical machine: I spend enough of my life tracking down bugs to go home and not want to do it with what's supposed to be fun as well. I suppose I might want a computerized machine eventually, but I'm just not ready for it now.
With all that in mind, I embarked on a large-scale research project. Whew. It's just not easy. I knew I didn't want a Bernina because I didn't want to get fleeced on small parts. I knew that Pfaff was just fine, and I really drooled on the built-in walking foot feature, which was patented. This allows you to use specialized feet while still getting the benefits of even feed, such as easy stripe matching, smooth quilting, ease of thick or stretchy fabric sewing etc. Well, I finally figured out that the patent is expiring soon, so presumably soon every machine will have one. However that's not happening just yet. I just didn't want to spend 3 times as much on a Pfaff, as on a Janome with almost the same features, if you consider that Janome makes all the Pfaff-branded machines. I got into a whole global-snit about that. Janome makes 90% of the machines in the market, so brand is just that - expensive. Now that Janome is using its own name on some machines, you can get the very same features much cheaper. Of course it's a Microsoft type of situation - when we all stop buying the different, all we'll be left with is what Janome pleases to toss us.
I had also hoped that I might be able to get a machine that might now work well enough with stretch fabrics that I could skip the need for a serger. That doesn't seem quite there yet. Not because of stretch stitches, but because of the speed I love. I did find a 'professional' model of Janome for which I considered forking over a whole lot of money. Alas, on closer examination it seems to only do a straight stitch. Lucky I didn't order it right away, eh? Now why don't they do fast machines? A dealer told me point blank that the market is viewed as only composed of old ladies, and that they're too timid to take the faster speeds now possible. Like hell they are - aren't these the same old ladies who wrested sergers from their exclusively commercial domain because they craved the speed? And wouldn't the young things they hope to convert go for something less sedate? Sheesh. In any case there's almost zero information out there about machine speed. This would never be the case if boys were buying these, you know Threads would have several pages of comparison tables...
And that leads me to another big snit: the lack of feature coverage. I'd have prefered to buy from a local dealer, except that since I arrived during summer vacations it was fully 2 months before I could actually set foot in one, and besides they only had a very few models in stock. I'd have been happy enough to order the model I wanted locally and pay more, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out which model I wanted. And I didn't feel like spending hours interrogating the dealer if I wasn't necessarily going to buy from her, that seems too low. Although all I got was a sales spiel about the models she had in stock, the more expensive the better. I did get to test the newer stretch stitches, and while they're maddeningly slow to do they do seem to be able to take a good bit of abuse.
The real problem is that the Janome site stinks to high heaven, and other sites just reproduce its worse features slavishly. For instance, they have a good straightforward feature comparison of some model lines, but there's strictly nothing across lines. It's not clear which line every model fits into, in fact most newer models are just left completely dangling with no hint of where they might fit. They're not even in order in the huge pull-down, so I didn't find some till way later. And the pictures are small and fuzzy enough that you can't guess what might be there. I was willing to spend twice as much money, but why should I if I couldn't detect any advantage to the higher line? It wasn't even entirely obvious which machines were electronic.
The simpler machines I thought I might be most interested in obviously didn't appeal to the techno-masturbations of the marketing boys (they clearly have never sewn a thing). So the 'lower end' gets left with features like 'cast iron body', and 'automatic bobbin threading stop'. Things which are good, don't get me wrong, but they've been pretty standard for at least 30 years. And should I conclude that what seems to be higher lines come with a dinky plastic body?? Why not have a listing of these features all across the lines? Why not a single word of what makes a line a line, and what might distinguish them? One gets the impression that you have divisions that never talk to each other, which is sadly likely.
So I ended up mail-ordering my machine. I picked Cooper Sewing Machines in London because they were the only people on the net who actually added real information to the meager Janome offerings. They actually compare models to each other. I also picked them because they've been around for a century, and I figured that while their web design is a bit light they surely knew from machines :-). I ended up getting the 'Easy Jeans' model, in part because I figured that was a copy of the model of the same name which I'd drooled on at Pfaff a few years ago. Built to handle tricky fabrics, especially thick ones (I already had jackets on my mind). Solid mechanical construction, a good basic array of stitches, including stretch ones. No fuss, but everything you need to really sew clothes, and quilts in a pinch. It arrived very quickly without incidents, and is proving to be just what I hoped for. Cooper also answered very quickly a question I had about whether there was a second spindle for a bobbin, so it'd be easy to do double-needle sewing (yes).
In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm including a very big very sharp
picture of the machine. You can also read my technical review on
patternreview.com.
And wouldn't you know, I figured out something that had been under
my nose the whole time. Reading the manual, I realized that the
'zipper foot' I'd never figured out how to use actually makes use
of the buttonhole setting - you use it to set the needle to the
side and the foot rides next to the zipper, to the side of the foot.
Duh. So yes, it pays to RTFM :-). (Read the Fucking Manual, for the non-geeks
among you..).
I also decided to just keep my serger. It's also an old Bernette, a workhorse, and I couldn't detect any better features out there that I had to have. The easy threading features I might want abstractly (I've been know to cry when a thread broke at the wrong time) don't seem either solid or reliable. Seemed silly to go out and spend hundreds to get the same thing. I spent $40 shipping it by boat instead, packed cosily in a nice black alpaca fleece :-). I bought a transformer, and I'll just hope that the motor lasts another 10 years or something, till sewing machines get faster.
Started the new year with a very satisfying project: an olive fleece jacket.
I need jackets desperately.
What I've been living in for over a month, in the coldest winter in over 20 years,
is a (mercifully still) well-fitting black padded
nylon jacket. It looked smashing when I got it.. in 1999? However, it's
showing definite signs of wear: the edges are starting to look grey,
specially smack in the middle around the zipper,
some parts are getting really shiny, the shoulders are absolutely reddish.
Not only am I scaring the neighbors, but I'm also job-hunting, and this
jacket situation could get really ugly.
So some time last fall I had gotten this pattern, hot off the Burda press. And with it I made a year-end resolution: that I'd try to buy fewer patterns, but that I'd make sure I made at least one per year in the same year I bought it. Enough with the current pattern buying, and the follow-through 1-10 years later! It's bad enough to let the fabric age, but aging the patterns is really utterly stupid (except maybe for Miyake and such, but why?). Now you may think that I dropped the ball here :-), but let me point out that fall/winter counts as a single clothes season, and that therefore I have cause to pat myself on the back!
As a sad aside, I realized kind of late that the fabric had previously been used as a bed for our defunct Juliette. I was sewing on it and wondering why it had so much cat hair before I remembered that I'd pulled it out and started to use it as an emergency backup when she started being unable to get up in time to get to the box. I had wondered while cutting why I had 2 pieces of green fleece, vaguely remembering that the brighter one is a heavier weight, forgetting why I couldn't think to use this one at the moment. Sniff. I wove one of the whiskers I found into the collar's stitching, for good luck. And at least the borax I used at the end did take care of the odor problem very effectively, it's better to be reminded by hair, don't you think?
It was a real pain to cut this, what with grading up and then navigating the seams with and without allowances. And it wasn't entirely as fast as I'd hoped to sew, with inset corners every which way. I managed, as you can see while admiring the picture, to botch the one that really shows, next to the interesting pocket. Sigh. C'est la vie, as I'm supposed to say now. I did enjoy doing the blanket stitch edging, although it was way too much work for mere fleece, and now I'm too tuckered out to do it again on boiled wool or some such fabric which is likely to last as long as every one of my previous jackets has been asked to. But Rose had a good idea about using sock yarn, as I was complaining that I thought cottom thread would make a heinous mess if it ever got wet. That worked out really well, and I feel that I do have a jacket that could hold up to real wear.
Alas, it's is way too light to wear outside at the moment, as we've climactically moved from San Francisco to the Central Valley. I'm sure it'll be a fine spring/fall jacket, if I can be so patient. And it worked fine under my raincoat when I tested it in the rain. But otherwise I'm mostly wearing it around the house, to make a change from the orange mohair sweater which has been my pajama staple for several years now. Still, Rose has pronounced it my 'best jacket', so I shouldn't whine about design nits. She did add 'about time you had an update', but she has reason to complain - if I cooked as repetitively as I wear stuff, we'd both have died of starvation by boredom long ago.
I posted the details of the pattern at patternreview.com. Love patternreview, it's been really inspiring me to get to the machine... Check it out if you aren't sure your stuff is going to come through, or just need a bit of encouragement or handholding.
Sorry, I should have posted formally here that there would be a hiatus in the blog
while we were busy dealing with an Epic Transcontinental Move.
I should also have guessed that no matter what my good intentions
it wouldn't really be possible, what with the rigors of finding
a consistent connection for instance. In fact, a blog became a moot point
as I hardly touched a needle for months,
in part due to the shock of adapting to over 90o weather
and the resulting revulsion for anything hairy,
in part due to the fatigue of schlepping tons of useless crap,
if only to dispose of it. We barely survived this one, so I regret
to say we won't be coming back, or at least no more than
temporarily :-)!
The good news is that we managed to find an apartment, with a real lease even which is anything but obvious in the French market. With a proper guest room for the onslaught of american friends we expect. With an office so we can get back to some semblance of Fuzzy functionality. With a huge living room so we can spread out large projects and toss things around with abandon. With a blank wall so I don't have to take the dressform outside in fair weather when I need a picture. With room for the entire textile library, something which we weren't willing to give up. We even survived the several entire days of tripping to the outer reaches of the burbs to Ikea, so we could house the books decently. Sigh. Don't get us going on how much the French seem to be falling into the US suburban model of development with abandon, at least we are downtown with decent access to public transportation. We're happy and proud to report that we've only been in a car less than half a dozen times since our arrival, an average of less than once a month. That is a real contribution to the survival of the sheep species, not to mention our own.
So we're now living in
Toulouse,
a charming city in the Southwest of France,
roughly the size of San Francisco but with 10 times the cultural offerings
at less than half the price.
The municipal library alone was worth moving for :-). Our best find there so
far is 'Le boubou c'est chic' by Bernhard Gardi, the catalog of a show
in Basel (Switzerland) whose review you can read
online here.
Excellent pictures and history. A refreshing lack of considering Africa
as an indivisible whole, with good explanations of local traditions and
how they influence each other.
They guy actually sounds like he knows a lot about technique,
a sadly unusual plus for a museum person. Do look for this one.
We'll be continuing the blog in English, till my written French gets less embarrassing at least :-), and in general even after we get into French. I'll try to fill in missing events of the summer, trying not to get you too confused with the chronology. Stay tuned, and thanks for your constant encouragements.
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