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Block #2

3/30/2017

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No, this isn't a police line-up, it's my lovely sister showing off the entirely unlovely block I've made for her.  Twirly twirly twirly! 
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Bonsai Dress (Simplicity 3631, view c)

3/27/2017

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A few months back, I decided to use up some of my stash.  I pulled out a lovely piece of green rayon(?), with gradients of warm color and Japanese style twisty trees on it.  I love this fabric!  I figured out I had enough to make a dress, by the simple expedient of wrapping it around myself.  Not a very full dress, but a dress it would be!  There was about 1 1/3 yard at 60"(?) inches wide.

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Block #1

3/23/2017

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My sister lives far from me and I only see her once a year or so, but absence doesn't lessen my sisterly urge to adorn her.  So this year when I visited her, I decided to make a block* of her, so that during the rest of the year I could make her things when I get the urge, and know they'll fit!  I especially hope that having a model of her body will help me make clothes that fit better than Ready to Wear (RTW).  
See, in my conversations with her about clothes, she occasionally expresses her frustration with how RTW doesn't fit, and how frustrating it is to find clothes that make her feel good.  Of course, my sister is beautiful, and if her clothes make her feel otherwise, it's their problem, not hers!  There's no reason for a gorgeous woman to feel dumpy when she gets dressed!  
* Home sewists sometimes call this basic body-fitting garment a "sloper", but that's ambiguous, because in manufacturing a sloper is any pattern without seam allowances.   Though I'm not manufacturing, I'd hate to contribute to confusion about terminology.  I believe "block" is a better term for what I'm making, since a block is a basic garment pattern, which other patterns for specific garments are built off of. 

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Sewing White Jeans

3/20/2017

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As I rarely wear white clothes (not my color, and too hard to keep clean), I don't usually sew with white.  So this project, sewing a pair of jeans that are not just white, but blindingly white, has been interesting!  Some white tips I'm learning as I go:
  • pre-wash alone or with all whites! 
  • Wash hands and clean work surfaces before sewing. 
  • Clean iron so it doesn't have hard-water stains or dye from other fabrics on it. 
  • Cover dingy ironing board with a fresh layer of muslin, so as not to transfer stains. 
  • Don't leave pins in too long lest they mark the fabric! 
  • Keep tea and cocoa in another room... don't drink and work (unless I want the jeans to end up the color of my teeth!)

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Whatever is True

3/20/2017

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This post is an intro to my tag Philippians 4:8. 

One of the blogs I love reading is Male Pattern Boldness.  In particular, I like to click on the tag "Clothing and Culture" and read all the archived stuff.  Peter Lappin's quirky humor and thoughtful questions bring out the best in others, which accounts for the wonderful conversations that blossom in the comments section.  Today I was reading this discussion, from 2010: (Re)touch me in the Morning.

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Nat'l Quilting Day - African Quilt

3/18/2017

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​​What a fun and colorful project I have to share today!  Today is National Quilting Day, and this year many people are making baby blankets for the first babies born in their local hospitals.  Meanwhile, some of my Congolese friends from church are expecting a new baby, and I decided to quilt a baby blanket for them!  Their baby shower is not for a few weeks, but I'm posting the quilting details today! 


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Procrastination Projects: camisoles

3/16/2017

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I am a procrastinator.  I wish I weren't, but since that is my natural tendency, I find ways to "hack" my life.

​How do you hack your life, you ask?  By understanding how it naturally works and manipulating it.  In my life, there are two opposite forces at work: I hate to be idle and unproductive, but I put off starting things because my big plans for them overwhelm me.  So my lifehacks involve forcing deadlines on myself for the big things, and having a variety of small things on hand to fill my procrastinating time.  I call these small things procrastination projects: things to do when I'm putting off the bigger things.  That way the time is not wasted!  And the big things get done because there's a deadline and I hate to let people down.  (As a side note: if you care about me and my goals, the kindest thing you can do is hold me to my deadlines.)  

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Culottes to Skirt

3/13/2017

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This alteration took about an hour.  The pictures tell the story very well, I think!  So click "Read More" to find out how to alter culottes to make a skirt out of them.  

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AFTER:

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Mono-butt!

3/13/2017

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Picture by Alex-501, used by Creative Commons license. A good example of mono-butt (as well as poor fit all around).
​Think hard... when was the last time you heard anyone say they were happy with their jeans?  I can't remember, myself.  If the topic of jeans comes up, everyone always has a litany of complaints.  Here are mine:
  1. I hate low-rise.
  2. I hate skinny thighs.
  3. Not a fan of spandex.
  4. What's up with mono-butt?   
​So if we all complain, why do we all live in jeans?  Because we've all had at least one perfect pair, and we remember how it felt.  We're in love with a fantasy of jeans, a platonic ideal of them. 
But the American obsession with denim is not my topic today; mono-butt is the subject du jour.  Mono-butt is when the seat of the jeans is ill-defined, like a bubble instead of buttocks.  This means that the crack is bridged by fabric (making a cave-like sauna inside), the legs have limited range of motion (you can't lift your leg without pulling the fabric from the other leg), and the fabric gets stressed on the center back seam.  And this look seems to be everywhere, on men's jeans and women's.  So unattractive.  "Buttocks" is plural for a reason, people!  I'm not asking for an extreme wedgie or anything, just a subtle bifurcation to make me feel like a woman instead of a baby in a diaper. 

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Charcoal Jeans

3/9/2017

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A repeat client of mine always surprises me with interesting challenges.  When he told me he wanted high-waisted jeans, the request plunged me into a world of patterns, construction methods, rivets, and body-types that were all new to me.  Here is the tale of the first pair I've made him, which I call the charcoal jeans because of their color. 

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    Karen Roy

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