And Lady Mondegreen . . .

I'm very excited about the Lady Grey sew-along being organized by Gertie at her lovely blog, Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing.  It's my first sew-along, and I've never made a coat before, but I love the pattern (Lady Grey by Colette Patterns) and have had a green wool flannel in my stash for nearly two years but have been too chicken to take the plunge.  My pattern came on Saturday, so I guess there's no turning back now.  I mean, I've already paid for the fabric and the pattern, so in for a penny.

The first step is to get my wool pre-shrunk by taking it to the dry cleaner to be steam pressed.  That'll be fun to manhandle on the bus.  Wish me luck!

Are Your Shoes Afraid of the Dark?

No, there just wasn't enough room for all of them in the closet.  Given my recent dissatisfaction with the contents of my closet, I thought I should figure out where the problem lay.  I've started to go through everything I own and weed out everything that I don't actually wear.  Don't worry.  I'm not planning on going into this much detail for any other part of my project; it's just that my shoes are the most cohesive part of my wardrobe, so I thought they could tell me the most about who I'm trying to be.

Here's what went into the donation pile (doing my part to lower our taxes). 

Just because you're not right for me anymore doesn't mean that you aren't going to be perfect for someone else.

So, these are the shoes that I don't wear for one reason (the red ones pinch the top of my foot) or another (what was I thinking with the pirate boots?).  The pointy-toed black pumps just don't fit in with the clothes I'm actually wearing in my closet, so even though they're classic, they haven't seen the light of day in well over a year.  I mean, they needed dusting.  I don't need more than one pair of black flats, and the green sandals were bought specifically to match a dress that I've been meaning to finish for the past year or so (just needs a hem and some hand finishing) but the whole outfit was only appropriate for a summer wedding.  In a garden.  In the south.  In 1989.

I would totally have fit right into the cast of Steel Magnolias.

So now, my shoes all fit into the closet with only a little spillover to Mr. flyskim's side, and the only time he will have to ask me why my shoes are under the coffee table is when I've been too lazy to put them away (which is, let's face it, most of the time) and not because there's no room.  Where does that leave me as far as shoes go?  Still pretty loaded.

Sandals (because stating the obvious is the new black)

I have not had a good year so far as sandals go as I've managed to kill off every single pair that I own except for one (e.g. my brown sandals died in a dramatic bus-catching episode and my black succumbed to old age), so every pair above is new this year except for the brown flats on the end.  Nordstrom Rack loves me at this point.  This will work out over the long run as I tend to wear sandals for a number of years (until I damage them or they wear out).

Heels.

Because I wear dresses and skirts so often, I do have a pretty diverse selection of pumps.  I like and wear most of these shoes regularly.  For the ones I don't wear regularly (hello Steve Madden blush-colored pumps), they fill a very specific need in my wardrobe and thereby earn their continued closet space.

Boots.  This is where Mr. flyskim made the observation that he hadn't realized how many shoes I own.

Having to take two pictures to fit all the boots in is when I started to worry that I may have a slight shoe problem.

So, during the fall, winter and spring, I live in boots.  Which is why I have so many?  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.  The hiking boots need no explanation.  I wear them hiking.  And pretty much every weekend when it's cold and rainy.  I could probably get rid of the black ankle boots, but then what would I wear with my one pair of trousers?  And I question the continued wisdom of the gray rocker boots.  I generally get odd looks when I wear them, too.  They may only last another season.

Dressy flats.  Because I've reached the age where I cannot wear heels every day.

Again, Nordstrom Rack is my friend.  I rarely, if ever pay full price for shoes.  Except for the red Mary Janes on the end.  I splurged and paid the full $12.99 at Payless three or four years ago for those beauties.  Best purchase ever.  They're comfortable, they've held up really well and because they're some sort of plastic, rain and mud have not effect on them whatsoever.

Casual flats. 

I don't think these need any explanation.  A girl needs casual shoes (although if I'm truly worried about being age appropriate, should I really still refer to myself as a girl?).

Evening shoes (my preciousssss)

Even at the Rack these were a splurge for me.  But I needed something dressier than my everyday black pumps for an event a couple of years ago, and when will I ever find Kate Spade at a price that I could afford again?  (Pretty often as it turns out thanks to our Nordstrom going high end when Macy's moved in and sending all the designer scraps to the Rack, but as fate would have it, I don't like her stuff all that much).

Up for elimination.

I am reluctant to send these shoes on their way.  The yellow squeak without socks, but they're awfully cute and were a great deal (Amazon.com is another great source for bargains on shoes if you're willing to take a chance on fit).  But if is really worthwhile to keep a pair of yellow slingbacks that you can only wear in the fall and spring?  The black t-straps just don't get worn as much as my black Mary Janes

So, now that I've made you sit through the parade-o-shoes, did I get a better idea of my personal style as I move into my mid-forties?  Yes and no.  I'm not surprised that my shoes are some weird combination of vintage, modern and utilitarian.  I am surprised that the era I see reflected most strongly is not the 1940s as I expected with my love of t-straps and wedges but the 1970s.  This makes some sort of sense because that's the era where I probably developed my ideas about what style was.  And then I did a little research (very little and online only), and it started making a lot more sense. 

One of the major themes of 1970s fashion (along with disco and hippies) was nostalgia.  There was the pretty obvious Victorian influence, but 1970s fashion also took some cues from the 1920s (The Great Gatsby) to the 1940s (shirt dresses, wedge shoes, not as they actually were but through the rose-tinted lenses of 25-55 years of history.  There was even an article about the 1940s revival in fashion in Seventeen Magazine in 1974.

So, it's not much, but it's a start.  I wonder what I'll find out from the rest of my wardrobe.

Grandma Jezebels in Mini-Skirts and Halter Tops

 "Too many women—and men—dress to look far younger than they are. In the summer months, Madison Avenue is littered with grandma Jezebels in miniskirts and halter-tops. Preposterous. I’m proud of my 54 years and I wouldn’t go backwards for anything. I know better than to wear muscle shirts and gym shorts and dress like a teenager. At the same time, I don’t want to look dowdy or frumpy. I dress for my age and my role in life. Last year, I covered red-carpet fashion at the Oscars for the “Today Show.” Who was the most stylish and sexiest? Helen Mirren, that’s who." -- Tim Gunn

One of the topics that is close to my heart is dressing appropriately for your age (or at least my dressing appropriately for my age).  Pretty much from birth through high school, my mother exerted considerable control over my wardrobe.  The majority of clothes that I owned were clothes that she purchased without any input from me at all.  As a result, I was the only 8th grader I knew who owned a three-piece, black polyester pantsuit.  I once asked my mother why she bought that for me, and she told me that she had wanted to get me something that made me feel grown up.  She could have gone with heels or pretty underwear, but no.  My mother had very specific ideas about what I should wear, and it usually boiled down to what she liked to wear which meant that until I was able to afford my own clothes, at least half of my wardrobe was more appropriate for a woman in her late 30s to early 40s.  Because of this, I had no personal style and no taste.

Color it black, and this was me.  I wore it once.  To school.  Everyone asked me who died.

I pay a lot more attention to fashion now, and while I'm not cutting edge by even the most liberal interpretation, I feel that most days, I look at least put together.  Now I find that I gravitate towards separates and dresses with a liberal sprinkling of denim thrown in.  Thanks to my step-dad whose sweaters I used to steal constantly, I've never met a cardigan that I didn't like. 

Here's my mom in a typical outfit a few Christmases ago.  She likes sets and things that match exactly.  Grown up Garanimals.

Thanks to a combination of my geriatric childhood wardrobe and my regular missteps in dressing myself that come from not really having figured myself out yet fashion-wise, I've kept things pretty safe.  I've managed to control some of my wilder fashion impulses like knee socks with skirts and dresses, miniskirts and ruffles (although I will admit to owning a purple, ruffled pleather satchel) because I suspect that they might not be cute on me as they look on the 18-year-old sales person at Anthropologie.  But lately, I've noticed a dissatisfaction with the items in my closet and a hesitation to wear things previously loved (like my biker boots with a floral dress and boot socks pulled up over the top.  No, seriously.  That was last year's Thanksgiving outfit).  I mean, that was my uniform in the early 90s, but should I still be wearing it?  It's been said to the point of cliché, but if you are old enough to have worn a trend the first time through, you're too old to wear it when it comes around again.

Look how cute that Mr. flyskim and I sort of match.  Too bad you can't see the boots, but this is the only picture I have of me from Thanksgiving.

So how do you tell if your closet needs to grow up?  I've been reading a lot on the subject, and the one thing I've been able to figure out is that the answer to this question is different for everybody.  It's not my goal to provide a bunch of rules so that everyone can dress in some version of what I think is appropriate (although if you are well into your 50s and get on the bus wearing a halter top and Daisy Dukes with your Uggs -- true story -- I will mentally judge you).  What I'd really like to figure out is who I am today clothes-wise.  At my real age.  Keep the parts that still work but let go of the things that don't.  And not be boring.  God, there are days when I feel so boring I can't believe that people don't fall asleep just looking at me.  

Anyone have a guide for that sort of thing?  I will think on this and let you know what I figure out.

If You Don't Make Mistakes . . .

. . . You don't make anything.

So, even though this shirt is wearable, we'll still chalk this one up to experience.  This is my first version of Butterick 5497.  I made view B, but I like the shirt well enough that I plan to make all of the views eventually.

Also, no flowers in embarrassing places.

I made this top out of a cotton jersey from Fabric.com, and I loved how vintage it felt.  I was saving it for something more interesting than a basic t-shirt, so when Butterick came out with several new patterns over the summer, I decided to jump in.  I think this pattern suits the fabric in that it also looks a little vintage with it's raised waistline, kimono-style sleeves and ballet neckline.  It's a fairly easy and quick sew, and the mistakes I mention above are all due to user error.  Don't you just love it when the world reminds you that you don't know everything?

The major change that I made to this pattern was to alter the back into a single piece that's cut on the fold.  The back of the short-sleeved versions of this top as designed is a deep v-neck held together at the base of the neck by a strip of your fashion fabric.  From the pictures on the Butterick site, it looks like you can wear a regular bra with the top as designed, but I didn't want to take that chance.

I altered the back piece by comparing it to the back piece of view C (the long-sleeved version).  I straightened the v-neck so that it could be cut on the fold and raised and extended the new neckline.  It's not a big alteration, and I can undo it easily if I want to make the back of this pattern as originally drafted.

So, here's where things went awry.  The pattern instructions have you gather the shoulder seams by first sewing the shoulder seam at the seamline and then making a casing for elastic in the seam allowance.  Having just completed Vogue 1020, I decided to use the same method to gather the shoulder seams as in that pattern:  put in rows of gathering stitches, gather to the right length using the elastic guide and serge the seam together.  My first attempt did not go well.  I put the gathering stitches too close to the edge of the fabric, and when I serged the seam, the knife cut off the seam allowance, and the seam didn't gather at all.  This led to my first time having to pick out serged seams, and I'm sure that it won't be the last.

I tried it again, this time putting my gathering stitches inside the seamline.  When I serged the seam this time, it was gathered appropriately.

Here's where I got myself in more trouble.  If you look carefully at the left side of the picture just above the seamline, you can see my gathering stitches.  I got the brilliant idea to pick these out.  Want to guess what happened?  That's right.  All of the gathers came out again.  As a last ditch effort to save this project, I used clear elastic of the appropriate length and sewed it directly to the seamline.  Not pretty from the inside, but it works.

You can't see from any of the pictures, but the shoulder where I had to use the elastic also had a small hole in it that had to be stitched together by hand.

So, it's a cute top, and I think it looks good on.  I am going to give this another try to apply what I've learned now that I know what won't work.  Problem is, I have to figure out what will work.  Maybe I should break down and take that serger class I've been looking at.  Or watch the video that came with my machine.  Or read the instruction book that I picked up.  I feel a little foolish that I thought the hardest thing about using a serger was threading it (not that hard at all) and worrying about cutting my finger off with the knife.  Like I said before, I love when the world lets me know that I don't know everything.  Keeps things interesting.

ETA:  Fixing a small spelling error.

Is It Fall Yet?

Helen: Oh, Jakey, do you realize what a momentous summer our girls have had? Quinn learned she's smarter than she thought, and Daria has her first boyfriend.

Jake: It's summer already?

Actually, for the past two weeks around the San Francisco Bay Area, you wouldn't have known that it was summer.  It didn't top 75 degrees the entire time I was there which was fine with me because I was not meant to survive with the temperature much above 80.  But now I am back in Portland with its actual summer weather, and I dream of fall.  Tights?  Yes, please.  Boots?  Definitely.  Sweaters?  Did I ever really take them off?  So here are the projects that I have planned going into fall.

Vogue 1191

 

I've been saving a wonderful piece of two-way stretch wool knit for the past two years for just the right pattern, and I think this is it.  I'm planning the above dress for Thanksgiving with Mr. flyskim's family.  The fabric is this really pretty raisin color, and I think it will be perfect.  Okay, given my recent lack of success matching fabric to pattern, I hope it will be perfect, and I'm trying not to psych myself out so much that I'm afraid to cut into the material.

Please ignore the cat hair. 

Vogue 8663

View A

This calls for a two-way stretch knit, and I just happen to have one lying around my stash with enough yardage to put together a dress.  I hope the pattern isn't too busy for the neckline detail.  I think this will be great with a cute little cardigan and some tights.

Vogue 8603

View D.  I know that a bold floral doesn't necessarily scream fall, but this cotton jacquard has a good weight, the colors are rich and the pattern is smoke-like.

Simplicity 2512

Either view C or D.  I haven't decided which one, yet.  I'll have to see how my fabric drapes.  I'm thinking of using this large-scale plaid pattern.  It's a poly suiting, but it feels really nice, and I think that it will make a great modern interpretation of a kilt.  No giant pin holding the layers together, though.

Simplicity 2501

Fall in Portland is relatively mild, so I can use a great blouse.  I've been wanting to make this forever (well, at least since the pattern was published), and it's going into the production queue.  I'll make view F with the short sleeves.  

This is a Liberty print that I picked up from Josephine's Dry Goods back in February, I think.  I got it because I thought my dad would get a kick out of it.  After it's done, I'll have to make sure I wear it around him.  The print is really small scale, and I love that it's mostly neutral.  I'm also going to make a simple skirt out of the stretch twill below, but I'm not sure which one, yet.