We’ve had steady weather incidents in the last week or so, nothing cumulative like up in New England, but enough to make everyone cranky and me very very grateful I work from home and that other than an appointment here and there, I don’t have to deal with miserable road conditions, and winter traffic.
I’m a crazy person at the computer building presentations for my upcoming webinars, which is all wonderful, but sitting at the computer for hours makes me hurt all over and makes my eyes sort of crossed and blurry. So I need frequent breaks.
I always return to my oldest and dearest most trusted and reliable friend, my sewing machine, when I need to clear my head.
When last we left off, I was about to cut up my beloved handdyed and handwoven yardage I’ve been sitting on for a couple of years now. I had done the muslin, and actually made the garment from a rayon ombré jacquard that I bought in NYC a couple years ago. I got feedback from my guild members on the length.
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And so, I laid out the pattern, and took the shears to my fabric, and worked like a crazy person and finished up this tunic in just a couple of days. I wore it Sunday to teach a beginning weaving class. I’ll do a more formal photo shoot over the weekend since I have an exhibition application due next week.
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I can’t tell you how much this piece makes me smile. I have so many jackets and coats that are handwoven, and plenty of hand knit sweaters. I have a few handwoven summer dresses, and a few sleeveless tops. Tunics are coming back into fashion in a huge way, and they are long overdue. This is a perfect kind of silhouette for handwoven fabric, and I can even tolerate the dropped shoulder, though I modified the shoulder on this pattern so it didn’t drop so much…
Meanwhile, I did teach a Beginning Weaving Class with my trusty little Structo’s on Sunday, the weather incident predicted for the weekend held off until Sunday night, and I drove the hour or so down to Princeton, NJ and taught at a wonderful art center in West Windsor [4]. I had five students and now there are five new weavers! Everyone seemed to enjoy the day, and they want me back for more. Always good to hear.
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And so I jumped into preparing for part two of my upcoming Garment Construction for Handweavers Webinar, all about fitting the body. Which sounds all very technical and dry, but no matter how gorgeous your handwoven fabric is, if the garment doesn’t fit you, it will never look good. And fitting real women’s bodies in 2015 using a size chart from the 1960’s is a hilarious adventure into futility. I’ll let you know when the link is available for Part two, meanwhile, I’m told that sign ups are coming in already for my Part one [9], see the previous blog post, and Interweave Press/Weaving Today hasn’t even started on their marketing blitz yet.
Meanwhile, I have this ongoing frustration with Vogue patterns. You may recall some major issues with a pattern I recently used, for a jacket I made for an upcoming article for Sew News. I blogged about it here [10]. I did contact Vogue, and though they weren’t interested in reading the blog post, which they told me bluntly, I had to outline in a few words what the problem was, and so I told them as best I could in a few words and they said they’d look into it.
I finally heard back from them, and their version of what went wrong was so far from what the problem was, and their fix was so ridiculous and would only set up a whole new series of unfortunate events (they claim the numbers on two of the pattern pieces were switched, they aren’t I can assure you) that I had to really think whether I wanted to continue using Vogue for all my pattern needs, as much as I love the fit and the styling and the engineering. The quality is going downhill fast.
When I was looking for patterns for a jacket for the Sew News Article, I spent a lot of time on the Sewingpatterns.com [11] website. It is a really extensive gathering of most of the pattern companies, both major and independent, that sell in the US, and you know, there are a lot of pattern companies I haven’t worked with, or haven’t worked with in a long time. Time to try hanging with a new bunch of friends?
My last garment [12] was from the free download from the Marfy website, and I adore the styling and fit. The no directions thing has me a bit hesitant, though I can usually figure it out, and the fact that buying a real Marfy pattern is ordering it from Italy, and getting a one size hand cut pattern, that well, I’m not one size. No one is. I love multi-sized patterns because the guess work is done. There are multiple sizes to pick from for a multiple sized body. (Yes, I do know how to grade, but that doesn’t make me happy…)
I’ve sewn with a lot of Burda patterns over the years. Burda is German. And I have to say, there is a lot to be said for German engineering. Although I work pretty much from their monthly magazine, which contains all the patterns for that issue in the middle in a hugely confusing road map of shapes and colors, all without seam allowances, I’m use to them now, and really really like the end results, 95 percent of the time. And I’ve never found an error.
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Anyway, I came across a couple of patterns I liked on the sewingpatterns.com [11] site. One was a Burda knit surplice top [15], and the other was a Neue Mode Vest [16]. Both patterns had a download option. Which made it cheaper, and no shipping, and I have a good printer and plenty of ink, so I decided one night a couple months ago, to download them and see what happens.
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I took a break from all that presentation stuff Monday, and pulled out the 37 pages for the Burda knit top, and pulled from my shelf a lovely sweater knit I bought a couple years ago at Mood in NYC. It was annoying to have to piece all the pages together, but once I trimmed the right side and bottom edge of all the pages, they fit together nicely.
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I traced off the pattern pieces, in the combo size I needed, and unlike the magazine, these patterns have seam allowances built in, and there is a little chart that shows the finished dimensions for each size in the bust and hip area. A huge deal when trying to figure out ease.
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The directions were minimal, but at least they were there. There is an interesting construction sequence, and I couldn’t really do a test garment because test garments don’t work well in knits, since each knit stretches differently. I just dove in and crossed my fingers.
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And I’m smiling even more. I love this top, I’ll wear it all winter, I’m sure, and I’m very very happy with the fit and the result.
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I think there will be a lot more downloads in my future… Stay tuned…