Happy 2016

While I don't necessarily understand why we celebrate what seems to be an arbitrary time of year, I have to admit it did prompt me to post something here for once. :D

If this trend continues, here are few topics that might turn up in the near future.

• A pieced bag from a German sewing magazine, and why it's taking me so long.
• A few useful and unusual notions.
• Some knitting, mostly socks.
• A bit of wardrobe organization (mostly because I said I'd do it).
• Some patterns and fitting, vintage and not.
• A new machine, my first computerized one. And maybe a bit of mechanical-machine adjustment stuff.

At any rate, best wishes for 2016!

Getting through the brocade

I'm trying to use up one major piece of fabric per week for the Patternreview Fabric Stash Contest.
Last week's fabric was the green rayon/silk brocade I'd mentioned in my initial post on the aforementioned contest.

Most of that's become ca. 1969 Vogue 2156, reviewed here; the rest became the clutch from New Look 6092. It was the first time I'd sewn brocade of this particular fiber content, probably around 75% rayon/25% silk or so. Not surprisingly, It was much easier to handle, and in particular press, than the synthetic brocades and brocade-look satin prints I'd worked with before. To the contrary of what Sandra Betzina's More Fabric Savvy says, and unlike the synthetics, it does hold a crease quite well, especially if you've got a decent iron. (I think everything else said above brocade in that book was on point.) While I liked this fabric a lot, and I'm pretty happy with the finished items, I was very glad to be done with them, what with all the fraying.

This week's fabric has been a piece of Bemberg that seems endless, which is why I've been sewing rather than posting. Not a very interesting fabric to look at, but for the record, here it is. The idea is to make lots of dark brown breathable lingerie that can substitute for the black non-breathable kind that's the only (less flattering on me) dark-colored option in RTW.

Hollywood 1512 done; brocade next

Just a brief note to say that my first fabric for the Patternreview stash contest is out of the way.

Rather than repeat myself at length, I'll point you to the review on Patternreview. It's already rather tl;dr, but I do have a further bit to post on getting a tie end through a French seam, so that'll hopefully go up here tomorrow.

Next up, and already cut, is this Chinese brocade.

If all goes well, (most of) it will be a late-sixties dress. More on that later.

Patternreview fabric stash contest 2015

Patternreview runs a fabric stash contest every year.

The object is to sew the highest number of (linear) yards of fabrics that you've had for at least six months. Though I've mostly sworn off contests for this year, I'll participate in this one. While I don't expect to get near the top of the list, I'm usually sewing from my stash anyway, so I may as well join.

In the interests of juking the stats efficiency, here is a preview of a few of my longest, narrowest pieces of fabric. These may or may not be among whatever I end up sewing in the next month.
I'm not including a couple of heavy coatings I have lots of—I can't see forcing myself to sew them into finished coats within one month, even if the weather doesn't make that prospect unappealing. The above include cottons, rayons, silks, and one synthetic. I'll see how things go.

New socks, catch[up|all] and some general plans

It seems that every time I move continents, I have to try out all the new colds the next winter. That and work have stopped me from doing my usual projects. Besides that, recently, I've been focusing somewhat more on knitting than on sewing. Here's what I have to show for it:

These are based on Cat Bordhi's Upstream master pattern, with the stitch pattern from Anna Zilboorg's Gemma (which in turn came from someplace else, IIRC, but I'd have to look up where exactly). They aren't blocked; generally I let wearing and washing do that for me, for socks anyway. I'm noticing Cat Bordhi's default arches come out very high, which is even more noticeable if the socks are oversized and have short cuffs, as in this case (they're oversized because they're meant as layering rain boot socks, and they're short because I couldn't make them any taller with the 100g yarn I had). She does tell you how to customize that, and I may look into it next time I'm making biggish socks like this. On closer-fitting socks I'd say the high arches are an advantage, though they can look odd when they're not being worn.

The long-suffering rayon crepe georgette dress is finally done, but it's already been worn once and washed, and needs ironing before it'll be ready to photograph.

I've cut and started McCall's 6996, which is shaping up nicely. It might make a good test for my coverstitch machine.

Finally, I've been thinking over what kinds of projects I want to do in the near future and over the course of the year. Current ideas:

• I'm not sure I will do many (any?) Patternreview contests. At any given time, chances are good they won't match what I really want or need to sew just then, and it's too easy for me to get off track and disappointed with something I wasn't all that excited about doing in the first place. I'm certainly appreciative of and impressed by the people who plan and manage the contests, but they may just not be for me.
• I'm not planning on posting about my stash every month (whew). I still do keep track, but it's not too interesting to write about, and must be very dull to read about.
• The temperature range here is far more limited than it was in southwest Germany, not to mention any of the East Coast/Midwest cities I've lived in. I'm finding I have too many too-warm clothes and not enough middling ones. Some long-sleeved tops/shirts may be up next.
• I have a large collection of lingerie fabrics I stocked up on in Germany and Holland, plus a few newly acquired here. Anything made from that might or might not make it here; we'll see.
• Last year, I've decided, I was trying to control too much of my sewing. While I think some wardrobe planning is worthwhile, this should be a hobby, and I shouldn't get too caught up in sewing the ideal thing at the ideal time.
• I do want to continue with my pattern-drafting nerdfest to some extent, but I'm a little desperate for finished clothes right now, so it may be a while before I get back to it.

That's all for now. I'm off to the Fabrics Etc. meetup early (for me) tomorrow; Tasia from Sewaholic will be there!

Catch-up and some possibilities for what's next

I don't feel like I got a lot of sewing done in October. Schnittquelle Oslo is finished; Kwik-Sew 3473 is still sitting patiently on the dress form just as it was almost a month ago. I still need to do some inventory before I can figure out my stash turnover for last month, but certainly more came in than went out.

For November, there are a couple of Patternreview contests that I might or might not join. First, there's the sewing bee, for which the first project is an A-line skirt. I tend to avoid these, so I don't have many patterns for them; plus there are a number of other restrictions that complicate things. (Incidentally there was another meetup at Fabrics Etc. today, and I could've shopped for this if I hadn't been playing where's-my-wallet instead of reading the PR message boards this morning. But I digress.) Anyway, one I do have is Butterick 6330:

It describes itself as an A-line skirt, which I hope suffices. My plan had been to make the entire thing, i.e. also the jacket, in one of my navy suitings. That seemed like a huge commitment, but then I remembered I also have some sort of moleskin print I got from Our Social Fabric a few weeks ago, and I'd specifically meant to make just such a skirt out of it. Thing is, will it really need a lining? I'll test that out next time I'm wearing tights.

The other thing going on is the handbag contest. Now, I have this old thing from H&M:

I've never quite liked the color, and the straps have a disconcerting tendency to fall off, but the size and shape of the body have been extremely useful. So at the moment I'm working on copying the pattern, though I'll probably change some things about it. I have two upholstery fabrics that may work.

Or I may skip the contests and try to finally get the Kwik-Sew dress done.

Aside from all that, there's been a lot of rearranging and some additions to the sewing room. More on that later.

October plans

Here's what I'm hoping gets done this month:

• Ideally Kwik-Sew 3473, but this should be allowed a lot of time for the hem to drop. Even afterward, it will still need quite a bit of work, since it's only basted together at this point. I don't think it can be rushed.
• A cardigan I'm knitting in Lion Brand Homespun. That isn't my favorite to knit, but it goes quickly, is lightweight (in spite of the thickness) because of the synthetic content, and is washable. I found a useful colorway on sale.
• A boiled wool jacket or coat (Schnittquelle Oslo or Garçonne J-034 are possibilities).

In addition to that, I could probably use more skirts and trousers, cardigans in other colors, knit tops that are neither too thin nor too warm, etc., but I don't seem to have quite the right fabrics in stash, and some of what I'd like seems very hard to find these days. We'll see what happens.

August results

• Fabric in: 12.833 yards (4 pieces). This was a rayon batik, a slubby cotton woven, and two pieces of Tencel twill. The first two were from Fabricana and the last two from Gala Fabrics.
• Fabric out: 4.416 yards (3 pieces). This was the cotton lawn I used for a sleeveless blouse, plus two knits I used for the Patternreview TNT Tee contest. I think. Maybe I cut the lawn in July, actually.
• Projects finished: 5, namely the aforementioned sleeveless blouse, plus four knit tops.

More on all that later.  I still need to figure out what I'm doing next.

Short-term plans

I've finally got a little time to work on the New Look shirt, and that's slowly coming to a close. I just need to finish hemming it (a slow process; I don't like any of my thread colors against the print enough to topstitch, so it's blind slipstitching all the way), unless I decide the closure moves around too much and needs a snap at the neckline.

Next up, I think, will be a few T-shirts which I'll try copying from a touristy but well-fitting RTW one I have. They won't be anything fancy, since they should play well with as much of my other stuff as they possibly can. So it may happen that I'll sew along with one or the other Patternreview contest this month, but I probably won't make anything that'd look impressive enough to be worth entering.

What's next

I have finally finished setting up the sewing room. I should be able to get back to sewing things shortly. Here's what I'm considering doing in the near term:

• Summer sewing. I don't have all that many summer fabrics left, but I may as well sew one or two of them while they're still appropriate for the weather. One example is this cotton lawn. There's only 1 meter of it, so I don't have a lot of choice as to what to do with it. I may use New Look 6387. 
  
• Knit tops with various sleeve lengths. These should be fairly long in the body. I have a lot of RTW trousers with poor fit that needs covering up, and I can sew a knit top much faster than I'd be able to replace them all. Besides, I got rid of a lot of tops before I moved, and I don't have much for the sort of in-between weather that's more common here.
• Jeans, for a bit later in the year.
• Some bookkeeping regarding the fabric stash. I gave away quite a few pieces in May, so it's gone down a bit.
• Possibly getting a new steam iron.
  I have only dry irons at this point, having dropped my Black & Decker Classic a few too many times, and having given away the basic steam iron I got in Germany to replace it (it wouldn't have worked here anyway — yes, I did have step-down/step-up transformers I could've moved back with me, but IIRC the iron was 2400W, too much for any of them).
  For the moment, I've been making do with a Continental dry iron and an old Sunbeam, both of which work fine for regular ironing. I'll see how it goes for sewing.
  I'd consider (a) a cheap household iron, on the sad presumption that most things these days won't last much more than a year anyway; (b) a nicer Reliable household iron; (c) a gravity-feed iron, if I can find a place to buy one.
  At school, the latter worked fine with well-padded, heavy, non-vacuum boards. While separate steam generators/boilers and vacuum tables seem ideal, I very much doubt I can trust anything that high-wattage with the circuits I've got available.
• Possibly looking for a coverstitch machine. All of my experience has been with ones that were very temperamental. I'll want this only if I can find one that isn't.

Resurfacing briefly

So, I moved back to Canada last week. Vancouver, to be specific. More on all this later.

As I think I've mentioned, this is still not going to be much of a sewing blog for the time being. All of my sewing stuff is in goods-to-follow; it's making a nice little tour of northwest European ports at the moment. I won't expect it for another two to three weeks. Aside from that, there's all the usual moving stuff to attend to. So, again, there'll be a pretty light and/or OT posting schedule these days.

No more sewing, for now.

All of my sewing supplies and machines are now in a shipping container, and there they will remain for about a month, if the container tracking estimates hold. For various reasons, I decided to let the turquoise coat (and its shoulder pads that I'd been planning to work on) get packed too. That means this won't be much of a sewing blog for the time being. In the next few days, it could be a knitting blog, but only about the one pullover I've been working on... not too exciting. So there will be either a fairly light or fairly off-topic schedule, or both, until further notice. That, or I'll take up hand sewing.

Tomorrow

I'm off to find some buttonhole twist and possibly other things. I'll leave it at that as my connection's just been acting up; more later.

May plans

Happy May Day.

I cleaned and oiled my machines today, but otherwise they had the day off. The sewing machine really could stand to be serviced, BTW; I'm waiting to get back to a 120V area for that.

If all goes as planned, I'm expecting to have less than three weeks before everything goes into a shipping container. I can't decide whether I should sit on my hands or sew like mad. Mostly I'm doing the former right now, but I really would like to get at least the turquoise boiled wool coat done and in one piece. After that, I'm thinking maybe linen trousers, but that might be a terrible idea.

Either way, toward the end of the month I will become limited to knitting and/or hand-sewing, depending on what goes in the Ark of Things Not Packed, and then, for some days (weeks?) I will most likely not be blogging at all. That could easily continue well into June, depending on what sort of connectivity I have (or don't).

Anyway, for now, the fit of the coat looks promising; I think I'll be able to do the princess-seam topstitching and the shoulder seams, and leave any changes to the (non-topstitched) side seams and princess darts.

Q2

I have a lot to do before the end of this month (not to mention next), but I hope to finish the white top by then. I'm replacing most of the straight stitching on the lace with a slight zigzag for more flexibility.

The Simplicity turquoise coat has been pushed back, obviously; I hope it'll be done within the first half of May. After that, my access to sewing supplies may be limited until, probably, sometime in June, if all goes as planned.

I'm still looking at a few other possible projects, inadvisable as that is. If I'm realistic, there will be only knitting projects during that time: much more portable. We'll see.

Ditching goal met for the year

Well, this month I've sorted out more than 40 clothing items to get rid of, so my goal of getting rid of two things for every one thing I sew is likely already met for the whole year, if I don't increase my output. I may get rid of even more once I feel like the season's definitely changed. There's nothing like having around 6' total closet space to focus the mind, although it's taken time for me to really notice just how much I wasn't using. Anyway, this means I might not be posting regularly about clothes-ditched-per-month for the rest of the year. I hope it also means I won't accumulate too many clothes again, though given my current lack of fitting insight, it's entirely possible there may be some wadders in my future.

Outlook for April

Next month I'll probably be distracted by moving stuff a lot of the time, so the amount of sewing I'll do remains to be seen. Thoughts:

• Finish my scheduled late March-early April project (the Malmedy jacket); that may actually happen this month, though.
• Focus on quick projects that will use up fabrics that don't currently have a good home in a sturdy box, namely some of my boiled wools. Jackets will be useful indoors if it's cold, outdoors if it's warmer.
• Pick something for my April project. (I have no interest in Patternreview's RTW knockoff contest, so it won't be that.)
• I might do the Patternreview late-April challenge; if so, I'd count that for my late April-early May project, although it'd have to be done by the end of April. Or...
• I may swear off contests altogether for the next two months, maybe three. That way I won't have to take photos, sort through and post them, and write reviews by a certain date or at all. Given everything else that needs to happen, that could be a huge relief.

Idle thoughts

I haven't done any sewing today.

Theoretically I wanted to get 2 projects per month done this year, and get rid of 2 clothing items per new project.  Be that as it may, I might front-load as much of that getting rid as possible, because I have to do a customs inventory. So you might see me getting rid of more like 14 or 18 things per month — if not more — in the next couple of months. Riveting, I know.

Hoodie, and blouse plans

I finally copied the last alterations onto my Schnittquelle hoodie tracing today, so I could get that put away. I'd changed the center back seam (original seamline in green, if you can see it) and the top front of the hood.

And here it is.

I'm now drafting a sleeve for my fitting shell. The elbow dart is looking a bit big to me, but I'd have to make a mockup to know if that's a custom fit feature or a problem.

I'm thinking if I do sew something for the blouse contest this month, it's probably not going to be a self draft. Given the required details, and the sorts of things I'd want to make with the stash fabrics I have, it would be such a departure from my fitting shell that it wouldn't make a very helpful initial test. Plus it'd be extra work. So I'm thinking I'll either use a commercial pattern, or skip it.

Again,

nothing got done today. Well, no sewing. A lot of other things did get done, which I hope to some extent means I have more sewing time this weekend.
Aside from the patterns I linked earlier, I'm also thinking about Neue Mode 23304 for the shirt, especially if I use one of the silks.