Anyway, I’m making progress.  I’m really enjoying this construction process, there are details in this garment I’ve never done before.

Here is what it looked like last night before I went to bed.

I’ve worked all morning/afternoon, hands dripping wet but plowing onward.  I’ve had to tweak the plaid a bit here and there to match perfectly but I’m happy.  The coat is adorable on, even my husband gave me a nod.  I had the coat on for about 34 seconds as I don’t really want to sweat all over it before I even install the lining. It fits like a dream.

One of the great things about underlining a garment like this is all the facings and interfacings can be mounted directly to the underlining and keep the outer shell smooth.  I’ve basically finished the coat, except for the lining.  The construction directions have you construct the front facing and lining all in one piece, and then put the outer shell and inner shell together and stitch around the entire perimeter and call it a day.  I HATE to construct anything that way.  I’m a purist here, and there is no way I’d do anything other than put  a lining in by hand.  Here I’m attaching the bias hem facing by hand to the underlining.

The biggest issue is the window on the back of the bound buttonholes.  It is hard enough creating them in the small space once the facing is attached. Having the lining attached at this point would be nearly impossible. I use a fusible woven interfacing to make the little windows once I’ve identified where they will be.

And so I’m off to find some cool place in the garden, with my sewing kit in hand, and see if I can do the miles of interior hand work before I attach the lining.  I’m not holding hope I’ll get very far.  The sweat is just dripping off my fingers as I type.

Meanwhile, for all of you who encouraged me to write to Vogue about the errors I found in the pattern, I actually did.  And this morning, when I checked my email, there was a lovely personal note from Meg Carter at Consumer Services for Vogue Patterns.

Here is her note (I sent them the link to my blog post).

“Thank you for contacting us concerning Vogue pattern 1320 and very nice blog by the way. Thank you for pointing out those errors on the instruction sheet. There is no need to send an errata; your blog was very clear. We will start the correction process on them for future printing and bring it to the attention of our quality control team. We always try for “flawlessness” but far too often fall short of that worthy goal. I look forward to reading how your Issey Miyake coat turns out and hope there are no further errors to report. But do contact us again for any assistance you may need. (Or errors you may find.)  Thank you for being a Vogue Pattern customer.”

I am happy that my concerns were acknowledged in a timely and professional manner.  Vogue has gained back some of the respect I’ve always had for them.  No one writes directions better, in spite of the mistakes I found in the layout page.

Stay tuned…

That said, I’d say my pattern company of choice has always been Vogue, the styles, challenges and the way they fit my particular body have always suited me well.  And the directions were always flawless.  Though I rarely glanced at the first page of the directions sheet, I know how to lay out fabric, and usually in much less space than they illustrate.  And I know computers have taken over all of the job of creating those little layouts.  And I’m always painfully aware that McCall’s purchased Vogue and Butterick a few years ago.  McCall’s was probably my least favorite pattern company for all of the reasons stated above, they were not.

That said, in all of my years of sewing with Vogue patterns I’ve never encountered a serious error in the pattern direction sheets.  Maybe I’ve just been lucky.  I know some students have written about incorrect directions, but I’ve always contributed that to not understanding the directions, a common problem especially with really complicated garments with 87 pieces.  That’s a wholly different issue.  Writing technical directions is really really difficult, and no one is completely immune.

What I’m talking about here are glaring errors, that I picked up almost instantly in cutting out this particular Vogue 1320.  I do glance at the layout page of the pattern directions initially, since there is usually a reliable guide for which pattern pieces are used for linings and interfacings.  Since this pattern has 17 pattern pieces, and I’m cutting the plaid fabric, underlining, interfacing and lining, I always cross check myself by glancing at the layout sheet.

Imagine my shock when I saw this.

When I looked at the list of pattern pieces for the lining, I grabbed all of the ones listed but something didn’t feel right.  I carefully looked at the layout and noticed that pattern piece five, for the side of the garment, a pretty large pattern piece, is included in the layout, but not in the list.  That could have dire consequences should one cut out the lining and not include pattern piece five, and then not have enough lining to cut it out when it is discovered that pattern piece five is missing from the stack.

Fortunately I caught the error.

I pulled the pieces for cutting the interfacing, a woven sew-in, and noticed that the interfacing for the hem and sleeve hem are cut on the bias.  That’s pretty standard for a tailored garment.  What shocked me was the layout drawing for the interfacing. There is no acknowledgement of the bias for pieces 16 and 17, in fact the pieces are cut on the straight of grain in the layout.

Fortunately I caught this error as well.

What makes me sad here, is that the one stalwart of accuracy I’ve always counted on was the pattern industry.  Naive I know.  I’m skilled enough to find things like this and work around them, but many of my students are not.  That’s really sad.  And these kind of errors can cause huge repercussions because a straight grain hem facing will never lay right.  And a missing side lining piece can’t be pulled out of thin air if it wasn’t cut out initially and there is no more fabric.

So after much mourning for the loss of the dependable pattern company directions, and a nice bottle of red wine, I cut out my plaid, lining, underlining and interfacing and stacked all the patterns in order of construction sequence.  I always smile when I tell a student that patterns are numbered in order of sequence of construction and they look at me with a huge light bulb turning on, I’m surprised at how many people don’t know that.  Stacking the pattern pieces numerically means they are ready to sew in the sequence of construction.

The first step after mounting the underlining and stay stitching is of course bound buttonholes.  Since this is a plaid, and I’m a little OCD, matching is important to me, and one of the tricks I learned back in High School was to cut the strip for the buttonhole lips on the bias so no plaid matching is necessary.

I also have a small stash of Bakelite buttons, and this is one of the choices.  I’ll ultimately decide once the garment is finished, but the buttonholes are now made, at least in the front, (there is still one to do on the yoke) and I’ve got the sides attached with pockets and I’m enjoying the sequence of this garment, because it is an Issey Miyake pattern and they always guarantee a wild ride…

Stay tuned…

I spent the last week hauling and moving and carrying and lifting, and doing the kinds of things we do for our children.  I loaded trucks, and cars, and drove hours across five states, and when all was said and done, my step niece has graduated, and moved to Massachusetts from Pennsylvania, and my daughter is now in her apartment in Massachusetts, moved in, though not completely unpacked. She has groceries and organization things from Bed Bath and Beyond, new sheets and a pillow,some kitchen supplies, stuff from Staples, stuff from Home Depot, and she is happy.  Note that she now has her loom back up in Mass.

Tuesday night we went off to WEBS to attend the Pioneer Valley Weavers Guild Meeting, where the speaker was Ruby Leslie, an old friend of mine whom I haven’t seen in awhile, she spoke about sampling, and Brianna got really charged when she saw a guild member pass around a length of cloth woven with embroidery floss for show and tell.  When last I spoke to my daughter, she was happily winding a warp with her stash of embroidery floss.  All is well.

And so, I’m laying low, just trying to do what makes me happy and rest up for the long summer ahead, of conferences and classes, and I have a huge desire to just sew something.  Anything.  I’ve started knitting another sock, and another sweater, but I really just need to sew something.  I’m puttering in the garden, and eating every meal I can outside, and picking fresh salad from the garden, but I really just need to sew something.

About six months ago, I pulled a plaid woolen from the shelf, someone had given it to me, it belonged to their aunt, or something like that.  I get gifted stashes of fabric when relatives of friends die.  Every once in awhile there is an interesting cut and I decided to make something with it.  I need a challenge…

I have this Issey Miyake pattern from Vogue, 1320 and I’ve been dying to try it.  I love Issey Miyake patterns.  I’ve made many over the years, they are sometimes challenging, and always educational, no one cuts patterns like Miyake, and often I feel like I’m making one big origami project that turns out to be a lovely garment.

I’ve made at least three of his patterns from handwoven fabric over the years, and some from commercial fabric (Vogue 1204).

First I cut the muslin.  I have an attic full of cast off cuts of fabric that I can use up for muslins, and I assembled the main body parts from a couple of remnants to get an idea of fit.  So far so good.  The large yoke, which is actually bias in shape in the front along with the upper sleeve, is a really interesting  design, I’ve never done anything quite like it.  Actually the two piece sleeve is pretty unusual as well.  This could be a really cool coat or a really ugly one, but I’m more interested in the style and construction, and if I really really love it when it is finished, I could see experimenting with this pattern and some handwoven.

I found a few remaining yards of my stash of Sibonne from the 60′s, in red, for the underlining, and I have of course, a gorgeous silk sari in red, that will make a lovely lining.  Matching this plaid with these odd shaped pieces and bias yoke and sleeve has been challenging.  I might have nailed it but I won’t actually know until I start assembling.

It feels good to take scissors to cloth…

Stay tuned…

I was chatting with Jenny yesterday.  Jenny is our weaving guild president.  We were moaning that there were too many things on the calendar, and too much to do in the gardens (she has it worse, she has a sheep farm) and no time to actually get to the studio.  I’ve had a couple of fantastic weeks of interesting adventures, involving many friends, and all swirling around fiber.  And yet, all I can do this morning is fast pull something to start knitting, balling up a few skeins first, since I’m leaving in a couple hours for Massachusetts to help move my daughter to her apartment, via Pennsylvania, where I’ll attend my niece’s graduation, and help her and my step sister pack up as well, loading a truck, stopping by NJ on the way to Mass, loading up my daughter’s things, and eventually ending up in Mass, where the fun begins…  (Did I notice this morning in my email that WEBS is having a tent sale?  Shoot me now…)

I’ve acquired so many gorgeous fabrics over the last couple of weeks, in fact the last shipment of yardage I bought on my NY buying trip arrived earlier in the week.  I fondled it and photographed it, and kicked myself for not noting the fiber content of the Ombré Jacquard on the right, what was I thinking…  But the colors are glorious and I sit longingly looking at my dark and still sewing machine and sigh heavily, since this is not the season for sewing, nor is it the season for weaving.  At the moment, I am just putting one foot in front of the other and checking off the events on the calendar and soon it will be conference season, and I’ll be off almost every other week in the summer teaching, and I’m thinking that I won’t accomplish much of anything for the next foreseeable future.  Sigh…

Anyway, this group came from Stylecrest Fabrics Ltd., a wholesale fabric warehouse in Hoboken, NJ.  On the left is a colorful rayon, in the middle is a gorgeous cotton lawn, and on the right, an Ombré Jacquard of undertermined fiber content, probably wool and yes, I know how to do a burn test.  It’s on the list of stuff to do…

Thursday I drove to Bucks County PA, the place where Washington crossed the Delaware a number of years ago, that was the key turning point in the American Revolution, and I gave a one day workshop to a group of eager weavers, on Advanced Inkle Weaving techniques.  I pulled out the small loom that had the sampler for the class, and decided it would be a good idea to reconnect with it, and actually weave a bit.  Small looms are so portable and I find I can jump in with little fanfare and feel as if I am accomplishing something.

I graphed out the words, “Keep Calm and Carry Yarn”, which under my current circumstances represents about all I can do, just have yarn with me to feel like I’m still connected to the studio.  I’m hoping to trim a tote to carry my knitting.  The words are done in a 1:1 pick-up technique, over five blocks, and the center is a supplemental warp technique.  The right side is a 7 thread 2:1 pick-up.  No matter how many hours I have in a workshop on topics like this, there are never enough.  We barely covered the second technique, the name draft, hardest of the three, was mostly just discussed and I could tell by faces that everyone was brain fried.  Still, there were some beautiful bands happening, and I photographed not one.  :-(

And now, I’ve checked my route into Western PA, to make sure I’m not going through the mess on I-81, and it looks like I’m OK.  I’ll throw the rest of the things in the suitcase and head off.  I’m not use to packing clothing for social events, dinners, graduations, packing for teaching consists of black pants, assorted tops and a handwoven jacket.  I suppose I could do that this time, but it is nice to be in “street attire” and not have to look like Daryl Lancaster, fiber artist.  I’m just Christine’s step-aunt.  And I like that.

Stay tuned…

ed. Noted that WEBS tent sale starts next weekend.  What a relief…

I drove my friends Ginnie and Cindy to Newark airport on Tuesday, and picked up John Mullarkey, card weaver extraordinaire, who would be staying with me for almost a week, while he taught a card weaving workshop for my guild.

The workshop was wonderful.  I have developed quite an interest over the years in small looms, just because they are portable.  They produce wonderful trim for things like garments, and because I am primarily a garment maker, I don’t feel like I’m stretching too far outside of my medium (which is in itself not a bad thing, but for a textile artist, space and equipment can become oppressive when you try to dabble in too many areas…)

And I can store a lot of small looms in very little space. (Note: I am teaching a class called “Weave Your own Trim” at the American Sewing Guild Conference in Arlington VA in August along with a class called “Weave your own Cloth”.)

Tablet or card weaving is a pretty old technique.  Like thousands of years old.  And John Mullarkey is pretty good at it.  I’ve done card weaving before, even back in college in the 70′s.  I never grabbed a hold of it for the simple reason that I was taught to warp using the backstrap idea, where I was tied to something, a doorknob or a tree, or the warp was stretched between a couple of C-Clamps mounted on a table.  It didn’t appear very portable, and I have enough looms that aren’t portable, I can assure you.

John has developed a small loom that is more suitable for card weaving, it is about the profile of the Ashford Inklette, but that loom isn’t suitable for card weaving.  He had them available for the class to use.  Obviously the class loved the loom because he sold them all.

We learned variations on the Ram’s Head, on threaded-in cards.

And we learned variations on Egyptian Diagonals, easy warping, more concentration required for weaving.  I struggled during the class to keep my focus.  I don’t play well with others when I’m trying to concentrate, and I think I was sort of a bitch a couple of times, but once I get the structure, and can see it and not freak out when I lose my place, I’m a happier camper.  When you organize a workshop, and have to collect monies, and make sure everything is working properly and that students are happy, it makes it a little harder to concentrate on your own success in the workshop.  All of you out there who have ever organized a workshop for me, you know who you are and there is a special place in weaving/sewing heaven just for you.

And John is so much fun to hang out with.

We spent the day Saturday pouring over my collection of messenger bags, John wants to make a few, maybe design one for toting the loom he sells, and I’m more experienced at construction than he is.  So we stood at my cutting table for hours taking notes and discussing sequence of construction, design ideas, gussets and pockets and boxing and straps.  It was a great exercise for me as well.

Then John helped me prep for my all day demo on Sunday at Peters Valley, for their open house.  John warped an inkle loom while I warped one of my little Structos with a pattern gamp.

I finished my little pink sweater just hanging out in the evenings, finally, and though I should have listened to my instincts and made the smallest size, I like the sweater and think it will be perfect for the summer.  The yarn is Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool (color 12), and the pattern is Jemma from C2Knits.  This was my first exploration in top-down, and those of you who are in my knitting group know how much I struggled with this puppy.  Including snapped circular needle cables.  Although it was endless stockinette stitch, it made for great social knitting.  If I’m going to isolate myself for intense textile work, I’d rather do complex structures on an inkle loom.

Sunday was glorious, the weather here has been so perfect I’m sort of afraid of what the summer will bring.  The gardens are spectacular, and my husband is making changes and reworking areas as I write.  I eat outside every opportunity I get and find myself just sitting and watching the fish in the ponds and my stress level as gone from 100% down to almost nothing.

So John and I packed the car, and headed out to Peters Valley, a craft center near the Delaware River, in the northwest corner of New Jersey. My husband followed  a bit later in his car. I love the Valley.  I’ve been associated with it off and on for nearly four decades.  I first visited it around 1975 as part of a textile class in college.  I’ve done a stint on their board of directors, I’ve done the craft fair many times in the 1980′s, exhibited in their store and gallery and taught many many workshops in their weaving and surface design studios.  And I’ve taken some pretty amazing workshops there as well.

Sunday was their spring open house, with studio tours, and I was there to promote my two classes this summer, a fiber boot camp of sorts in July, multiple techniques over five days, from spinning on a drop spindle, dyeing wool with food grade dyes, plaiting, felting, Japanese Kumihimo, Tapestry weaving, Inkle loom weaving and Shaft loom weaving.  It is a fantastic survey of fiber and no experience is necessary.  The other workshop I’ll be teaching in August is a garment construction intensive.  John helped me set up the table displays and got me lunch, and helped sell my classes.  And he of course was a bit of a celebrity as well especially with his handwoven jacket trimmed with card woven bands from a class I taught a few years ago for the St. Louis Guild.  And my wonderful husband was there of course taking lots of photos.  He has also spent time on the board of directors for Peters Valley and built their very first website.

I talked to so many people, and enjoyed the entire event, Jenny our guild president came along as well and demonstrated spinning.  There was a lot of interest in raising sheep, which is way out of my league, but Jenny, who raises Icelandic sheep was eager to take over those questions.

And so ends another week of friends, and creativity and grand adventures.  I dropped John off at the airport yesterday morning, and came home and did a complete collapse.  Of course, there is no rest for the weary, and my lovely daughter called me in a panic last night, could I proof a 10 page paper for her on gender issues and sexuality in literature?  I’m not at my best at 11:00 pm, but I tried, and though not perfect, I think the paper read well, and she’ll be OK.  She finished up her last exam this morning, was hugely disappointed she couldn’t be here for John’s workshop, and will be moving to an apartment up near Deerfield, MA towards the end of the week.  I’ll be packing up the furniture in her room and a bed from the basement and connecting with my step sister who is also moving her daughter to Massachusetts after graduation on Sunday, so we will share a truck and get both girls relocated.  It sounds like a lot of heavy lifting and yet in my head, my first priority is  to start a new sweater or at least a new sock since I have nothing in my knitting bag at the moment.  I know there will be some down time in the next week, and I’ll need something to keep my hands busy.

Stay tuned…