Fun with felting

At last I've completed a sewing project worth reviewing and blogging about.  It actually started way back in October when I went through my fabric stash and unearthed a couple of wool jersey pieces way down at the bottom.  They probably date from the 1980s because I was quite fond of wool jersey dresses back then.  I have since more or less sworn off wool of any kind because of moths here in Texas (and probably also here in our very accessible old house).  These two pieces were nibbled on, especially along the outward facing fold, and since they were unusable as so, I decided to felt them, something I had long been wanting to try. 

I found three articles on felting wool jersey in my archive of Threads magazines, and after a little experimenting with some scraps, I plopped the first piece into a washer full of hot water and then into a hot dryer with satisfactory results.  The articles suggested repeating the process three times, but even one time left me with such a reduced piece of fabric that I stopped there.  Unfortunately there was not enough for this Marcy Tilton jacket (for which felted jersey is one of the recommended fabrics).  The second piece was longer and by dint of careful placement of the pattern pieces I was able to use it.  It also helped that there are no hems or facings on this jacket.  All those outer edges are simply cut and left raw since felted jersey doesn't ravel.  I'm not a raw-edge sort of sewer, but after trying various stitching effects on the edges, I had to conclude that they looked better left alone.

As always, I made a muslin for the jacket which led me to make a couple of crucial fitting changes.  (For details, see my review on Pattern Review.)  The result is a jacket that I'm really pleased with.   The felted jersey was easy to sew, if a bit bulky.  Of course, it wasn't the three-hour wonder that other reviewers had boasted about.  I think I'm constitutionally incapable of making something quickly.  And, of course, I couldn't just leave it plain.  When I showed it to Mr C, he asked "what are those lines all over it?"  Those, I explained, are embellishment.

That first shorter piece of jersey is still laying on my cutting table, silently challenging me to come up with an idea for turning it into another jacket. I just hope I'll get it done before winter here is over.

Illustration Friday - Secret

 

After congratulating myself in January for having attained my 2012 goal of doing one Illustration Friday per month, I didn't keep up this year.  And I managed this one only by a fluke, because I had given up on it yesterday when I should have had it finished in order to link it to IF.  But when I went to the IF website today to see what the new topic was, it had not yet been changed. So I worked on this a bit more until I was somewhat satisfied with it.  Only somewhat.  Sometimes things come together and sometimes they don't.

White birds at White Rock

 A spin around White Rock Lake on our bicycles always includes a stop at Sunset Bay where a variety of water fowl hang out on the mud flats and fallen tree limbs.  What a surprise to discover a lone elegant white swan!  From what I could find out it is a Mute Swan and has been at the lake for several months, but no one knows how it came to be there. The American White Pelicans are also here to spend the winter, providing an ongoing show as they glide around the lake or soar overhead displaying the black tips on their ample wings.  The big birds always seems to be escorted by a flotilla of amusing little coots.  If you'd like to see some really fine photos others have taken of the pelicans and various White Rock Lake birds, click here and here.  Such a treasure we have in this lovely lake right in the heart of East Dallas!

 

Drama in my life

A whole month and more has gone by without my writing a single post here on my blog.  It wasn't that I had nothing of interest to blog about, but rather that I hadn't enough time to blog because of too many interesting things. Foremost among them has been a new acting class at the Skillman Southwestern branch library.  My first foray (in my entire life) into acting was back in February with a class focusing on Shakespeare taught by Hassan El-Amin of the Dallas Theater Center.  Fourteen very diverse "senior" individuals came together, learned, laughed, and participated in what all agreed was a very enriching experience.  So much so that most of us were unwilling to simply bid adieu and close the door on this new activity.  So we organized ourselves and chose a new project: Spoon River by Edgar Lee Masters.

Now, Spoon River may ring some distant bell for those of you around my age, because I remember bits of it being included in high school English literature anthologies.  It consists of a hundred-plus free verse monologue-poems spoken by the dead of the fictive town of Spoon River.  First published in 1915, it has been adapted to be performed many times over the decades. There's even been one with William Shatner!  To tell the truth, after I started reading through it, I thought it was just too depressing, as Masters was generally critical of small-town life and the people therein.  Plus the 19th century was not all that kind to women, which is amply reflected in these poem portraits.  But, as we chose the characters we wanted to include and honed our interpretation of them, my appreciation of Spoon River grew. There's actually quite a bit of humor in many of them, and there are some lyrical, upbeat ones as well.  We selected it at the end of March, met every other week from April through June, and gave our first performance at the Skillman Southwestern library at the end of June, then another performance at a large senior community at the end of August.  It was totally DIY, in what we chose and how we presented it, including props by one of the members and a program and signage by me.  Mr. C has, of course, been obligated to attend, but this is something I would invite others to see without fear of embarrassment.  And, in fact, we are hoping to present this again at other venues in the future.

In the meantime, right after our last performance, we began a new acting class at the Skillman Southwestern library.  Debbie Rubin, the manager of the library, worked tirelessly to have the Dallas Theater Center supply us with another teacher.  Who turned out to be Michael Schraeder, an actor and drama professor with an impressive resume.  Actually, Mike had some big shoes to fill, because Hassan had wowed us all, but it was very  beneficial to have someone new with a different methodology, especially since for some of us, this was only our second acting class ever.  And this time, instead of choosing something to present, Mike wanted us to write our own short scripts with one or two characters. Oh!  Some in the class wanted to, some didn't, and others, including myself, didn't think we had enough time to do this with any degree of proficiency.  In fact, I was under the impression that the script I wrote was just for a class exercise, which was perhaps all to the good as I would have rewritten and fussed and worried over it far too much otherwise.  I hadn't had any problem learning the monologs by heart, but I discovered it was another matter to learn lines (and deliver them convincingly) when there were other people and their lines involved. Right until the last moment, people were still clutching their scripts and reading their parts.  But, amazingly, the actual performance went off with barely a hitch.  Mr. C professed himself well entertained, saying it was much better than he expected from what I had told him.

We, now called The Skillman Players, owe many thanks to the Skillman Southwestern Library Friends who have graciously sponsored our acting classes, printed up our posters and programs, and provided refreshments at our library performances.  Not to mention being our enthusiastic audience.  So it seems that we, The Skillman Players, are now an established entity.  We're not sure what we'll do next, but after all this, we simply can't not continue. To tell the truth, I've discovered that I really have no desire to be actor, but, on the other hand, I'm enjoying this tremendously.  As one of the other members said to me one day, "I had a bad morning, I've had a bad day, but I come here and forget all of that completely."  

It has been time consuming, and I'm glad to have a little hiatus, so I can dabble in dyeing again and get some sewing done among other things.  But I'm sure I'll soon be ready for some more drama in my life.

More knit top necklines

I sewed for many, many years, making anything and everything from coats for myself to a sports jacket for Mr. C. But always I made what was on the pattern envelope.  Exactly.  After all, there are so many enticing patterns, and pairing a wonderful fabric to the right one seemed like choice enough.  I still can't keep myself from buying more patterns that I can ever hope to sew, but at the same time I've learned to take liberties with the designs, most especially where knit tops are concerned. 

Simplicity 4076

Once you have a knit top body that fits you, one that you find comfortable and flattering, it's easy to create different looks just by changing the neckline.  My TNT (tried-and-true) knit top body began as Simplicity  4076 which I refined with my usual alternations: narrower in the shoulders and back, wider in the hips.  I've made the surplice version, changed it to an above-the-bust surplice style; made the view with the gathers in the front, then raised the neckline slightly on subsequent versions.  And then I started looking around for other interesting neckline detailing to put more variation into my wardrobe of knit tops.

Last year I did a short post on knit top necklines, but here I'd like to show you in more detail exactly how I graft other necklines onto an existing pattern.  Keep in mind that I've taken no pattern drafting classes or the like, so this is a somewhat trial-and-error method.  But, with a little (or to be honest, a lot) of patience and some experimentation, you should be able to achieve satisfactory results.

My Etsy shop is open!

I know I must have an entrepreneurial gene.  It sent me around our neighborhood when I was kid selling greeting cards and such and made me consider trying to earn some money sewing when I was first married, but it has mostly lain dormant.  It showed some signs of life in the late 90s when I glazed and stenciled a whole bunch of flower pots and had a booth one year during the Munger Place home tour, at the end of which I stashed the remaining pots in a cabinet along with all the lovely little business cards I made. (The pots have made handy occasional gifts over the years.)  When my friend Linda and I go to art festivals every year we always fantasize about being one of those vendors, selling our creations to the eager throngs. But, frankly, I know I couldn't take sitting there smiling stiffly and making small talk with those throngs for hours on end.  So...what about an online shop?

I've been eyeing Etsy ever since I discovered it, considering what I might make and sell.  Printed and dyed scarves?  Something digital?  Or how about those mini crossbody bags that I made for myself recently?   Possibilities I still might pursue.  But what I am now actually offering in my Etsy shop is vintage: clothes, shoes and sewing patterns.  To be specific, my own clothes, shoes and sewing patterns.

I named my shop All of My Yesterdays because this is my past in silk, cotton, linen, and, yes, in polyester.  This is my coming-of-age in mini-dresses and maxi-dresses, and my career years in a whole range of outfits.  Lots of mauves and roses and lavenders and a predilection toward the feminine.  (Well, I was a woman who came home, donned overalls and stripped paint off of woodwork and knocked down old plaster walls.)  I started out sewing Vogue patterns back when I was young and impoverished, and I kept on sewing even when I worked in department stores and had both the means and the daily opportunity (not to mention the employee discount) to buy ready-made.

So, indeed, I had a lot of clothes.  And shoes.  And sewing patterns.  That is, I still have them, or a good many of them because a large old house has a nice large attic. And then they went to a storage unit.  But now they've come home, and they're filling my dining room and a good portion of a spare bedroom.  I decided that I no longer needed to hold on to this tangible part of my past, keeping them forever packed away.  But neither could I bring myself to simply haul them off and donate them, knowing they would be just more anonymous garments squeezed on racks and pawed over indiscriminately. How sad would they be!  (Okay, I tend to anthropomorphize my possessions a bit.)

Thus an Etsy shop seemed just the solution.  I would get to try my hand at selling something (with all the work done comfortably at home), and my retro wardrobe would have a chance to find its way to happy new wearers.  I hope.  I only opened my shop yesterday, and I'm not waiting for my first sale with bated breath.  Whatever happens, the whole experience of setting up the shop has been interesting.  And labor intensive, but, then, I do tend to do things thoroughly.  Beyond the major tasks of prepping the garments and photographing them, there are also details like shipping and payments to become informed about.  Etsy has reams of info on all the things to take into consideration when writing, for example, your profile, your policies, your About page, etc.  It can be both instructive and overwhelming.  On the daily Etsy Finds email where they frequently feature a shop, a woman said that she opened her shop on a whim one afternoon when her son was staying home sick from school.  Huh?!

Anyway, I'm giving it a try.  So far I only have ten garments listed which seems paltry for the amount of time I've put into it, but I'm now over that doing-something-new-getting-it-right stage, so I think things will go more smoothly and quickly, or so I hope.  At this point I'd need to be charging a couple of hundred dollars or more per garment if I wanted to be justly compensated for my time.  There were certainly a few occasions when I seriously questioned my decision to do this. But once begun, I felt I had to see it through. And I have enjoyed revisiting my wardrobe: examining, cleaning, pressing, photographing and writing about each garment.  Remembering when I wore it, who I was then.   

Illustration Friday - Fresh

 

 I found this charming school girl in stockvault's free photos, and I thought she looked like the essence of fresh in her pristine white blouse.  She has her fresh, new notebook open, ready to write down what she is learning. (Perhaps a French lesson, and she is dreaming of the day when she will go to Paris.)  You can see the original photo on this stockvault link; I made a few changes, removing an item at the edge of the desk and most of print from the book, plus another ornament that was in her hair.  Then I made several copies on which I used different filters, blend modes and masks to arrive at the image you see here; I also changed the color of her jumper from black to dark blue and added the edge of the paper that overhangs the desk.

For the background, I used an abstract golden background I had previously made, on top of which I layered several photos of foliage in various blend modes simply to add texture and color and complexity.  The final step was the daisies (fresh as a daisy!) which I cut out from a photo from stock.xchng.

I never know what I will eventually think about each illustration I do until some time has passed and I can look at it more objectively.  When I have just finished one, I am usually somewhat amazed at what has taken shape from this combination of assorted elements, and there are always certain details that I am especially pleased with, that seem just right. So it is with this, and I hope it gives you a moment of enjoyment to view, as it gave me much enjoyment to make.