Look what is in my house RIGHT NOW:
Compared with the 1962 Singer I’ve been using (goodbye, Old Paint), it is like a spaceship. I hear the Also Sprach Zaruthustra theme whenever I look at it. This is the beginning of a new Sewing Age. It makes buttonholes! It finishes the edges of your seams! There are nineteen different stitches to choose from! It comes with accessories! (Cat butt not included in all models.) And I think the Swiss Army made its ballistic nylon cover:
Best (early) birthday present EVER. Thank you Mom and Dad!
sewing
Tuesday Project Roundup: Measure Twice, Cut Once
Even measuring once would have been enough, but I’m not used to making things with long, cuffed sleeves so their length didn’t come up–until it was too late. Oh well. It was a nice enough way to spend a couple of days of vacation last week.
The knitting is going well, too. Look, more sleeves! (These are long enough.)
I haven’t cut into the Japanese fabric from last week, though, because I need to save a project for Christmas vacation and because there’s a possibility of a new sewing machine that either Santa or the Birthday Fairy will bring.
(Hear that, Santa or Birthday Fairy? I still think that’s a great idea.)
Tuesday Project Roundup: I’m A Lumberjack and I’m OK
Tuesday Project Roundup: Just Use Your Imagination Anyway
After rescheduling the last project roundup because I didn’t want people to use their imagination about how cute this dress looks when being worn, I give you:A closet shot.
A dark and slightly blurry closet shot that doesn’t show the cute detail of the fabric or the nice dark brown buttons. It was a busy week.
I think this might be the Last Dress of the Season. I have fabric for one more, but my sewing mojo is gone and I’m not sure the weather will continue to be dress weather until I can get it finished. On to flannel shirts and more knitting, I guess.
In other seasonal news, this is what it looks like before I make the bed in the morning, when it’s not cold enough to run the heat in the whole apartment:
Mr. Isbell and I have dubbed the quartz space heater tower “Minas Heatas,” because we’re Lord of the Rings geeks like that. Toby doesn’t call it anything but I think he loves it even more than me.
Tuesday Project Roundup: Almost, Not At All, And About 60 Percent
That’s the degree of completion for this pile:
A navy beret is on top, the plaid on the bottom will be a shirt, and the floral on the right just needs side seams, cuffs, and buttonholes to be a dress.
(Why all this navy? I found a navy and gray coat at the J. Crew outlet I had to visit last week. I guess that’s like caving and emailing the ex-boyfriend you kind of hate but must know all about and, instead of getting mad all over again, he gives you information about a freelance job that pays really well? Something like that.)
Tuesday Project Roundup: Running Away To Join The Fair Edition
I picked up my fair entries yesterday evening and thought I’d take a picture, since I never searched the archives to find the original project posts. I submitted the very plaid dress I made last November for a friend’s wedding–first place–and the houndstooth jacket I like so much–second place. Yay, me!
When I was there last night the semis that carry the collapsible midway rides were all packed up and ready to head out in a convoy. My fascination with long-haul trucking (don’t know where that came from, unless it’s Kerouac) collided with my curiosity about how traveling midway ride operators must live, and I just about put the Focus in line behind them. Maybe someday I can take six months and research a book about carnies and their state fair circuit…
Tuesday Project Roundup: Because All Ranch Life Is Just Like "My Friend Flicka"
Something about shirtdresses make me think I could wear them on my imaginary ranch, while gathering eggs, visiting my loyal horse friend in the stables, standing at the back door looking out over the Wyoming mountains, etc. (Not, of course, while actually doing ranch work and getting dirty. Nobody ever mentioned that in My Friend Flicka.)
Anyway, here’s the pattern–I added the sleeve cuffs on the left to the straight-skirted version in the middle:
Here’s the fabric:
And here’s a rumpled and dark modeled shot at the end of yesterday:
On the ranch I’d never be rumpled, though. I’m sure of it.
Tuesday Project Roundup: "Nothing Is More Chic"
I thought I should wear all black, the universal sign of sophistication, to my high-school reunion, but I hate wearing black and sewing it is even more boring. So I decided on navy blue, since, as Cecil Beaton said, “Chanel demonstrated that nothing was more chic than fine linen, navy-blue serge, and lots of soap.”
I had a pattern from my mother’s stash that wanted to be made for a special occasion (well, it wasn’t a muumuu, so it seemed dressy), so I went for the “navy-blue and lots of soap” Jackie O look, minus that back belt:
It actually doesn’t look like much on the hanger, but with a tan, pearl studs, and a yellow clutch, it was just right:
Tuesday Project Roundup: Morbid Curiousity Edition
So…Friday is my 10-year high school reunion. I’m going, because the curious part of me that “has hobbies and sees what happens” knows that if I don’t attend and see how bad it really is, I’m always going to wonder. (Also, I thought, “What if someone in a book I write needs to go to a high school reunion and I don’t know the exact feelings of displacement? I’d better go.”)
Of course I made a dress for it (pictures next week). But I also decided to make a clutch, which gives you something to do with your hands when you’re standing around talking at an alcohol-less event.
Obviously it still needs a lining, but it’s turning out well.
Most importantly, it’s nice and roomy, as Toby shows…
…because it needs to hold my flask. To quote the best high school reunion movie ever,
“Who needs hard alcohol?”
“I do!!”
Tuesday Project Roundup: The Lounging Before The Crafty Storm
Presenting: Lounge pants! These are a vast improvement over my old John Deere green pair from J. Crew.
And lounge shorts! Mr. Isbell really doesn’t get any sewing done for him, so when he asked I had to make him something. (Of course, he originally asked for a suit, and couldn’t understand why I didn’t jump on that project.)
And after I finished these, I went crazy thinking about fall patterns and fabrics and sewing plans and knitting plans and how I could replicate this coat for less than $250. It’s like the crafty version of the ant getting ready for the winter, I guess.