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Oscars 2018 - a linkfest of lovely gowns

3/5/2018

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Being no movie buff, I don't ever watch the Academy Awards, but afterward, I love to look at the "best and worst dressed" lists.  I roll my eyes at the more tedious trends and ooh and ah over the beautiful gowns.  Every now and then there's even an interesting suit among the men.  Last year's highlight was Brie Larson in a black velvet gown by Oscar de la Renta that was a clear homage to Madame X's gown in John Singer Sargent's scandalous 1884 portrait!  Beautiful! 
Picture
Madame X, by John Singer Sargent, 1884. Metropolitan Museum of Art [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Picture
Brie Larson wearing Oscar de la Renta at the 2017 Oscars. Photo via Celebrity Glam Cam - click to see in context.

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Marvelous Dress, Terrible Photoshopping

2/5/2018

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Besides clothing and sewing, I have many other interests which don't get highlighted on this sewing blog.  But sometimes, there are intersections!  For instance, I commonly read SorryWatch, a blog about the often difficult by necessary act of apologizing.  Apologizing is something we all need to do sometimes, but mostly do badly; and, as a major catalyst for reconciliation and healing, it deserves attention.  SorryWatch applauds good apologies and the moral courage it takes to make them, while pulling apart bad or weasly apologies and showing why they suck.  But this post, about people in the Democratic Nat'l Committee apologizing (or in some cases failing to apologize) for leaked emails, caught my attention mostly because of the marvelous dress that DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz wears in the top photo, from a 2012 Vogue photoshoot. 

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Why Are Women Always Right?

1/18/2018

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Right-over-left, that is.  In the Western world, women's garments traditionally close right-over-left, while men's close left-over-right.  As an example, the Moss Brothers jacket I showed you on Monday is a women's jacket because of the right-over-left closure (as well as the princess seams giving room for the bosom, and the flared hips with slanting pockets for style).  That's why I was surprised to find no womenswear on their company website! 

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Pretty Pretty Princess - thoughts on ball gowns

12/7/2017

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My housemate and I like to watch Say Yes to the Dress, a TLC reality show about brides shopping for their wedding dresses.  There's a New York, NY version and an Atlanta, GA version.  Each has the same format: a bridal shop stocked to the rafters with white satin, tulle and lace; a female head of shop with an extravagantly gay male* assistant; various bridal consultants arrayed in black (so as not to compete with the brides, I guess); and brides who come in with their "entourages" and interesting needs/demands.  The brides try on different gowns, people react.  There's a vignette about whatever part of the bride's past is most likely to raise a tear, fabricated angst about the mom not approving of the daughter's choice... then piano music, the "bridal moment": the girl gets to wear a veil and cry, and she buys the dress.  Oh, contrived, first world problems... such a guilty pleasure. 

*His gayness is an important part of the formula, since it's more about his fashion acumen and closeness to women than his sexual preferences.  A straight man in the bridal shop is always portrayed as a fox in the henhouse. 

To make our guilty pleasure more of both, every time someone says the word "princess", my housemate and I can eat a piece of chocolate!  That's our rule.  "Princess style", "princess seams", "I feel like a princess"... chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!  And oddly enough, one woman's "princess dress" is another woman's dowdy nightmare.  There seems to be no correspondence between all the different visions of a princess; the only thing everyone agrees on is the desirability of looking like one.

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Re-lining a Purse / National Handbag Day

10/10/2017

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A new client came to me with a favorite purse, now desperately in need of a new lining.  "My dad says I should get a new one, but I like this one," she said.  I am very much in favor of mending instead of buying new, especially when the item in question is good quality.  This purse is a sturdy leather job, with the leather all intact, though a bit dried out.  The lining though... what a wreck!  I said I could replace it, and she was delighted. 
Picture
Sad, torn lining on a Hobo bag
"The original has pockets... if it's not too much trouble, I'd like at least one pocket," she said.  And "You don't have to replace the linings on the smaller side pockets, if you don't want.  They're not torn..."

It's funny: if someone has a list of requirements, I meet them, but if someone gives me a bare minimum and tells me that they're fine with "just" that, I always want to exceed their expectations.  I want them to be pleasantly surprised. 

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The First Lady's Heels

8/31/2017

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As you've probably figured out, I think clothes are interesting as a cultural artifact and a medium of expression.  So I've been watching with wide eyes the flurry of criticism, editorals, and reactions to the same that dusted up after First Lady Melania Trump wore high heels to board her plane to go visit flooded cities in Texas.  

Now, obviously, stilettos aren't practical wear in any situation, but are particularly impractical for touring flood zones. (The problem, of course, being that stilettos only elevate the heel of the foot: truly savvy flood-tourers wear chopines!)  But she didn't wear them in the disaster zone, only on the plane.  And they're just shoes... right?  
Picture
Appropriate for flood-wear?
Picture by Rama & the Shoe Museum in Lausanne.

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NWQ Quilt Show, 2017

8/28/2017

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On May 13th this year, my friend Rosanne and I went to the Northwest Quilters' Quilt show.  For me, it was an art show!  So much artistry, so much beauty.  I want to share it with you! 

Re: the pictures... I did not talk to the quilters or get their permission to post these pictures here, but as they'd already made their work public by exhibiting it, and as I was within the rules of the exhibition to take pictures, I think it's all right to show their workmanship here as long as I credit them.  If the work is yours and you object to its placement here, Contact Me and let me know, and I'll remove your stuff.  Ditto if I've mis-attributed something and you want me to fix it.  Thanks! 

As always, click on a picture to see it enlarged. 

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My Failures

8/14/2017

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Talking with a family member the other day about how people curate their online content to create an alternate world where they always look nice, their house clean, their work polished, I realized that as much as I value integrity and honesty, I also "put my best foot forward" when taking pictures for this blog.  If there's stuff on the table, I move it so you only see my pattern pieces, not my dirty plates.  If I take several unflattering pictures and one flattering one, guess which one I post?  This is natural, and not entirely a bad thing.  (After all, do you really want to see my dirty plates?)  But there's a downside to the illusion of perfection.  When all our friends and family look so perfect online, we might get discouraged or feel shame for the world of dirty dishes we have.  

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Do You Darn?

8/7/2017

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Picture
I never officially learned to darn... I simply figured out my own method after I learned some needlelace.  My method is simple: first I used a doubled thread to outline the hole, giving it wide margins.  Then I fill this outline with a Corded Brussels stitch.  Where there is cloth, I sew the Brussels stitch through it, thus thickening the fabric.  Where there is a hole, I just sew Corded Brussels stitch right over it, putting a layer of new cloth where there was none.  When I'm teaching someone to darn, I use contrasting thread, but generally I match the sock color.  ​

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Being Ladylike...

7/17/2017

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So remember the romance of gloves?  Remember the talk about modesty and how people treat you in different clothes?  This post relates to those.

Recently, I've taken to wearing the white mesh gloves I have for summer.  At first I thought they'd make me more hot, but not so.  The mesh allows air flow and the white actually seems to make my hands cooler.  (I'm reminded of Civil War re-enactors of my youth, who when asked how they could bear to wear "all those layers" in blistering summer heat, would respond in character "How can you bear to show all that skin to the sun... you must just be roasting!")  So when I have a pretty summer dress and cool summer hat, I also put on the pretty mesh gloves and feel quite put-together.  What's been especially interesting, though, has been a change in how people treat me.

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    Karen Roy

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