Paprika Bites the Dust

Do you remember my beautiful Paprika dress, which was coming together so perfectly? Well, unless I lose about seven pounds, it’s going to have to stay a thought. After all that hard work, I closed up the back seam to find the dress is way too tight in some areas, and way too long in others – and I can’t go back to fix them without undoing hours and hours of work. I simply don’t have the heart for that right now, so I’m putting Paprika in the failure pile for now, and moving on to other things.

But it’s okay! Failure and mistakes are part of sewing. And since I know how much you loooove my modeling photos, here’s a consolation prize: a really funny video that I made one lovely unemployed day in my youth.

On Deck

Remember this?

Even though it’s the middle of winter, this is the perfect time to begin thinking about warm weather wardrobes. (Ooh, alliteration!) For sewers and non-sewers alike, it takes time to pull out and review last year’s summer clothes, and decide what needs to be added to the collection for this year.

And that’s where the similarity ends, because sewers can do something non-sewers cannot: make our own clothes! Once we decide what we need and want, we can make it happen.

I am a little embarrassed to admit that I have never owned summer clothes. I’ve had t-shirts, of course, but they are the kind you get from volunteering, or the merch table at concerts, or the men’s section of your local discount clothing store. I’ve never had shorts, skirts, tanks, or anything that said ‘summer’. Or ‘spring’. Or even ‘cute’. So this year, I’ve got a lot of sewing to do.

Me, every summer ... minus the hat.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a frilly tank top and a simple t-shirt in the works, as well as a maxi dress. I also whipped up a pair of shorts. But what I don’t have is a vision … yet. For that, I’m going to look both to high end designers and the world around me. In a series of posts, I’ll share my finds with you, and maybe we'll both find some inspiration for our wardrobes this year!

Last Seen in Paris

It’s that time of year for fashion weeks in the major fashion cities, but only one of those cities hosts the haute couture designers: Paris!

And just a few days ago, those designers sent their Spring/Summer 2013 collections down the runway. Thanks to FashionTV on Youtube, the rest of us can see some of the highest expressions of art in the fashion world.

Compactelated

That’s ‘compacted’ plus ‘elated’, because I’m super pumped to show you one of my main Frugal Sewing™ techniques!

Frugal Sewing™ goes above and beyond paying the lowest price. It’s really about getting the most out of the things you buy, find, receive, and have around the house – basically, being maximally resourceful. Using cans, jars, and dishes as pattern weights; drawing patterns on old newspapers; keeping your fabric and notions organized so you know exactly what you have (and exactly what you may need); and so on. I’m very passionate about Frugal Sewing™, and about being resourceful in general, because I believe that there is so much value in the world that is not being tapped!

Also, fun factoid: did you know the word frugal comes from the Latin word frux, meaning fruit? Try thinking of fruit and fruitfulness the next time you hear the word frugal!

La Robe Paprique

I’ve got a new dress in the works!

It’s based on McCall’s pattern 5971, a pretty and simple dress with details that make it the perfect dress block for every body type to wear in every situation. I’ve made this dress twice before, making little tweaks each time. This time, I was inspired by Gertie’s version of this dress, to make the whole thing a little more fitted than my previous versions, especially in the waist and derriere.

Change up the fabric from a mid-weight woven to a sheer knit, and now you have something casual and slightly alluring; use a mid-weight knit in a bold color and wear leggings underneath, and now you have something funky and youthful. Make it in black wool and line it with silk (as I plan to, eventually) and you have the ultimate little black dress. The darts in back allow for shape over the derriere, and the box pleats in front easily cover a full belly or abdomen. The princess seams in the bodice make for a snug yet comfortable fit around the upper torso, and the sweetheart neckline is just defined enough to be sweet without being saccharine. Can you tell that I love this dress?

To finish the sleeves, I turned the edge under twice and laid ribbon on the right side of the hem as I sewed through the folds. I didn’t even cut the ribbon off the spool! I find that sewing ribbon from the spool minimizes waste. Anyway, I love the effect so much that I’m going to do the neckline and the waistband seams the same way.

The box pleat on this pattern is quite deep, as you can see in this picture. Isn’t this fabric fabulous? If I’d looked more closely at it when I bought it, I would have purchased more. I bought it almost five and a half years ago from Fabric.com, my absolute favorite online source for fabric. Now that I am sewing daily, I get to finally use the fabrics I spent years accumulating. New clothes and stash reduction! It’s exciting.

The Other Half

A growing trend in womenswear lately has been the masculine look – borrowing garments, lines, and styles from traditional menswear, especially their cold weather offerings. I’m not sure how the gents feel about this borrowing, but that does make menswear fashion shows that much more important to us ladies!

And conveniently, menswear designers just wrapped up their Paris shows, premiering their Fall/Winter 2013/2014 looks. Check out the new looks for next season, courtesy of FashionTV’s Menswear channel on Youtube.

The Fabric in the Stone

“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.” – Michelangelo

This quote from Michelangelo has inspired me for many years, as I derive a great deal of my artistic inspiration from the materials I use to create. Below are some fabrics which I’ll be working with over the next few months, and the projects which I see in them.

Office pants:


Dress pants, perhaps cuffed and pegged:


Maxi dress:


Cocktail blouse:


Simple tee (or something like that):


Frilly, girly, tank top:

Winter Weather

We got a little bit of snow here in New England, and it was so pretty I took a few photos to share with you all. Enjoy, and see you in a few days with a new video!

 

Purple and Flyyy

My shorts are done! I love them!

 

 

I may go back and tweak the hem and slim some fullness out of the leg … or I may not.

 

 

They are fabulous and feel awesome! I love the cool, textured fabric and I love the little details I put into this project, like the front button fly with loops instead of button holes:

 

I also made two openings, the above pictured button fly and a side zip:

 

These shorts are definitely a success and a major plus for my wardrobe! And I think I finally cracked the crotch-curve code, so look out for a video on drafting your own pants patterns some time in the future.

Wacky and Eccentric and Oh-So-Fun

I recently read some books on personal style and individuality, and just had to share my thoughts on them. The books are Wacky Chicks and Eccentric Glamour, both by Simon Doonan. They are both interesting, entertaining reads in their own rights, though I gave the edge to one of them in my video review. Enjoy!

Bermuda Was Inadvisably Sewn In One Day

Pants (and by extension, shorts) have been my nemesis for as long as I’ve been sewing, with my only success being a pair of knit pants I whipped up one afternoon. I’ve tried everything to make the perfect pants pattern – altering commercial patterns, drafting my own, and tracing RTW pants that fit. The one success I made came from tracing a pair of RTW pants, freehand, onto some old fabric I had lying around. But a freehand trace right onto the fabric is hardly reproducible! So I was back at square one.

My successful knit pants.

A few weeks ago, a friend gave me a several pairs of pants and jeans she no longer wanted, and I found among them a pair of pants which I just barely squeezed into. Aside from being a mite too small, they fit and flattered me pretty well! so I took them apart and used the pieces to make a pattern.

A glimpse of deconstructed RTW.

Pattern pieces, laid out.

Shorts are just pants with the lower legs cut off, so I made the pattern pieces twenty-four inches long; ample for any shorts I might make and easy to extend into pants. I added seam allowance all around the pieces because the original pants had stretch, and my seersucker did not. I was very happy to have a small pile of scraps and a 3/4 yard remnant after I’d finished cutting out all the pieces. I love how tightly compacted my cutting layouts are, because it maximizes the remainder of the fabric, allowing you get another project or two (or three!) out of it. Waste not want not, and all that jazz.

All cut out and ready to sew!

Patternmaking is – for me – mentally intense, and finding the straight grain and cutting the pattern are always a slog after getting through the patternmaking. If I finish these steps late in the day, I typically leave the next steps, machine basting and fitting, for the subsequent day. If I am unlucky/foolish, however, I finish early in the day and zoom right on to those next steps. That's what I did today, and whew! Every time I do this, I am wiped out and useless for the rest of the day.

I made sure to take a few pictures of my proto-shorts, to diagnose fit issues before the final sewing, so hopefully things go smoothly for that phase of things.

They’re All Going to Laugh At You

The last time I wore shorts, I was eleven years old.

I remember that last day, and the shorts I was wearing – in fact, the whole outfit I was wearing – like it was just yesterday.

My grade was on a whale watching cruise, and the weather was gorgeous. I’d picked out one of my favorite ensembles to celebrate both the fine weather and the special day. It was a white button-up shirt and lime green shorts held up with matching suspenders. The fabric for both was a mid-weight cotton that was always wrinkled, because I didn’t know you could iron play clothes. I thought I looked pretty fabulous.

In addition to always being wrinkled, the shirt-and-shorts combo was at least a year old, maybe even eighteen months old. Given the growth surge I was experiencing at the time, wearing something so old was definitely risky as far as a proper fit was concerned. In hindsight, I probably looked ridiculous, with my long, skinny legs cascading down from the too-short lime green-and-white get up, but I definitely didn’t have the gift of hindsight then.

I was fine until I had the misfortune of catching some of my classmates laughing at me: doubled over, can’t breathe, hysterical laughing. And these were boy classmates, at a time when I was beginning to vaguely understand the importance of male/female roles and relationships. I wasn’t sure what about me was so hilarious, and desperately hoped they weren’t actually laughing at me. Paralyzed by humiliation and confusion, I was uncharacteristically silent, unable to ask what was so funny. It was the last time I wore shorts.

In fact, for many years after that, I didn’t even expose my legs. I’d wear skirts here and there for special occasions, but always with tights. In my early-mid twenties, fueled solely by liquid courage, I recall wearing bare legs under a skirt precisely two times. And then the music stopped again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now I am older, wiser, and less inclined to shoulder the yoke of social acceptability. I am also drowning in fabric, especially old pieces which I bought for all the wrong reasons. One such piece, a purple and white checkered seersucker, has been on my radar for at least a year, but every project I wanted to use it for fell through. Today, I finally found its calling: shorts! Unabashedly preppy bermuda shorts, to go with my purple-on-white Nikes (another ill advised purchase, but these things happen). Perhaps I’ll pull out my sleeveless white polo shirt, to complete the prep school look I’ve always secretly admired. Stay tuned for the making of shorts, the baring of legs, and the adoption of a new look.