When I was in Japan many years ago, I visited an artisan village, where traditional Japanese crafts were preserved and demonstrated.  I was stunned by the beauty and intricacy of the Yuuki tsumugi 結城紬, a meticulously yarn-dyed silk from that region.  I tried on a multi-colored silk kimono that made me feel like a mermaid, so beautiful was it, in greens and blues and pinks.  It cost more than my parents' house!  My host-father said he thought the dyeing process was needlessly complicated, but I appreciated it very much!

Working on the Red Fox Vintage dress again!  To refresh your memory, here's a picture of me in the quilting cotton version of this dress, after a day of wear.  The benefit of making a test garment from such an unforgiving fabric is that it highlights all the pattern problems so I can fix them.  In this case, there are three big issues.  Look at the creases and shadows to see:

• skirt back is sagging at the waistline -- needs to be tugged upward there;
• skirt front -- same problem as skirt back;
• poorly drafted sleeve doesn't have enough height in the sleeve cap...
  • possibly a related issue, the bodice back near the top may be too broad, which warps the shape of the armscye.

Just pictures, today.  This is what I was doing last Sunday!  My friends and I went to the Lan Su Chinese Garden in downtown Portland, Oregon.  It's enclosed in walls in one city block, but feels quite spacious once you're in it, because of clever design and careful choices throughout.  We picked a good day to go, as the weather was lovely, and a young woman was playing the guzheng, or Chinese zither.  She was really good!  After each song, she explained what it meant.  For instance, she played The Fisherman's Song at Dusk, which is about fishermen coming home in their boats.  As the sun sets, they cheerfully race each other to get home before dark, and the song gets faster, but keeps its rhythm, the pull of the oars faster and faster, the rills of water splashing and swirling. 

Now that I am ready to sew Advance 4914, let me introduce my fabric.  It is a polyester microfiber (more on that after the cut), which feels amazingly soft and has a gorgeous print of Rainier cherries.  The print is busy, but most of the cherries seem to be hanging in one direction, so I think it has a nap. 

The pattern calls for 3.125 yard at 42" wide, but this fabric is 60" wide (a fabric width not available in 1948, the year of this pattern).  I do a bit of math (read: Google it), round up, and buy 2.5 yards.

Here is a beautiful pattern I've been antsy to try!  Advance 4914, circa 1948, according to the Vintage Patterns Wikia, is a really interesting dress.  Its yoke around the neck and shoulders (front and back) has two neckline options.  It has a fitted yoke at the waistline (front only), and between the top and bottom yokes the loose bodice is gathered.   Below the waist, more gathers in the front, but fitted gores in back.  It closes with a side zipper (under the left arm).

My co-worker let me borrow her original 1909 Home Needlework Magazine, which she'd found among her grandmother's things.  I've taken copious pictures, to show the cool stuff inside!  (The magazine is quite substantial, so you'll forgive me if I didn't copy the whole thing!)

If you're looking for more archives of this periodical, the University of Arizona's On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics has some later issues (from 1914, 1915, and 1916).  Google Books has digitized a bunch of issues, too.  And there are scattered excerpts of it on various vintage craft websites, but I don't know of a complete archive anywhere.  I'd be happy to be corrected about that, though! 

When I KonMari'd my wardrobe, I reduced my skirt collection to only the ones I loved, which all happened to be wool pencil skirts and a-line skirts.  So... now that summer is here, I need something a bit lighter.  Digging through my stash, I find some light brown corduroy already cut (but someone else not me) into two A-line skirt panels.  I decide to sew them together and make a quick skirt.  Then I decide to add pockets first... and make the skirt high-waisted (which requires some stabilization at the front), and the next thing I know the thing ends up taking two days instead of one night of work.  Here are some finished pictures and notes, but not a whole project diary. 

So... I'm quilting again.  I quilt a lot, for a non-quilter.  This project started with a pile of quilting cottons, in warm spring colors, being de-stashed by a friend.  Since the pieces are small, this project will have to be pieced, and so I must overcome my fear of piecing.