Tag: 500 Vest

Keeping Busy…

I handle stress by keeping busy.  Having a project, a mission, a purpose, a challenge, keeps me from diving into paralysis, which sadly is happening to more and more of my friends as this quarantine keeps us from doing the things we love.  I’m so very lucky to have things that can challenge me.  I have a couple of wonderful studios, lots of supplies, more than I can use in a lifetime, and some wicked cool ideas.  And time.  If nothing else, I have time.  

I decided to take a page from my mom, because I’m not sure when my housekeeper is coming back, and since I’m not traveling, I really can do this myself.  I thought, with nine rooms, I could do one a day, maybe 15-20 minutes, depending on how dirty, and cover the whole house well in the same two weeks between when my housekeeper would normally come.  I decided on the den this morning.  It is a room I rarely use, I’m not sure why, but there are other areas of the house with more purpose for me.  This was the TV room, and it was where my late husband spent most of his non working time, in his Lazyboy in front of the TV.  I rarely went in the room. I never watch TV. Lazyboy lounge chairs don’t invite cuddling up on the couch.  Well, my husband died in that chair, the kids took it out of the house within two hours of his death.  I replaced it with a gorgeous leather Chesterfield couch, replaced all of the furnishings in there, and I really do love the room, but somehow, it still isn’t mine.  There are other rooms that call to me more.  Anyway, it was time to clean it.  I enjoyed tidying up, using the Swiffer to get cobwebs and dust, polishing the wood surfaces.  I used the Swiffer to dust the fan blades in the ceiling fan, and realized that the glass dome was pretty full of dust and bugs.  I reached in with the Swiffer and proceeded to melt the fibers onto the bulbs.  Really…

I turned off the light fixture, climbed up on the coffee table and tried to scrape off the melted Swiffer fibers.  My girlfriend called, her dad died, and she is struggling with the whole idea of a virtual funeral, Shiva, and family connections that aren’t really family connections since you can’t hug anybody.  We talked for awhile.  When we were finished, I tried to turn the light back on.  It wasn’t working.  Really?  

Long story short, and half an hour later, so much for my first day of, “I’ll spend 15-20 minutes cleaning one room…”; I ended up dismantling the glass globe, replacing the burned out bulb and screwing in the ones that loosened up when I tried to scrape them clean.  I washed the globe properly and reassembled the light fixture.  There aren’t enough hours in the day for all the maintenance one can end up doing in a multi room multi floor 100 year old house.  Sigh…

Meanwhile, Brianna and I and my editor Ann Marie are furiously working on launching patterns.  I launched the 500 vest yesterday, very proud of myself, and then woke up at 2am with a panic attack.  I’m such an American.  And I mean that in not a good way.  I’m selling downloadable patterns to those who can’t take my workshops, many of whom live in parts of the world that use a different measuring system than we American’s use.  The entire rest of the world uses the metric system, and we here in the US insist on using an Imperial measuring system.  How could I be so self absorbed to not even think that my materials all need to have metric equivalents?  So I spent the morning rewriting the free directions for the bias top, to include Metric measurements, and uploaded that today.  I’ll try to tackle the rewrites on the newly launched vest directions tomorrow.  I promise I won’t abandon my worthy readers from parts other than the US.  You count too.  Pun intended.

The 500 vest is one of my oldest patterns.  I’m not going in any particular order.  Just what seems most reasonable to “tackle next”.  The swing dress directions are at the editor, and the tunic is basically ready to go, but the editor is much slower than we are. She is pretty amazing. The 500 vest is the one, for those who have studied with me, with the square armhole and armhole/neckbands.  

 

Side bar…  We all have them.  Warps on the loom from a workshop that finally get woven off years later because we need the loom.  Mostly they are samples and not really usable as a finished thing.  In a round robin type workshop with Karen Donde on Bubble Cloth/differential shrinkage, my table loom had four yards of a tencel and wool/silk warp.  It was ridiculously slow to weave.  It took a few years until I needed the loom for something else.  It was a cool piece of 8″ wide yardage, and not being a scarf person, I pulled out my 500 vest and used the sample for the bands.  This is also a great place to use Inkle bands or Card/Tablet woven bands.  

 

So the vest pattern is now up on the site, available for purchase here, and the directions as always, are free downloads, but now they will be on my regular website under Extras.  I’ll add metric measurements ASAP.  

Meanwhile…

I had an odd day between projects, and I pulled a couple things out of my closet.  A couple of years ago,  I had made a sort of zippered vest from the Crimp Cloth fabric from a Dianne Totten workshop, and honestly, never liked the way it fit or looked. 

But the fabric was pretty cool.  I pulled it out of the closet and decided to start hacking it up and eventually came up with a vest I actually like.  I took about 8 inches out of each side.  I love reworking stuff that isn’t working anymore or never really worked to begin with.  Makes you really think, and God knows, I do need to do that on occasion…

My 27 year old daughter is always on me to give my silhouettes a more youthful feel.  That isn’t my demographic, but I listen.  I’ve had enough younger students request a hood on at least one of my garments that I drafted my tunic to include this option.  I made this striped wool, commercial fabric into a prototype, and I gotta say, this is one of my go to pieces in my wardrobe.  I’m starting to get the point of a hood.  Anyway, my daughter said I needed to add a Kangaroo pouch.  I had enough scrap left, that I could at least try.

So I tested the pouch, after measuring 47 of her hoodie sweatshirts, and drafted and constructed the pocket.  The next step was to add it to the directions.  So I illustrated the construction details, and all that is waiting on my editor, who is still working on the dress.  I’m being patient.

I then got the idea to do a swing coat, not only with a hood, but to try it with the in-seam button front option from that same tunic.  That meant that the center front had to be cut on the straight of grain, but the rest could be cut like a swing coat.  I drafted it, figured out the construction sequence, and pulled a purple wool I’ve been sitting on for so many years I couldn’t tell you when or where I obtained it.  And I found a very cool rayon challis for the lining in the stash.

The purple hooded swing coat is a prototype for this yardage.  I wove this at the end of last year, in a huge hurry because I had to clear the loom in order to move it to the new studio.  All the wool and mohair in it is handdyed.  The weft is a commercial black wool.

I want to lengthen the purple coat, about 4″, and make the in-seam button placket 2″ wide instead of the 1 1/4″ from the tunic pattern.  The hood is pretty cool.  And it has pockets.  Really!  So I’ve corrected the pattern, and laid out the pattern onto the wool/mohair yardage.  I’ll cut it out tomorrow in between the tedious metric recalculation of  my vest directions.  

My daughter has had a bit of a setback.  Her computer system is pretty old, like college days old.  It just didn’t have the computing power or memory to handle a program like Adobe Illustrator and all the layers it takes to vectorize my scanned patterns.  She ordered new components from a computer store in our area, picked them up curbside last night, and spent the evening trying to build herself a faster system.  She is mostly there but stuck on something to do with Windows 10, of course, and we are trying to get in touch with my tech support, who has been great directing her from afar, but we may need a physical intervention…  She was in the middle of the tunic drafts, so hopefully she will be back up and running soon.

Tomorrow, I’ll tackle cleaning the dining room and see what trouble I can get into there…

Stay tuned…

Lessons from a housewife…

My 88 year old mom (I think she will be 89 on the 2nd) lives in an upscale senior living community in a Maryland suburb of Baltimore with her husband of 13 years.  A few years after my dad died, mom went to a high school reunion and reconnected with someone she dated in HS, and within the year they were married.  A fairytale in her mid 70’s.  No one thought that they’d both still be alive 13 years later.  I know my mom gets frustrated, her eyes aren’t what they use to be, she barely quilts anymore, and her arthritis in her hands keeps her from doing many of the crafts she loved, but she is safe in her little apartment with her husband, and they go up to the center a couple times a day for companionship and fabulous meals.  ( I can attest to the quality of the food, better than most restaurants I eat in…)

Anyway, mom usually calls me Saturday mornings.  Oddly I didn’t hear from her and I worried.  I know they are on severe lock down in her facility, no one is allowed to leave their apartment except for medical issues, physical therapy, doctors appointments, etc.  They get meals delivered, and can supplement with groceries, which my beloved sister, who lives about 45 minutes away from them delivers whenever mom asks.  My sister can no longer even bring them to her door, she must leave them with the staff at the center and the staff delivers them to my mom.  

Anyway, last evening around dinner time, I called my mom to see how she was doing under lock down.  It was the brightest and most confident voice that greeted me on the other end, I almost didn’t recognize her voice.  She was cheery and chipper and when I asked how things were going, expecting to hear sad tales of how hard it is to be quarantined, she was all over the situation, taking charge and doing what she has done best for most of her adult life.  

Mom was married at 19, in an era when the goal for most women was to marry, raise a family and care for that husband and family with everything you had.  It was her job, it was her only job, and she did it exceptionally well, I never heard a complaint from her, she was a master at keeping a spotless house, keeping three nourishing meals on the table within a tight budget, making all of our clothes until we could make our own, and even sewing all of the drapes and slipcovers when necessary.  My dad wanted for nothing.

My mom now lives in a center where meals are provided, housekeeping services and laundry in their apartment are provided, and none of the things that defined her for most of her life are needed anymore.  I never really thought about that, sort of like really retiring and having all those things available to you, must be, I don’t know, the ultimate reward?  Maybe not…

So imagine my shock when mom was telling me with all of the enthusiasm of a 60 year old, not an 88 year old, that meals are now delivered, she makes sure they always include the soup, which she then stores for the next day, and with half a sandwich each, she can make lunch for both of them.  She now has to clean her own apartment, because sending in housekeeping is too risky.  She was all over that, “I clean one room a day, very manageable.”  She told me that they deliver the bed linens now, but they can’t come in and make the bed, but that’s not a problem.  She certainly knows how to make a bed.  I have this vision of my mom saying, “Hold my beer, I’ve got this…”

I’m really proud of my mom, she has amazing life skills, and even at 88, she knows how to be organized and work with what she has.  I have been haunted by her enthusiasm and her ability to take charge of a situation and have replayed her upbeat and confident conversation many times in my head.  I want to be her when I grow up.

As long as I stay away from the news and social media, I actually can function as if life is moving forward.  I’ve always been the kind of person who does best with intense pressure.  Probably my most creative award winning fabric was designed the week my husband was dying, because I was so desperate to do anything to distract me from the tragedy that had befallen my family, I grabbed yarn off the shelf and turned on the computer and designed like my life depended on it.  In a way it did.  (You can buy the draft on my website, click here.)  The piece is called Chaos.

I’ve said in the last couple of blogs, that in all of this chaos right now, death toll in NJ is up to 4,200, that I’m very very grateful for the gift of time and the ability to stay hidden in my lovely studios and 1) Make stuff, and 2) Work feverishly on digitizing as many patterns as I can before the quarantine ends, travel starts again, or I actually succumb to this virus.  The bias top is up on the site, the vest with armhole bands is almost ready to launch.  Just waiting on final edits on the directions.  I hired a friend, who has written sewing manuals and edited a sewing magazine, to proof all of my documentation.  She is thorough and sharp.  I feel like I have a great team on this, and my daughter is just miraculous, even though she gets really cranky when I tell her stuff still isn’t perfect.

We started this weekend on the dress.  The directions are into the third rounds of edits before they go out to the proofer, and we just did the second round of edits on the pattern.  

And I took all the leftovers from the dress I talked about in my last blog post, and cut out a motorcycle vest.  The leather was a bit challenging, and I made a major mistake this morning, connecting the wrong edge of the armhole bands together.  With leather there are no mistakes.  Fortunately I had enough leather left to re-cut the right armbands.  I was annoyed with myself.  I told a friend that I’m use to making stupid silly mistakes that can easily be fixed, but I rarely if ever make mistakes that cost me fabric, especially leather.  I was dwelling too much on my conversation with  mom?

Anyway, I finished the vest this evening, except for anchoring the leather facings inside, so they don’t move around, that has to be done by hand.  And it is wonderful.  I tried on the original again, as I was starting to sew this one together and realized that I’ve put on a few pounds, oops, and so I tweaked some of the seams to give me a squish more.

Though I’m hiding in the basement, I’m still able to connect with people, there is this blog of course, I cherish all of your comments.  The board of directors for my guild was able to meet, virtually (I’m the treasurer so on the board as well), we used Zoom and I gotta say, I really liked the format.  We had a preprinted agenda, we followed it, I didn’t have to drive 45 minutes to the president’s house, and sit and look at delicious baked goods and dips and cheese and crackers for the 3 hour meeting and try to show some self restraint.  I sat looking at the computer with my tea, might have had a little wine, and we accomplished what we needed to do.  

I also had a Zoom date with my 81 year old musician friend, we set up our phones near our music  stands and played recorder music together.  It wasn’t the same as in person, but it was great to play with another person.  And last night, we ordered chicken bacon ranch pizza from the local restaurant in town, they are doing pick up and delivery only, and the driver came, left it on the porch, and it was the best pizza I’ve ever eaten, I enjoyed that so very much, and the margaritas we made helped a lot!

I’m sure my house isn’t as clean as my mom’s, and I really have to get outside and pick up all the dog poop, it is getting bad out there.  But I vacuumed my bedroom this morning, and cleaned my toilet and sink.  And I keep the kitchen clean as I go.  The kids, well, their standard of cleanliness and order is very different from mine.  They are much more their dad, so sometimes it is a battle, but I feel like I was trained by the best, and I’m embracing this, because of course my housekeeper can’t come and clean, but I’ve got this…

Stay tuned…

Working Really Hard…

First, a huge thank you to all of my sewing friends who have stopped their lives to make masks.  I feel hugely guilty I’m not participating, because, as I explained in the last post, I don’t have any materials, my daughter used them all a couple months ago for Australian Marsupial pouches for all of the injured critters in the fires.  I’d have to go out to the store to procure supplies and that would really defeat the point of hiding at home.  My daughter was able to find a small pack of elastic in the bottom of a craft bin, and used some scraps to make masks for us.  She has a fine metal’s bench and rolled floral wire for the nose piece.

And so I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked, or so it seems.  The big news is I actually managed to, after running a test by a bunch of trusted sewing friends, launch a pattern today.  I started with the simplest one I have, to see how this all works.  I edited the directions and the intro to the pattern about 19 times.  To the point where I just didn’t care anymore, which is a dangerous place to be, I can assure you.  So for better or for worse, you can purchase the PDF download of my bias top.  More patterns to follow.

The pattern is available for purchase here, and the directions, which will continue to be free, are now on my website.  It is easier there to keep updated.  And while I was there, I redid my Extra’s page, because the amount of stuff on it was becoming untenable.  Found some fun stuff I had forgotten about, like this essay I did on making paperdolls as a kid.  

I’m always open to opinions and edits.  Obviously the pattern will work for commercial fabrics, but I have always been a handweaver who works with the handwoven community, so yardage requirements are specifically for handweavers.  We are working on the 500 vest now, as I write,  that’s the one with the armhole band. We are into the fourth round of edits.

Meanwhile, we are fixing puzzles like crazy, I always have one up in the living room.  The latest one, a lovely gift from my sister, is really challenging, I’m sorry to say not my favorite.  It is all shades of grey. Dalmatian puppies.   Except for a couple little areas with pink feet.  I much prefer color.  Lots of it.

I finished my dress.  This was a challenge as well.  Just about everything in my life right now is a challenge, but we weavers are made of stern stuff, and we know how to pick up a shuttle and carry on…

I want to say it takes a village, and after my last blog post, and how I wasn’t sure how I felt about the leather, one of my long time friends, Sheila O’Hara, extraordinary weaver who wrote the book on weaving contemporary Jacquard, before digital Jacquard looms became available, casually commented, “Why don’t you embroider on the leather?”  Yeah, no.  Embroidering on leather would be really really challenging, because you can’t sew into leather easily, usually it involves pliers.  BUT…  I could couch yarns, like the kind I wove with…  This was a nail biter, I did samples and tests, but small ones, I didn’t want to waste the precious leather, and once I started in, there was no going back, you can’t rip stitches out of leather because the holes will show.  This was quite the nail biter…

I’m so happy with how this turned out.  And the closure on the back worked out brilliantly.  One of the couched threads as it came off the back neck, I was able to crochet into a loop, and couch it back on to cross the upper back again and end up back at the neckline.  Oh, and the dress has pockets!

The dress fits like a glove.  It actually isn’t supposed to, but I’m packing on a little weight here, because all I’m doing is eating and sewing and sitting on my butt by the computer rewriting directions and intros and cover pages.  I really have to go back to online yoga, since my local yoga studio is shut down for the quarantine.  And stop eating cookies and drinking wine…

And so I was able to cut out the many pieces to make this motorcycle vest in the leftover fabric from the dress and the leftover leather.

I still have almost a full skin and a half to do something fun with.

I’m having fun sitting and sewing, and the 16″ metal separating zipper arrived today from WAWAK.com.  

And so dear readers, I hope you stay safe, more than 2300 people have died in NJ, many of them first responders, EMT’s, hospital staff, store employees, police officers.  I hope where you live it all seems overblown.  I can assure you, it isn’t here.  We are a dense state, and are suffering for it.

Play with yarn, do whatever it takes to be as distracted and productive as you can.  I’ve actually started to pick salads from the garden.  There is something renewing about that.  Stay off never ending news, it is really really painful.  For those of you making masks, I bow down with respect.  

Stay tuned…