Backlog and hop blog

Hmmm, it has been a while. I can't show my latest project because my progress on it is going in a negative direction. Literally. The waistband has come off, pockets have been taken apart, and I'm considering redoing the bottom of the invisible zipper to get rid of that nasty bump. Sooo . . . it's not the finished object I briefly thought it was.

But wait: Let's look a little deeper in the closet, where some unblogged pieces still lurk, for a weather-appropriate outfit that I can show. The top is Vogue 8248, a Very Easy pattern. I did post a review on Pattern Review quite a while ago. Doesn't it look like the exact same shirt as the one I'm wearing today? It's not. The fabric I used for that first version was too stiff, so I remade the top in a nice soft wool that happened to be the very same shade of deep red.

The skirt is Simplicity 9825, a set of slim and A-line skirts with yoke and front center seam. Below you can almost see, behind the unexpectedly well defined tree shadows and in front of the disaster that is our yard at this time of year, the pocket flaps that I lifted from Version B for my A-line skirt. They are fake. No actual pockets here. Not only did I choose this version of the skirt my own personal self, but I also substituted some pieces of black twill tape I had lying around for the suggested (and somewhat classier) leather strips. Fortunately, all the tops I would wear with this skirt are long enough to cover up my cheap trick.

Sue of Fadanista has kindly invited me to join the blog hop. I very much enjoy seeing Sue's elegant and oh-so-wearable makes, reading her posts that are full of insight and touches of humor, and getting to make virtual visits to other parts of the world through her photo-filled travelogues. I'm flattered that she has passed the baton to me.

Why do you write?

Honestly, I started to feel strange about how often I was lurking on other people's sewing blogs without actually interacting with them. I'm sure I could have commented bloglessly, but I somehow felt that having a blog would give me a more legitimate base from which to engage with other sewists. As in "I, too, spend some time trying to make clothing. May I be part of this community?" Looking back, this seems an awfully humble motivation, but I am an introvert who verges on downright social awkwardness, and my humble blog has been working well for me.

Of course, my posts also give me a way to keep track of what I'm sewing, reflect on which of my makes work for me and which don't, and figure out where to go next.

How is your blog different from others of the same genre?

I don't think my blog has any unusual features (except maybe that my posts are so few and far between). My usual format is quite basic: make a piece of clothing, take photos of it, and think of something to say about it. I do try to add one or two notes at the end of each post about something not related to sewing that interests me. This might be a museum exhibit I've seen, something I've cooked recently, or just an animal that has turned up in our yard here in the woods of New Hampshire.

What are you working on now?

The project mentioned above that's not going so smoothly is a midi version of Vogue 1247. I've made this skirt up before, as have many others, and aside from being excruciatingly short, my first version fit and looked pretty great, I thought. I did wonder whether adding an extra ten inches to bring the skirt well below my knees would look wrong, but I think that part works. My fabric, though--an otherwise lovely stretch wool tweed in a soft brick color from Gorgeous Fabrics--does pose a couple of problems. The extra length of the skirt combined with the stretch and the springy thickness of the fabric results in a saggy-baggy look that is not at all what I had envisioned. I'm taking it in all over the place, replacing the pocket facings with a thinner fabric, and adding a lining.

What is your writing process?

The photo taking is the hardest part of blogging for me, so once that's done I don't agonize too much over the writing. This is not to say that sparkling text comes flowing out with no effort(!) but rather that I'm content with cataloguing what I've made, describing any particular problems or insight I had, and throwing in anything else that seems appropriate.


I'd like to see how Maggie of Stitch-n-Thyme would answer these questions, so I invite her to join the blog hop. Maggie happens to live right down the road from me (in U.S. terms, anyway), and I appreciate her vintage/classic aesthetic.

The other person I'd like to invite to continue the blog hop is Cecili of Sewing and so on. Far from just down the road, she lives pretty much on the opposite side of the planet from me. I enjoy following Cecili's quirky, youthful, tropics-friendly makes.



Yet another note on food:

Are these not adorable? I should have put something in the picture for scale. The man I buy eggs from also sells these little quail eggs, and I finally caved and bought some. A big part of their charm for me is the spotted shells, so I just boiled them for us to peel at the table and eat with flavored salt.

A giveaway, because my son knows how to tell it like it is

But first, let's take a look at my latest woven tee:

It's the top from Simplicity 1366 (again), but this time made from one of my treasured silk scarves. The fabric was produced by the Ban Napho Weaving Group in Thailand. I cannot say enough good things about their beautiful work. I felt okay about cutting into the scarf only because I still have a second scarf from them, in even more luscious colors, and because the top took practically every inch of the fabric. It is underlined in black habotai for a little extra strength and stability. This top ranks right up there among my favorite makes ever.

This photo is closest to the actual color of the fabric, though it doesn't show the beautiful sheen very well.

So, on to the giveaway.

Several years ago I bought 3 1/4 yards of silk chiffon from Mood Fabrics. My plan was to use it for Butterick 4978, but since that dress pattern is cut on the bias, the chiffon, with its lined-up rows and columns of cherries, was not going to work. It has been sitting in my stash ever since, and every once in a while I pull it out and try to get myself to do something with it. I thought maybe I could picture something like a longish six-gore skirt with black silk lining.

Butterick 4978: flowers, not cherries

Partly because I'm dubious about wearing this particular print, though, and partly because I have found working with chiffon to be a royal pain in the past, I always put it back on the shelf. A few days ago I had it out on the table when my teenage son came into the sewing room. Though his thing is computer programming and robotics, he also has a strong artistic streak. In a kind but matter-of-fact tone, he said: Mom. Whatever you make out of that, it's not going to look right on you.

Yikes! But I think he was right. And now I am ready to let it go. If anyone thinks they can use this fabric, I will happily send it off to them, any place in the world. It will be worth it to me to get it out of my stash and into the stash of someone who can appreciate it. You can let me know in a comment or email me at pfarr at comcast dot net if you are interested.

Silk chiffon with cherries on a black background, sheer and lightweight, 56 inches wide.

A smorgasbord of notes today because I haven't posted for a while (yes, it's a Swedish word, but close enough for my purposes):

Watching: Borgen is a surprisingly enthralling Danish political drama series on TV about a woman politician. It's hard to find in the U.S. (we ordered the DVDs from Amazon), but certainly worth watching if you have the opportunity.

Reading: The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett, is a short funny delight of a book that involves the Queen of England and the pleasures of reading.

Eating: Delicata squash! It's dense, rich, delicious, and easy to prepare. Cut into half-moon shapes and roast with some olive oil and salt; no need to peel. I can't provide my own picture here because we keep eating it before I remember to get a photo.

The woven tee for me

I have been keeping an eye out for a woven tee pattern for a while. Finding a good woven tee would be great for plenty of reasons, but my particular reason is that I have a small shelf of very special fabrics. I don't mean my single yards of Liberty lawn, or the kind of offbeat and overly pricy pieces I sometimes end up buying on impulse at B&J Fabrics in New York, though those are certainly special enough and I do hesitate to cut into them. The special fabrics I'm referring to are from when I traveled more in my younger days as a single woman and an English-as-a-second-language teacher, supplemented by the beautiful fabrics my mom continues to send me from her many travels (and she turned eighty this year). Handwoven silks from Thailand, Laos, Bhutan. So special I can hardly cut into them--but what am I going to do? Make something to wear and appreciate, or pass them on to my son who is interested only in coding for robotics? (What would you do? Seriously, I'd like to know.)

Fortunately Sara of Mixed Emotions drew my attention to this pattern with her beautiful versions of it. I have enough other favorite pattern sources that I don't usually look too closely at the Simplicity offerings, and even if I had come across Simplicity 1366, I believe that I would have been too distracted by that crazy skirt to even see the tee.

Now I have made two versions out of ordinary fabric: one out of the scraps (blue with white print; Mood Fabrics said cotton but I don't think so) left after I made a version of Colette's Jasmine, and one out of the scraps (rayon, charcoal with white print) left from an unsuccessful skirt made many years ago. So you see, this pattern doesn't require much fabric at all, especially if you don't worry about sewing the bias binding from several short lengths.

A note on what I'm watching:

Have you seen High Maintenance? It's a low-budget but well-done web series set in Brooklyn whose episodes are tied together only by the presence of a particular marijuana deliveryman. I beg you (that sounds kind of strong, but I think it's worth it) to watch the episode titled Rachel. It can easily be found online and will take only 13 minutes of your time. It features the handsome and talented Dan Stevens, and has an appearance by Rachel Comey. Warning you, though, it just might serve as your gateway episode.

Getting started

For years my mild obsession with sewing has taken the form of lurking around other people's sewing blogs, fabric shopping at every possible opportunity, poring over pattern magazines and new pattern collections, and, oh yeah, occasionally actually sewing something. In the hope that documenting what I do will remind me that what I want to do is sew more and sew better, I am jumping on this bandwagon right now.

I'll be keeping it simple until I get the hang of this, so please bear with me. Speaking of simple, one of my most frequently used patterns is top D from the ancient Simplicity 5970.

Want to see some more of those?

These take just a bit of fabric and are easy to throw on in hot, humid New England summers.

But that is not all I aspire to, oh no. Sometimes my experiments have worked out nicely, but more often, and seemingly in direct relation to how much work I've put in, I have ended up with a piece of clothing that I'm just not going to wear. This will be a record of my attempt to turn that around. Stay tuned for a look at some of my past and future efforts.

Thanks for reading!

Nature notes:

Two painted turtles were crisscrossing the grass in front of the house yesterday, looking for a place to lay their eggs.

This is a photo from last year; didn't get one yesterday.

I hope our eastern phoebe finds a mate soon, because he is screeching from dawn to dusk.

(I wanted to insert an audio link to the phoebe's call here; so much to learn . . .)