Still Alive

I’m just peeking out from under the duvet to post a quick update. My surgery on Monday went very well and has hopefully sorted out the problem with my ear and associated dizziness, etc. I’m a bit wobbly on my feet still and doped up on strong painkillers and antibiotics, but it’s all looking good. I’ve spent most of the week asleep so far, but seem to be waking up a bit today. Having said that, I’m going back to bed for a nap now…

I’m going to bed…

… and I may be some time.

(If only my bed looked like this… Photo from alibaba.com)

I have been trying to keep up with my work, Wardrobe Therapy, finishing off the little DIY tasks and a myriad of other little things, but life has now got the better of me. I’m having an operation on my ear in ten days time, which will prevent me from doing anything for a few weeks while I recover and, because I am so run down and tired now, I am taking a week off to build up a bit of strength before the operation. Mostly, I need to sleep. The pain in my ear has made sleep very hard for the last week or so.

So… I probably won’t be participating much in the rest of Wardrobe Therapy. I’ll try to do some token bits and bobs and keep up with everyone else’s progress but, as my brain isn’t really working well at the moment, I don’t know how much that will be. I’m sorry I’ve got to step back from actively participating, but I’ll still be around cheering everyone on (and helping out with links to resources, etc, where I can)!

Shopping Bags

Wardrobe therapy is all about bags this week. This post is for Alana, who asked whether I had come across any patterns for a good library book schlepping bag. As I seem to have bookmarked practically every free sewing pattern or tutorial on the net, it was an easy job to search. My favourites are these:

This one at Craftster, which is based on a plastic shopping bag. The integrated handles look really strong and it’s a pleasing shape. I have never made one, though.

Here is a great basic tote bag tutorial. I used this one to make a library books bag. It’s very sturdy.

If you can knit, this Saturday Market Bag is great fun to make. I made one out of cotton with shorter handles.

For a little accessory, this sweet change purse could be useful for holding a library card.

Wardrobe Therapy - Troosies

Stalwart staples - Not a sausage in the trouser category, I’m afraid. I’ve never felt completely comfortable in trousers. Being short with generous thighs, trousers just aren’t the best look for me. I wouldn’t want a wardrobe without a few pairs, though, because they do have their uses.

Superstars - None.

Velveteen rabbits - There are two main categories, here. Firstly, DIY trousers. My favourites are ancient charcoal cords, covered in paint, which have done sterling duty this year. Unfortunately, they now have a huge gash down the right thigh from when I had to rip them open to staunch the blood when I cut my leg a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, they are really comfortable and if I don’t keep a pair of messy trousers, I’ll just end up ruining other clothes. So, I’m going to patch them up and keep them. I will throw away the paint-splattered tracksuit bottoms I own, though. They are horrible.

Second in the rabbit category is a pair of khaki cotton trousers. They are so comfortable and the best shape for me I have found so far (which doesn’t mean they are perfect). BUT they are faded and the hems are worn and threadbare. I think these are a perfect candidate for cloning. Threads magazine had a great article earlier this year on how to do just that, so that is now added to my to-do list. A close second to the khaki ones are a pair of chocolate brown casual trousers, but they are noisy (they rustle) and a bit tight at the top. I’ll keep them simply because they are useful, but will get rid of them once my cloning project is complete.

Torture devices - My one and only pair of jeans. Ow. That’s all I have to say on that matter.

Mysteries of the lost shopping trip - I’m quite astounded here. I found 5…five…FIVE!…pairs of trousers that have never been worn, some with tags still on. That’s two pairs of blue-y green cords, almost identical down to the fact that they don’t fit, two pairs of red cottony things, which don’t fit and really aren’t my style (yet, I bought two pairs?) and a pair of stripy suit trousers, which though potentially great for office wear (if they fitted and didn’t have pockets which bulged like elephant ears out of the side of my thighs), I have no need for.

The Therapy Bit
So. What have I learnt, here? My hoarding of unworn trousers that don’t fit suggests that I have some deep-seated(!) need for trousers in my life. I know I don’t want any for work wear, so that just leaves a need for casual trousers.

I have a pair of jeans which are uncomfortable to wear, and always have been, but can’t bring myself to throw them away because I feel I ought to own some jeans. (Why? To keep the sweat shops in business? I really have no idea.) I don’t think I have ever owned a pair of jeans in my life that actually fitted. My waist to bum ratio is so wildly out of the norm that I always have a good three inch gape at the back of my waist, even if things are a bit tight on the hips. But, I do dream of owning some old, soft, worn-in, throw-em-on-it’s-Saturday jeans.

Historically, I have always been most comfortable in cords. I like their tactile nature and the soft, muted colours available, but like jeans it is hard to find a pair to fit without the gaping at the back. Unlike jeans, I have owned ones that fit in the past (which I think is mostly due to the fact that they shrink in the washing machine and then only stretch on the bits that need stretching when you wear them - eventually, you get soft cords which fit, although it does take time). I probably just need to make a concerted effort to hunt some down.

In conclusion, trousers are not a mainstay of my wardrobe, nor are they the most flattering garments for my shape, but I would like a couple of pairs to make a change from skirts and dresses. To get a good fit, I probably have to make them myself, but I can also look into getting jeans custom made when I have some spare cash. I’m going to take the pile of unworn cords, etc. to the dress agency - perhaps they will make some cash to go towards a pair of custom fit jeans?

Fitting out the factory

I’m going to be doing and posting about my Wardrobe Therapy piles for trousers, skirts, dresses, etc later, but for now I have an update on my own brand of securing my supply lines. Firstly, I have made a pincushion:

A small step, but an important one, because wrestling pins out of a tin was one of the little irritations that was making dressmaking less enjoyable than it could be. I followed the tutorial at paper.string.cloth at which I found via the Sew, Mama, Sew blog.

I am also well on the way to finishing my sewing machine cover. I decided to take the opportunity to learn how to do piping, as Erin’s obsession with adding piping to dresses at A Dress a Day has persuaded me that it is a good thing to do. I’ve just got to sew the cover pieces and piping together and then I’m done.

But the biggest addition to my new clothing factory is a knitting machine. I listed a bag of dressmaking fabric on Freecycle at the weekend and, while I was at it, decided to put in a cheeky request for a knitting machine. I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but yesterday a lovely lady who lives around the corner contacted me to say she had one I could have. I’m picking it up tonight. Heaven knows where I’ll store it, or even how I will get on with it, but it has been a secret wishlist item for ages and, if all goes well, means I will be able to design and churn out sweaters and cardigans and what have you. I enjoy knitting small things, but don’t have the attention span to complete larger stuff.

Dressmaking Resources

Now I’m on the way to getting my sewing stuff at home organised, I need to think about consumables. Three things are needed here: notions, fabric and patterns. There is a good little quilter’s shop in the town where I live, which sells all the thread, needles, ribbons, buttons, etc I could need. The other two are a bit trickier and have proved to be sticking points in the past, turning what should be an enjoyable pastime into an irritation.

Fabric
I’m going to start by using the fabric I already have, as I don’t have room for a very big stash. There is also a great fabric shop about 40 minutes away. It’s always a pleasure to go there - great staff, great fabric and a lovely setting (you can see the shopfront here). For this time of year it is probably the best place for me to go, as they stock a good range of tweeds, flannels and other warm fabrics suited to the British climate. When I have finished using up my stash, I will start regular forays there to hunt down new material (they also have a great sale bin for end of rolls).

The summer, though, is a different matter. British summer fabrics aren’t a patch on those available in the US and Japan, with the possible exception of Liberty fabrics. I can spend hours drooling over the selections at Superbuzzy, Sew, Mama, Sew and eQuilter. They all deliver to the UK, so come the spring, I think I should treat myself and get some fun summer prints shipped over.

Patterns
I have collected quite a few patterns over the years, but if I’m going to start dressmaking with the objective of improving my wardrobe, I want to be fussy about getting exactly the right pattern for a project. I can, of course, drive to my local fabric shop, look through the books and find a pattern that way. But searching for the right pattern is still easiest online.

One exciting development that has taken off recently is that you can now buy patterns online to download and print at home - perfect for those Friday night “I want to make a dress this weekend” thoughts. I’ve been watching BurdaStyle with interest and have an eye on one or two patterns there. The great thing about BurdaStyle is that the patterns are free. But I’m also willing to pay, and one of the main resources for donwloadables seems to be Click2Print, which is available through various online pattern sellers. The one I have been looking at is SewingPatterns.com. Here is the Click2Print section on that site.

To test the system, I signed up for a free pattern from printsew.com on Saturday. I then spent five hours trying to get the printing system to work in Vista (which I have loaded onto my Macbook via Parallels). It drove me mad, and I finally gave up and emailed their support desk. I haven’t had a reply, but when I visited the site this morning, they had a big red notice up saying they were having difficulties and the printing function wasn’t working. As soon as it is working again, I’m going to try printing the free pattern. If all goes well, I will then buy and download the following pattern from Sewingpatterns.com for $2.99:

I want to make the long sleeved version in a dark blue denim-y fabric I have, with little red buttons and top-stitching. Finished off with a red belt and some long boots, it could be a perfect outfit for looking semi-smart when visiting clients.

And finally
I also want to get my own copy of the Reader’s Digest New Complete Guide to Sewing, which provides fantastic instructions for pretty much everything you might want to do in dressmaking. Fortunately, my local library has a copy so I can make do with that for now.

Securing my supply lines

I’ve finished gathering together all my sewing supplies, which were scattered throughout the rooms upstairs. I was amazed how much fabric I had. The piles in the photo below are only what I decided to keep (the left hand piles are useful scraps for little projects and embellishments, while the right hand pile is fabric I would happily wear in the right garment). I’ve put a whole lot on freecycle and also taken some to the recycling bank.

Although it may look as though I’m going off on a tangent as regards Wardrobe Therapy, this is actually my version of “securing my supply lines”. As I have mentioned before, money doesn’t exactly flow freely into this house and, with the way I have chosen to live my life and the work I do (ditto for my husband), that situation is unlikely to change. We are happy with this. The things I do have instead of money are time and creativity. Experience has taught me that the way to get good clothes within my budget is to make them myself. For the price of a cheap garment, I can buy fairly top-end fabric and then create something to fit my own measurements.

I like dressmaking, but haven’t done a lot of it in recent years. I bought a new sewing machine last year, which is wonderful (my old one snagged things all the time and drove me mad). What I need to do now is to set everything up so it is easy for me to make things. I don’t want to have to go delving into cupboards, trying to remember where I put such-and-such.

Two changes I have made to the house will help enormously: the cork floor in the sitting room will be perfect for laying out and cutting fabric (that was always a pain before) and having a table in the kitchen means I can set up my sewing machine within easy distance of the ironing board (which, of course, is now a pull-out version and doesn’t need manhandling out of a corner to use).

I’m going to go and clear some shelves now so I can store everything in the above photo in one place. After that, I’m going to sort out all my sewing-related internet links (and share the best ones) and write a list of other things I need to do to make dressmaking a pleasurable and regular activity.

UPDATE - This is my to-do list for finishing off this bit of organisation:

To make:
- A pincushion - DONE
- A cover for my sewing machine so it can live out in the open - STARTED
- A little sack for my sewing machine foot pedal and power cable - CANCELLED (I’ve found another home for them)
- An elasticated thingy to secure the lid of the box that holds my patterns so it can stand upright on the shelf next to the sewing machine

To buy:
- More interfacing - DONE
- A pack of needles (and then throw away my annoying felt needlecase) - DONE
- Piping cord and piping foot - DONE (apart from the piping foot, which I discovered is unnecessary, as I can use my zipper foot instead)
- Container of some sort for larger fabric pieces - DONE (but does a plastic bag count?)

A Challenge!

I’ve got the whole weekend free (1.5 days starting NOW) and I’m feeling rather creative, so I thought I would issue myself with a useful and fun challenge. As part of Wardrobe Therapy, I am going to attempt to make myself a top that fits and suits me by the end of tomorrow. The challenge part of it is that I have to use only things I already have around the house. Two exceptions to this are that I’m going to a jumble sale in an hour, and can purchase up to £2 of jumble fabric, and also that I’m allowed to buy myself some thread if I don’t have anything suitable. Other than that, it’s just me and my ingenuity. Watch this space! Hopefully it won’t end up being something knitted out of spaghetti.

UPDATE: The challenge is off. The jumble sale turned out to be a bric-a-brac sale with no clothes and my stash of fabric is all horrible (apart from the really lovely stuff waiting for certain projects). There’s no point making something out of material I don’t like, so I’m going to spend the weekend weeding out and organising all my sewing supplies instead. I have so much fabric and don’t like much of it. It’s time for a fresh start.

Windows Shopping

This is my next catch-up post for Wardrobe Therapy. I found this exercise quite hard, because there was a little voice in my head screeching, “Stop it! You can’t afford it!” the whole time. But I ploughed on.

I have restricted myself to knitwear, because at this time of year, that’s all I need. All my Velveteen Rabbit tops will be just fine if they are simply providing a layer underneath. Most of the pictures I found were amazingly similar, so I’ll just post a few here.

Firstly, there is the shaped cardigan. I know this style suits me, goes well with skirts and makes me feel good:

Then there is the cowl-neck jumper. I only found one example I liked, and I would buy this today if I could afford it:

But I can’t. Anyway, looking at it again, it is far too long in the body. Phew.

Wardrobe Therapy - Piles

I’ve got some catching up to do with Wardrobe Therapy. First up, a quick scribble about what I discovered when I did the Piles exercise for my tops:

Pile 1: Torture Devices
There were quite a few of these, most of which have now gone for recycling. A thorough analysis turned up some good tips, though:
- Shapeless knitwear is out. Curiously, one jumper (translate: sweater) made with very thick wool did feel OK to wear. This was because it was fairly figure-hugging and had a big cowl neck to hide the uni-boob problem that thick knits often present. I am going to look for a replacement for this (I need a warm jumper), but this time I’ll choose something that isn’t made of acrylic, isn’t a hideous colour and is not bobbled to death. Other knits need to be fine with some draping quality. Anything in the middle just doesn’t look right.
- Bright white anything - just No.
- Horizontal ruching across the bust. Er, no.
- Black mohair, though lovely, does attract cat hair. A wonderful lacey, soft wrap cardigan ended up in this pile because a three-hour session with tweezers would be required to remove all traces of tabby cat if I wanted to wear it out and not look like a Mad Cat Lady.

Pile 2: Velveteen Rabbits
This pile contained the majority of my tops. Most were simple, stretchy, long-sleeved v-neck t-shirts in various colours. I’ll just try to get more of these. Also a few faded patterned shirts, but I’m happy with them being faded. And some things that needed mending.

Pile 3: Stalwart Staples
This had two items - an Austin Reed long-sleeved jumper and a ruffly cardigan that goes with it. It’s what I wear when I need to look smart (though, admittedly, my clients must think I only have one set of clothes, which probably isn’t a good thing).

Pile 4: Superstars
Zilch.

Pile 5: Same Time, Next Year
All my summer clothes are already up in the loft, so this doesn’t apply to me right now.

Pile 6: Sentimental Journeys
I’m a pretty ruthless declutterer, so there was only one thing in this pile - my first hand-knitted cardigan with long sleeves. I haven’t been able to bring myself to get rid of it, even though it is shapeless now. Well, OK, it wasn’t that great to begin with. I’ve decided to make a cushion cover out of it.

Pile 7: Mysteries of the Lost Shopping Trip
Empty. I think this pile will have it’s moment in the spotlight when we get round to other clothing categories.